Brown has been reporting from the bottom in Hunt, Texas all weekend, 30 years after she was a camper herself at Camp Mystic. The all-girls summer season camp was hit laborious by the flood, with 27 kids and counselors confirmed useless and extra nonetheless lacking.

Calling it a “magical place” as she reminisced on her time there as a younger lady, Brown remarked on how the Guadalupe River — as soon as a “supply of a lot enjoyable and pleasure” — is now “the supply of that devastation.” She added, “it is laborious to wrap my head round.”

“It is surreal coming again right here 30 years later. I used to be a 10-year-old little camper right here, filled with a lot hope and pleasure. It is a magical place and I keep in mind the thrill and anticipation of coming to Camp Mystic,” Brown shared.

“For me, coming again, I am overwhelmed with emotion and I am overwhelmed with recollections,” she continued. “It is such a magical place that now all these ladies, these candy younger campers who needed to evacuate and their households, a lot innocence has now been misplaced. And also you simply can not help however take into consideration them and pray for them and simply hope that extra are discovered alive.”

As she continued her report, Brown additionally shared accounts from mother and father about how their kids had been saved due to the heroism of camp counselors — who led them out of their cabins to greater floor.

“It offers you chills,” mentioned Brown.

Monday morning on TODAY, Jenna Bush Hager additionally shared her private connection to the camp — saying her mom, Laura Bush, was as soon as a counselor there.

“My mother was a counselor there, but in addition so lots of my pals had been raised at this camp,” Hager mentioned. “Texas camps are establishments, as you simply heard, the place had been many relations — generations. This camp was 100 years previous, so grandmothers, moms, youngsters have all gone there.”

“My mother was a drama counselor there. A lot of my pals had been there, had their youngsters there final week,” she emotionally added. “The tales that I heard over the past couple days had been stunning and heartbreaking. Texas has a sort of resilience the place they’re beneficiant individuals, the place individuals wish to attain out and assist.”

She additionally mentioned she knew the late Richard “Dick” Eastland, the camp director who died making an attempt to save lots of others within the flood — calling him “Texas royalty.”

“They raised so many ladies,” Hager mentioned of the Eastland household. “So lots of my pals mentioned he was their summer season father. He appeared out for his campers. He raised ladies to be courageous, loving and his legacy will stay on.”

As of Monday morning, at the very least 82 individuals are believed to be useless throughout Texas.