Blakely McCrory, age eight, went missing following a historic hill country flood.

The granddaughter of well-known islanders E. Douglas and Joan McLeod is among the 20 or more girls who went missing in a major flood in the Hill Country.

More than 20 girls have gone missing since flood waters stormed through a summer youth camp early Friday, including 8-year-old Blakely McCrory of the Houston neighborhood of Bellaire, Douglas McLeod confirmed Saturday. As the afternoon drew on yesterday, McLeod stated, "We still have optimism, but we have to confront the idea that our Blakely might be gone."

According to McLeod, Blakely McCrory, daughter of Blake and Lindsey McCrory, had only spent five days at Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp located on the Guadalupe River's banks close to Hunt. But for nearly a century, he added, the family has been sending its kids to the several Hill Country summer camps. According to McLeod, who was alluding to an all-boys camp close to Hunt, "My mother went to camp in the 1920s and I met my wife at a dance with youngsters from Mystic and Camp Stewart in 1955."

The McLeods and their close relatives, like many others in Texas, believed that the camps were the safest, healthiest places for kids to spend a few weeks during the summer, acquiring skills like leatherworking and horseback riding and making friends for life, he said.

According to McLeod, "we have sent probably four generations to those Hill Country camps." "It is just a safe, healthy place."