The Flood: Who Will Save Our Children?

I saw this movie when it first aired. I remembered it had cute boys (Josh from Sabrina the Teenage Witch) and I cried. It was so sad that so many children had to suffer. I wish I could find some of these great made-for-TV movies on tape or DVD. I would definitely recommend this movie to everyone.

I would like to respond directly to the comments of "brazilvi" dated 6/8/06. Your comments about the movie itself containing irresponsible inaccuracies are perfectly fair and I agree with them. However, your comments which reflect your knowledge of the incident are absolutely ridiculous and reflect a complete lack of responsibility. While I appreciate your "observation" and "research" of the incident, allow me to speak from a position of being, in all fairness, more informed - as I am a survivor of this tragedy that occurred 20 years ago next month. As such, I can assure you that your comment that "In real life, all the children who drowned were morbidly obese and did not know how to swim" is complete ignorant speculation on your part which is also, in fact, untrue.

Not only is your uninformed, sweeping assertion of the victims' weight and swimming abilities completely incorrect (since I knew each one of them personally, you'll have to take my word for it), but your allusion to their ability to swim somehow being a "factor that contributed to all these children dying" only further displays your complete ignorance of the circumstance surrounding the incident. Picture a water level rising 30 – 40 feet in under 60 seconds with the current forces strong enough to lift mature trees over 6 feet in diameter completely out of the ground and carry them down stream. Have even an Olympic gold medalist's swimming ability in that circumstance would be as useful as having the ability to throw a 100 mph fastball directly at an oncoming locomotive. At that point, it's simply in God's (or, if you prefer, fate's) hands.

Further, to state that "3 Bible camp school buses were being driven by unlicensed teenagers" is equally ignorant and void of any factual knowledge whatsoever. There were 2 buses and a van directly involved in the incident. As I was seated in one, and witnessed all three traveling (and, again, personally knew the drivers) I can assure that all three were licensed adults.

Lastly, your suggestion that the news chopper with a rope could have saved "most of the children clinging to the trees" but, instead chose to film is also ridiculous and untrue. While an untrained television crew with only a rope is not the ideal circumstance for rescue (versus a well-equipped, highly-trained rescue team), the crew did, in fact, make several attempts at rescuing victims, but with no success. Many of us witnessed these unsuccessful attempts personally. I can assure you, those memories are ones I would much rather forget. Suffice it to say that had they continued these efforts, the chances of the victim count being much higher than 10 is very likely. Nevertheless, they did at least try.

Finally, I do agree with one other thing you stated, which is the title of your comment: "The real heroes were the kids." The rest of your irresponsibly ignorant babble is embarrassing for you and is disrespectful to the living and deceased victims of that terrible tragedy. You should be ashamed of yourself.

This movie airs once or twice a year and every year I watch it and get caught up in it all over again. Based on a true life event, you can't help but get engrossed as you watch the kids struggling through the horrible flood that would take 10 lives. The film is not without its faults, primarily inaccuracies and embellishments that the film makers thought would make the story more "entertaining". First off, the bus never drove into a river as depicted and the driver got the kids off the bus much faster than portrayed. Secondly, the true "Hero" of the disaster in real life, a young man who saved several friends before last being seen and incidentally was never found, is portrayed as a bit of a "jerk". Unfortunately he never gets the acknowledgement that he truly deserves by the film makers (although in real life President Bush did present a posthumus award in his name). I think that the film would have been just as gripping if the story had been told as it really happened, in fact, it would probably have been even more gut-wrenching if we were allowed to really like and mourn the character. That being said, the movie is well written, well acted and really does pay tribute those 10 who lost their lives in the disaster and to the brave strangers who risked their lives to try to save them. I hope that this movie continues to air, year after year, so that these Children will not be forgotten. True lovers of this movie can now purchase it on DVD.

I was only watching it at first because it had a few stars from australian soap "Neighbours" in, but the story was interesting so i carried on. Its a good movie, but very sad, i advise lots of tissues before you start the film. It's about a group of church kids on camp, that have to leave early because the rain is pouring down, and they need to leave otherwise they are going to get flooded. They leave ok but they have to cross a river, sadly the bus breaks down in the middle of the river, so all the kids have to get off. But by that time the river has gone higher up and it is forming a strong current. The bus goes down the river, and the children are left stranded untill help finds them! Very sad, but very good!!

A well made movie that absolutely was riveting once the bus and van entered the water. It did play with the facts a little bit, especially with some of the kids. I believe the movie was filmed in Australia. With that said, I was impressed with how much the locations for the the film looked like the Texas Hill Country. I also was impressed with the camera work once the kids were in the water. It was as though you were in the river with them. I was a reporter from the area that covered this tragic story and have kept in touch with a couple of the kids (now adults, many with families). and of all the stories I covered this one affected me the most and I appreciate that a movie was made about that July day so long ago.