Some camps in the region had to be evacuated, and local newspapers described how Camp Mystic was among those cut off from the outside world. According to a Kerr County history book, floodwaters at Camp Mystic almost reached the top of the dining hall’s stairs.

The survival of people in local camps and low-lying areas depended not on official evacuations but on whether they were paying attention, on their own, to weather alerts in the middle of the night.