Per AI....
At Camp Mystic, a girls’ summer camp in Kerr County, Texas, 27 campers and counselors died in the devastating July 2025 floods. There were a total of 557 campers and 108 staff members present at the camp’s Guadalupe River section, where the flooding was most severe. Additionally, 171 campers and 44 staff were at the nearby Cypress Lake section. While 27 fatalities were confirmed, five girls and a 19-year-old counselor were also reported missing.
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I’d say Camp Mystic fatalities would be very much higher if there were no plans and if the plans weren’t followed.
I made a similar point on another forum. Some asshat responded that I was happy they had a 96% success rate.
I still have questions about the reaction and response. But I think I may have been hasty on assigning blame. Someone got nearly all of those kids to safety.
Thank you for being a voice of reason among a crowd of armchair Generals.
I daresay none of them have ever been camp director. I have been so for camps ranging from 20-30 to over 250 people.
Trying to prognosticate the weather is one of the hardest things. In my case, the kids were in tents not cabins.
For those of you who haven’t had the responsibility, your opinion is meaningless.
A lot of the blame goes to the media, particularly weather “forecasters.” They hype up every cloudy day as a major weather event then add all kinds of new scary names like Derecho, BOMB Cyclone etc. to get the population living in fear. It has the opposite effect. We ignore their doomsayer “warnings’ because most of them turn out to be nothing.
If a camp director evacuated camp every time there was the chance of a weather event, it would be mass pandemonium and would completely ruin camp for everyone.
Our protocol was that camp would stand down for 30 minutes after lightning was sighted. We had a couple times, we were at 28 minutes then there was another single bolt of lightning miles away. Unnnngggghhh
While it was certainly the wise approach, it threw off our entire schedule. Program areas needed time to set back up, especially the rifle and shotgun areas that were completely put away for the storm.
This camp had a very professional staff and a good reputation.
My kids also do camp volunteer work. Three are involved at a Christian camp this week. One is ending her counseling session, one is beginning as a session director himself and the third will be helping on kitchen staff.