‘A river with a temper’ returns to calm after wreaking deadly devastation in Texas

Terrifying flash floods from Guadalupe River left 70 dead, many of them children, and miles of destruction

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The Guadalupe River had returned to calm by Saturday evening and was beginning to give up its grim secrets, as 70 people - many of them children - were recovered from what just a day earlier was a terrifying flash flood that had turned land into water, taken homes and retreated to leave miles of terrible devastation along its banks.

At Camp Mystic, on a bend in the river flanked by cliffs that sped the torrent as if through a chicane, 700 young girls had five days earlier joined for a month-long summer camp of fun and spiritual growth, the evening brought a strange calm to Texas Hill country.