Reports show tents trapped Boy Scouts during deadly flooding

SANTA FE, N.M. -- Deadly floodwaters that tore through a Boy Scout troop's New Mexico campsite as they slept turned their tents into wet cages that clung to their bodies like plastic wrap, newly released police reports and taped interviews show.

The group of eight California boys and their chaperones fought to escape, some using their teeth to rip holes in their tents.

"You could hear people yelling, but you couldn't understand what they were saying," Michael Evans, one of the adults, told police of the chaos that June night.

The water swept four Scouts down a canyon. Alden Brock, 13, of Sacramento died.

The reports and audio interviews were obtained by the Santa Fe New Mexican and reported Sunday. They showed some of the boys and leaders awoke to a rush of water in their tents, and many struggled to find or open their tent zippers.

Theodor Morrow, a 19-year-old college student and first-year camp ranger, told investigators he made it outside and tried to hang onto other tents as they drifted away.

Logan Reed said he and Brock, his tent mate, were among those who couldn't get out of their tents.

"We floated down the stream, I guess, for a little bit," Reed recalled. "I guess there was a hole in the bottom of the tent, and I slipped out of that."

Reed said he went underwater for a while and "never saw the tent after that." He held onto a patch of reeds downstream until sunrise.