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Several Kerrville Independent School District teachers and staff members drove school buses full of hundreds of campers from Camp La Junta and Camp Mystic to reunification sites on July 4.
Catastrophic Guadalupe River floods swept people and structures away early that morning as it rose nearly 30 feet in under an hour. Both camps, located along the river, reported the campers that were accounted for were safe but had no electricity or running water available due to the flooding.
On the evening of July 4, KISD Superintendent Brent Ringo said he received a call from Katie Fineske, one of the owners of Camp La Junta, asking for the district’s help to get campers to safety before the sun went down.
“I look at my own kids, and if my kids were stranded somewhere at a camp, or wherever that may be … I would hope somebody would say ‘Yeah, we're going to be right there,’” Ringo said. “We were humbled to be asked to help and honored to be asked to help.”
Within ten minutes of the call, Ringo said the district gathered about a dozen people who said they were willing to help.
Ringo said all KISD coaches are required to have a Commercial Driver’s License. One driver who volunteered to help —Aubrey Pruitt— had earned her bus license only a week ago and had never transported students on a bus until that evening.
Ringo said while he didn’t have a Commercial Driver's License of his own, he used his pickup truck to transport campers.
“When we arrived, and you see kids just in t-shirts and shorts, the clothes they slept in, and no shoes, and hundreds of them, it is very heart wrenching,” Ringo said.
After transporting campers from Camp La Junta, about 300 campers were also transported from Camp Mystic at about 7 p.m. after being brought to the buses by the National Guard, Ringo said. Assistant Superintendent Shelby Balser, Tivy High School Principal Rick Sralla and other KISD coaches and bus drivers were among those who stepped up to get the campers to safety.
Prior to the emergency bus rescues, Ringo said that on July 4, KISD designated campus sites for first responders and state agencies to assist with rescue and recovery efforts. He said the district wanted to make sure first responders had privacy and a place to rest and shower.
“Those are the people coming in to support our city and save lives, so we wanted to make sure we get our first responders taken care of,” Ringo said.
To support the district community, counseling services began being offered to all KISD students and staff on July 7. Ringo said the district is preparing to offer counseling services in the coming months and years.
“We just want people to know you're not alone,” Ringo said. “We're going to do this one day at a time, and that's for our students, faculty, staff, parents, anybody who needs it.”
Additionally, the district planned to hold a community blessing and worship service at Antler Stadium from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Wednesday, July 9 and said counselors will be present.
“There's a lot of resilience in this community,” Ringo said. “When people get together and see each other and are able to talk and they see the support of each other, I think that is just vital to healing.”
