Signs of lost campers litter riverbanks amid search for the missing in Texas

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CENTER POINT, Texas – Less than an hour into his mission, Troy Tillman came across a disturbing clue in his search for missing flood victims: a small, headless Barbie doll, its clothes and extremities missing. 

Not a small human, but something once belonging to one. 

“The whole missing 10-year-old girls thing just pulls on everyone’s heart,” said Tillman, 34, a detective with the Hockley County Sheriff’s Office near Lubbock, as he scoured the banks of the Guadalupe River. “That’s why we’re out here.”

On Tuesday, hundreds of volunteers in flood-wrecked Kerr County entered their fifth day of search and rescue. With each passing day, however, the chance of finding someone alive dwindles. The last "live rescue" was made on Friday, July 4, said Jonathan Lamb with the Kerrville Police Department.

More than 100 people were killed in the floods that barreled along the Guadalupe River early on the Fourth of July, including at least 27 campers and counselors from a nearby beloved Christian girls camp. Five campers and one counselor remained missing as of July 8 and could potentially be entangled within the masses of tree branches and debris lining the banks. 

Each day, searchers find remnants of what could be detritus from the camp: Child-size life vests, pillowcases, swim goggles, girls T-shirts, underwear, headless Barbie dolls. 

Many of the volunteers hurried to Kerrville to help with the search specifically because of the number of young victims. But, as rescue shifts to recovery, the grim possibility of discovering a young victim added a layer of dread to the effort. 

“You do, but you don’t,” said Hannah Whitney, 42, of nearby Boerne, as she poked through tree branches and bushes along a mud-covered embankment. “You don’t want to find somebody, but at the same time finding a child could bring peace and closure to a family.”

On Tuesday, July 8, more than 200 volunteers gathered just past dawn in the Center Point Volunteer Fire Department parking lot. They split into teams of 10 to 15 and were given specific areas along the Guadalupe River to search, part of a larger grid organizers are using to scour the entire river valley. 

Tillman and a group of 13 others were assigned a stretch on the north bank of the river in Center Point, about 28 miles downriver from Camp Mystic. Around 13 bodies had been found in the area the past few days, he said. 

The volunteers fanned out across a terrain littered with uprooted trees and piles of branches. Some dug into a tangle of branches, using mini flashlights to peer under the roots of downed cypress trees. Others used chainsaws to cut through trunks and branches. 

If a volunteer was satisfied no one was there, he’d spray a large orange “X” on the trunk, alerting other searchers that the area was body-free. 

Rafael Martinez, 33, saw the images of the drowned and missing campers and drove four hours from Alvardo, Texas, to help with the search. 

“It was weighing on me,” said Martinez, who has two daughters, ages 3 and 5. 

On an earlier search over the weekend, Martinez’s team found swim goggles, pillowcases and small life jackets hanging from branches in the trees or lodged in the mud – painful reminders of the victims they’re looking for. 

“Obviously, we want to find someone,” he said as he ducked under branches and peered into debris piles. “But every time we crawl into a hole and reach in, you fear you might actually find someone.” 

The volunteers carefully poked through the mud-slicked terrain. Splintered branches poked at them like spears, vines tangled feet and the mud sent some sliding down the embankment. 

Whitney said she was motivated to help by the missing campers. Her two daughters, ages 10 and 18, leave for their own summer camp in Colorado next week. 

“If I were a mother searching for my children, I’d want everybody and anybody to help,” she said. “You just hope you could bring those babies home, in some shape or form.”

Tillman, the detective, has volunteered in other disaster zones, including rescuing residents in Vidor, Texas, stranded by floods from Hurricane Harvey and wildfires in the Texas Panhandle. The scope of destruction in this disaster feels bigger, different, with far fewer survivors, he said. 

Also, the missing children. 

“I have a six-year-old son,” Tillman said. “If it were my kid missing, you’d want someone to crawl up there and find him for you.”

He picked up a chainsaw and trudged on through the tangled debris. 

Follow Jervis on X: @MrRJervis.