As the Guadalupe River swelled from a wall of water heading downstream, sirens blared over the tiny river community of Comfort — a last-ditch warning to get out for those who had missed cellphone alerts and firefighters going street-to-street telling people to get out.

A longstanding point of debate has been the proximity of the youth camps to the Guadalupe River, especially when it is prone to flash floods.

A retired nurse, her son and a family friend say they were lucky to survive last week's flash floods in Texas that killed more than 100 people, including many summer campers