Historic Floods Hit Missouri Camp. 200 Kids Evacuated By Black Hawk.

Imagine you're at summer camp, trading ghost stories and swatting mosquitoes. Suddenly, the counselors are telling you it's time for an actual adventure: a helicopter ride. That's exactly what happened to over 200 campers and counselors at Camp Taum Sauk in Lesterville, Missouri, when historic rainfall turned their idyllic week into an impromptu airlift operation.

Eleven-year-old Benjamin and his nine-year-old brother Teddy were among those who got to swap campfire songs for the roar of eight UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters. The Missouri National Guard, with about 35 members, swooped in to ferry everyone to a nearby elementary school, where relieved parents were waiting. Because apparently, that's where we are now: summer camp includes a potential military-grade rescue.

Their mom, Ann DeField, described it as a "whirlwind." While she and her husband were, understandably, a bit frantic, the kids? "They really just thought it was all a big adventure," she told NPR. Teddy, ever the pragmatist, declared it "really, really fun" and noted the Black Hawk was "very loud and very cool and fast." Which, if you think about it, is both impressive and slightly terrifying.

Not Just a Camp Story

While the camp rescue sounds like something out of an action movie, it was part of a much larger, more serious picture across Missouri and Kentucky. Governor Mike Kehoe declared a state of emergency after some areas saw up to twelve inches of rain in just a few hours — a "1-in-1,000-year rainfall event," his office called it. That's a lot of water, even for a state that knows a thing or two about floods.

Emergency crews were busy rescuing stranded drivers, a grim reminder that more than half of Missouri's flood deaths involve people trapped in vehicles. Kehoe urged residents to stay vigilant, check forecasts, and, for the love of all that is dry, avoid driving through flooded roads. Because while a helicopter ride might be a fun camp story, getting stuck in floodwaters is decidedly not.

Unfortunately, the floods also brought tragedy. Twenty-three-year-old Faith Gregory was swept away by floodwaters and later found dead in Huzzah Creek. Meanwhile, the Black River was expected to hit record levels, and large swaths of Kentucky, Missouri, Indiana, Tennessee, and West Virginia remained under flood watch. Kentucky, in particular, has seen a brutal few weeks of severe weather, with at least six fatalities from earlier flooding.

So, while some kids got an unforgettable, albeit unplanned, aerial adventure, the bigger story is a stark reminder of nature's unpredictable power. And maybe, just maybe, a gentle nudge to always check the weather before you pack those s'mores.