'This beautiful river gets ugly' Residents tell of their shock as disaster unfolded

The Guadalupe River was calm again on Saturday evening and was beginning to give up its grim secrets, as the bodies of dozens of people – many of them children – were recovered from what just a day earlier was a terrifying flash flood that had caused terrible devastation along its banks.

- Edward Helmore

There were flashlights from emergency vehicles; search helicopters clattered overhead; a mattress could be seen in the high branches of trees. Among obliterated homes, rescue workers continued to find bodies of children and adults in the muddy waters.

Just days before, at Camp Mystic, on a bend in the river flanked by cliffs, 700 young girls had arrived for a month-long summer camp.

Crystal Lampard was at home up a road 45 metres (150ft) from the river early on Friday when flood alerts started coming through on her phone. It was raining, but there was nothing to suggest an apocalyptic scene below. "We knew the rain was coming but not what we got," she said.

"That water comes down those hills [and] this is where it goes. So if it's pouring 11 inches [28cm] up at the headwaters, it's got to come here," she said. "But there was no indication that's what it would be."

Surveying the trees combed flat by flood waters along the Guadalupe's banks, Lampard, 51, said houses that used to be there – and the people in them – were gone.

"It doesn't matter if you knew them or not – those poor babies," Lampard said of the children killed. "My heart breaks. This river is beautiful but she does get ugly.

"She's a beautiful river with a temper. It's going to be a while before everything is cleaned up, and a while before everybody is found – if they're found."

Her friend, Alisha Sore, 26, said her family had planned to go to the river on Friday for an Independence Day cookout with hotdogs and fireworks. Sore, too, said she got weather alerts and received a flood alert early on Friday – but "there was nothing letting us know it was 20ft tall and we're under water".