The team deployed around 7 a.m. Friday from Corpus Christi, about 200 miles south of where the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, Texas, had risen from about 3 feet to nearly 30 feet. Floodwaters in the area had swept through and battered several youth camps on the river banks — including Camp Mystic, the summer camp where they were headed.

A U.S. Coast Guard swimmer from New Jersey, who finished basic training last year, saved 165 lives on his first mission during the Independence Day flood in Kerr County. U.S. Coast Guard rescue swimmer Petty Officer Scott Ruskan “directly saved an astonishing 165 victims in the devastating flooding in central Texas,