Camp Mystic has deep roots with Texas politicians, including former first lady Laura Bush, who worked as a counselor there, and former President Lyndon B. Johnson, who sent his daughters there.

When tragedies are in the news — natural disasters, plane crashes, fires — parents naturally and unavoidably react by thinking about what might happen to their own children. And children worry in turn about what might happen to them.

Brooklyn and Bailey McKnight's little sister, Paisley, was at a camp on a smaller arm of the Guadalupe River. The 14-year-old was "just miles" away from Camp Mystic in Central Texas, which has been devastated by the deadly floodwaters spurred by extreme rainfall on July 4.