When floodwaters swallowed the roads around Camp Wyman in Eureka on Monday, June 8 morning, more than 100 people were on site, according to FOX 2. Children with bleeding disorders, their parents and grandparents arriving for pickup, and camp counselors were all caught as water rose around the facility. No one was injured.

The evacuation at Camp Notaclotamongus, a weeklong summer camp for children ages 7–15 with hemophilia, von Willebrand disease, and other clotting disorders, unfolded just as families were arriving for the scheduled 10 a.m. pickup on the session's final day. Heavy rain triggered rapid flooding along the Interstate 44 corridor, isolating parts of the camp at 600 Kiwanis Drive before anyone could call for help.

Bridget Tyrey, executive director of the Gateway Bleeding Disorder Association and a Coast Guard reservist of nearly 20 years, said her military training kicked in immediately.

"I was like okay… we've planned for this, we prepared for this," Tyrey told FOX 2. "What's going to get us to the highest elevation? What's going to get us to safety?"

Counselors formed human chains, linking arms to guide campers through rising water. Camp counselor Gabi Flores described grabbing children one by one, shouting to colleagues to link up and hold on to something stable. Staff moved the entire group to higher ground without external rescue assistance, Tyrey said.

No official statement from Camp Wyman or St. Louis County emergency management has been located regarding the incident.

Why the stakes were so high

Children with hemophilia lack clotting factors that stop bleeding after injury. A fall in rushing water, a cut from submerged debris, could escalate fast for a camper whose blood doesn't clot properly. The camp's annual session includes an infusion clinic where kids learn to self-administer clotting factor, but in a chaotic evacuation, prevention was the only option.

Tyrey credited her staff for the outcome, saying the rescue could never have happened without them. The Gateway Bleeding Disorder Association has run Camp Notaclotamongus for more than 11 years, and roughly 85 to 90 percent of former campers return as counselors, according to the association's 2023 newsletter. That institutional familiarity with the site and the children likely mattered Monday.

A week of wild weather ahead

The flooding at Camp Wyman was part of a broader flash flood event across western St. Louis County. By mid-morning Monday, some areas had recorded 3 to 5 inches of rainfall, according to FOX 2 meteorologist Chris Higgins, who measured 1.49 inches at his own Chesterfield-area rain gauge by 11:30 a.m. A flood warning covered nearly all of St. Louis City and County along the I-44 corridor.

The National Weather Service's St. Louis office warned Sunday evening that heavy rainfall could "easily produce flash flooding across portions of Missouri and Illinois."

The week isn't over. NWS science and operations officer Ben Herzog called it "a relatively active week," with temperatures climbing into the 90s Tuesday through Thursday, heat indexes reaching the low 100s, and potential severe storms arriving late Wednesday into Thursday. The Storm Prediction Center has placed much of the St. Louis area in a Level 2 risk for Thursday's system.

"There's an awful lot of room for things to change," Herzog told St. Louis Public Radio, "but at this point, it does appear that tornadoes, damaging winds or large hail could all be possible with those storms."

NWS St. Louis posted Monday that a cold front will bring additional thunderstorms late Wednesday and Thursday with the potential to be strong to severe.

For families in the region: monitor NWS alerts, avoid driving into standing water, and prepare for heat that could reach dangerous levels before the next round of storms arrives later this week.