A heartbreaking tragedy unfolded in Texas over the July 4th weekend when 21-year-old Joyce Badon sent one final, desperate text message to her family just moments before floodwaters swept away the house she was staying in. Her message was short, chilling, and devastating: “We’re being washed away.” Then the line went dead.
Severe storms had battered Central Texas the night before the holiday, causing the Guadalupe River to rise rapidly and violently. In under an hour, the water level surged to the height of a two-story building, swallowing parts of Kerr County and devastating nearby communities. The flooding was so intense that it caught entire households and camps off guard. According to NBC, at least 107 people across six counties have been confirmed dead, including children and counselors from an all-girls Christian camp. Dozens more remain unaccounted for, and the death toll is expected to rise.
Joyce had been spending the weekend at a country home by the river along with her three friends—Ella Cahill, Reese Manchaca, and Aiden Heartfield. That home, like many others along the riverbank, was reduced to wreckage by the early hours of the morning.
Joyce’s father, Ty Badon, told CNN that the family last heard from the group during a call with Aiden’s father, who owned the riverfront property. During the chaotic call, Aiden could be heard saying, “I have to go, I have to help Ella and Reese.” Moments later, the line went silent, and the house was gone.
Joyce’s mother, Kellye, turned to Facebook, pleading for prayers as rescue teams searched desperately for her daughter and her friends. “They were hit by a flash flood,” she wrote. “Their cars were swept away, and it all happened so fast they couldn’t even reach the attic. Aiden called his dad as it was happening. He and two others were lost in the debris.”
Kellye later added that Joyce was the last voice heard on the phone before the line cut out completely. “We’re hoping to pick up my daughter and her friends in Hunt, Texas,” she wrote, still holding onto hope.
As rescue efforts expanded, volunteers and family members joined search teams, combing the riverbanks and debris fields for any sign of the missing. One body was found tangled high in a tree, nearly ten feet above ground, surrounded by wreckage that hid it from view. “We would have never seen him if we weren’t looking from just the right angle,” said Louis Deppe, a volunteer leading search efforts for the Badon family.
Ty Badon, searching alongside his son, came across a heartbreaking sight of his own. “We thought it was a mannequin at first,” he said. “But it was a little boy, no more than eight or ten. Dead. Just lying there in the grass.”
Friends, relatives, and strangers alike formed search parties and covered a seven-mile stretch of flood-impacted terrain. “We’ve split into seven teams,” said Tina Hambly, the mother of one of Joyce’s friends. “We’re doing everything we can. Even people we’ve never met have come out to help.”
On July 7, Joyce’s family received the news they had been dreading. Her body was found.
Her father confirmed it in an emotional interview with NBC News. Later that day, her mother posted a tribute on Facebook: “This morning, God showed us the path. We found our beautiful daughter, who blessed us for 21 years. We are still praying that her friends will be found soon. Thank you for the love and prayers. God is good.”
Later, Kellye shared a photo of a rainbow stretching across the sky above their home. “All is well with my soul,” she wrote, believing it was a sign from Joyce, sending peace from above.
According to search volunteer Louis Deppe, Joyce’s final words to her family were delivered through a text message moments before she vanished: “We’re being washed away.”
Authorities later confirmed that the body of Reese Manchaca had also been found, but Ella Cahill and Aiden Heartfield remain missing as search efforts continue.
Joyce’s story has become a symbol of the immense loss suffered during the devastating Texas floods—an unthinkable tragedy that took so many lives far too soon and left families clinging to fragments of hope in the face of overwhelming sorrow.
