THE TEXAS HILL Country is a place of astonishing natural beauty, particularly in early summer when the thousands of acres of sloping hills, woodlands and banks of the multiple rivers and creeks that weave their way through its verdant pastures are covered in blankets of vividly coloured wildflowers.

Throughout the summer, the banks of the Guadalupe River in particular double as a playground and a place of respite from the searing heat of the arid Texas plain and the oppressive humidity of Houston’s vast concrete sprawl. Its lush green banks are shaded by pecan and cypress trees which lends the river a vivid emerald colour for much of its 250-mile path.

For most of the year, the rivers’ shallow waters drift at a sluggish pace. You can walk horses downstream and from bank to bank. Or hopscotch across the river’s rocks and boulders, barely getting a toe wet.

For the millions of tourists from further afield, the breathtaking scenery is enhanced by the quaint western towns, where ancient wooden dancehalls still attract locals and visitors who two-step to the strains of local county bands.

But extreme and unpredictable weather is a constant danger in this bucolic paradise. The first time I was in Kerr County back in 1999, locals were still talking about the 1987 flash flood, when the Guadalupe burst its banks with catastrophic consequences.

July 7 Kerville, Texas. Kerr County, and other counties along the Guadalupe river, have been devastated by the 4th of July flooding. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

One old-timer, a fifth-generation rancher, painted an apocalyptic picture of a 30-foot-high wall of water, as solid and impregnable as concrete, tearing asunder everything in its path; of three-story houses ripped from their pilings and tossed upside down into the flood, cars careening wildly down the river with petrified occupants begging for help, and animal carcasses forming macabre dams at river bends.

Back then an informal local warning system existed where ranchers would alert campers and communities that ‘a big one was coming’. Hundreds of children were safely evacuated from summer camps, but 10 teenagers drowned when a van and a bus used to evacuate campers were swept away. Still, the locals agreed it could have been an awful lot worse if the camp directors hadn’t heeded the warnings. In 2015, the two families perished when their holiday home was ripped from its foundations in a flash flood on the River Blanco.

Search and rescue teams from Kerrville Fire Department look over the debris after flooding near the banks of the Guadalupe River. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Texas is a state that is grounded – some might say hidebound – by tradition. One of these is the tradition of Christian summer camps, where generations of mostly affluent white families send their children to the same summer camps they attended as children.

There are at least two dozen children’s summer camps dotted along the Hill Country stretch of the Guadalupe River, along with scores of RV parks, campgrounds, dude ranches, hunting lodges and upscale river cabins.

A Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper and Kerr County Sheriff's deputy assist a rescue diver out of the water at a search point. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

The 100-year-old Camp Mystic is typical of those camps. When Dick Eastland and his wife became third-generation owners and directors in 1974, it was already established as the go-to summer camp for the children of Texas’s most powerful and affluent families.

Lyndon Johnson’s daughters went there, as did Texas Governor John Connolly’s. Former First Lady Laura Bush worked as a camp counsellor. It catered for its upscale charges by interspersing horse-riding, tennis, snorkelling and drama classes with Bible studies and a deeply conservative ethos.

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