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At least 36 of those confirmed dead in the central Texas floods were children, and that explains why, as people sift through the debris, they're finding stuffed animals, like giraffes, horses, lambs. As KUT's Audrey McGlinchy reports, some are trying their best to return these stuffed animals to their owners.
AUDREY MCGLINCHY, BYLINE: It wasn't long after devastating floods hit central Texas that Danny McDonald joined a search team along the banks of the Guadalupe River.
DANNY MCDONALD: We scoured probably about 4 miles of river frontage.
MCGLINCHY: McDonald is a lawyer who lives in the nearby town of Boerne. He says the team spent about six hours looking for victims. They found the body of one adult man. But all around him were reminders of the children who had died, some of them while attending camps along the river.
MCDONALD: There was suitcases. There was, you know, sleeping bags and kids' clothes everywhere, kids' swimsuits, goggles.
MCGLINCHY: About three hours into the search, McDonald says he saw something at his feet.
MCDONALD: I ran across this teddy bear...
MCGLINCHY: It turned out to be a stuffed baby giraffe.
MCDONALD: ...Just laying there face up, just covered in mud.
MCGLINCHY: All he could make out was a set of blue eyes staring at him. McDonald knew he had to take it with him.
MCDONALD: I just said, I'm going to pick this up and bring it home and clean it up and see if I can't, you know, find its rightful owner.
MCGLINCHY: It's typical in natural disasters like this for people's personal items to be found in trees, bushes, caked in mud, often miles from where their homes once stood. The fact that many of these objects are stuffed animals speaks to the number of children lost in the flood, including at least two dozen girls from Camp Mystic. People, like McDonald, have been taking these stuffed animals home, cleaning them and posting their photos on social media, all in the hopes of finding their owners or someone who knew their owners. That's what Alexis Moriarty is also trying to do.
ALEXIS MORIARTY: It has this cute little button smile on it with these, like, little black beaded eyes. And it's a lamb, and it's white, and it's fluffy.
MCGLINCHY: Alexis is 17 years old. She and her mom, Michelle, went out last weekend to drop off donations in Kerr County. On their way home, they saw a few other volunteers by the side of the road and decided to join them. They found a door torn from its hinges, a koozie, a piece of a school band uniform. Then it started to rain. They decided to head home. That's when Alexis stopped.
ALEXIS: In the corner of my eye, I had saw this little stuffy on the ground, so I had walked over to it. And I looked over at my mom and stuff 'cause I wasn't sure if I should pick it up or, like, what I should do with it.
MCGLINCHY: She couldn't leave it there.
ALEXIS: If that was my stuffy, I would really want my stuffy.
MCGLINCHY: It was covered in mud and sticks and grass. Alexis says she tucked it into the back of the family's pickup truck and they drove it home. Her mom said she hand-washed it three or four times. The scrubbing revealed a lamb in good condition. They decided it was a boy and named him Lamb Lamb and noticed he'd lost some weight.
ALEXIS: He was heavy, though, because he was full of water and sticks and brush and all that. He's super light now.
(LAUGHTER)
MCGLINCHY: Alexis put photos of Lamb Lamb on social media in hopes of finding his owner.
ALEXIS: I'm just hoping that I can get this back to the little kid and the family that it belongs to.
MCGLINCHY: But there's another side to this story. It's the people who are searching for anything that once belonged to those they have lost. The mother of one girl who died in the floods posted to a Facebook group for things lost and found along the Guadalupe River. She was searching for a stuffed monkey with a smile and a tan tail. It belonged to her 8-year-old daughter. Mom said it was the girl's, quote, "most prized possession." She told everyone her daughter's name was etched on the square tag. Those combing the riverbanks and social media immediately responded saying they were eager to help find what had been lost. For NPR News, I'm Audrey McGlinchy in Austin.
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