Those kids are all in Good Hands...for Eternity!
Posted on 08/20/2025 4:06:34 PM PDT by DallasBiff
The parents of children who were among the 27 killed at Camp Mystic on Texas' Guadalupe River during the historic Fourth of July flash flooding that devastated the Hill Country region gave emotional testimony on Wednesday before a state legislative committee probing the disaster.
A coalition of Camp Mystic parents testified before the Texas Senate Disaster Preparedness and Flooding Select Committee, which is considering reforms to increase safety at youth camps across the state.
Cici Williams Steward told the committee that her 8-year-old daughter, Cile Steward, is the only Camp Mystic camper still missing, and one of two flood victims that remain unaccounted for in the wake of the disaster.
"Three generations of women in my family went to Camp Mystic. This year, it was finally Cile's turn. She was 8 years old, going for the very first time, her heart full of excitement to join the tradition of her mother, her aunt and her grandmother, her great aunt and five cousins," Steward told the panel. "For Cile, camp meant adventure, memories, friendships, and lessons to carry for a lifetime. For me, it meant watching my child grow and learn, but always under the assurance that she would be safe."
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
RIP to the victims and solace and prayers to their families.
Flame away.
Texas dropped the ball — locally and statewide— and already has in other disasters. They have a lot of blind spots infrastructurally and disaster preparedness wise, as many states do. But TX in particular expends all their energy on things like corporate oil and energy deals, and not on the day to day well being of communities. Sorry it’s just the facts.
Regardless of what you think of him, DeSantis has managed Florida’s precarious hurricane vulnerabilities beautifully and ends up sending HIS resources to other states when THEY’RE in need.
Just turn the Guadalupe into a concrete ditch like Los Angeles did to the Los Angeles River.
That will make it safe.
Safety first.
Florida’s Budget for the Year in this area:
$505 million and 15 FTE are provided to the Division of Emergency Management in the current year to ensure Florida stands ready to enforce President Trump’s Illegal Immigration policies.
$1.24 billion in federal and state funding so that Florida communities and the state can respond to and recover from major disasters or emergencies and mitigate against future disasters or emergencies.
$43 million for the Flood Mitigation Assistance (FMA) Swift Current Program to reduce or eliminate repetitive flood damage to buildings insured through the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) to rebuild more flood-resistant buildings.
$8.2 million for the continued design, development, testing and application of the Division of Emergency Management Enterprise Solution (DEMES), a state-of-the-art information technology platform that provides seamless and expedited processing of FDEM’s emergency response and everyday business activities.
$4 million for the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) Grant Program to enhance and expand the ability for research-supported, proactive investment in community resilience.
$3.6 million for the continued maintenance and advancement of information technology utilized by the State Emergency Operations Center to efficiently coordinate and deploy resources when responding to an emergency.
$3.2 million to support the sustainment of the Statewide WebEOC initiative, a technological solution that allows counties, local municipalities and other entities to coordinate and respond to emergencies impacting Florida.
https://www.floridadisaster.org/news-media/news/20250204/
Losing your child is the biggest punch in the nose that life can offer. There is just no getting over such a tragedy. God bless those children who were taken, their parents and their families and all of those who searched so hard to find them.
Well, this IS ABC ‘news’ reporting!
If someone isn’t suffering or crying or bleeding or being blown away in a storm or raging at god, then they won’t get the ratings. ;)
This woman has every right to rail against Life right now. I would never deny her that.
Bad Things happen to Good People every day of the week. It’s always much worse when innocent little kids are the victims. :(
All I'm saying is extreme weather is unpredictable even by the best weather experts.
Nope. You’re wrong. With regard to this disaster...not all weather phenomena and natural disasters, but on this one. You refuse to budge but then again, you’re not one of the parents and have no real incentive to put your hard-headedness aside.
Those kids are all in Good Hands...for Eternity!
This was a 1 in 100 year flood. How come you are not blaming the camp owners?
I always try to maintain that there may be regret but no shame in trying your very best and coming up shorter than you had wanted to. Shame comes when we do not learn from our mistakes or shortcomings and move ahead to improve next time. All the more tragic and irreplaceable when a death of a precious child is involved. We weep with them for their losses and encourage improvements where they may help.
Excellent post.
God bless all of those families who are mourning their children. 😢
Exactly.
If this is the kind of toxic denialism and attitude present in the TX politicians, nothing will change. And it’s this kind of attitude why it likely got this bad in the first place. Have some humility. Please.
Not EVERY death can be prevented, but many could have...IN *THIS* particular instance. In *THIS* flood. Period. And the parents know that and that’s what makes their devastation sting even more. Measures were not in place, financial investments and budgets were not set aside even when the issue of an updated flood alert system was brought up for YEARS, and protocols were completely lacking both at the political level and at the camp level. It was human negligence through and through.
“Cile’s life ended, not because of an unavoidable act of nature, but because of preventable failures on just her fifth day of camp,” Steward said, breaking into tears.
And again no blame by you towards the camp owners, are you saying they did no know it was on a flood plain.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/11/us/camp-mystic-owner-warnings-texas-flooding-invs
So why did the camp owners keep the camp open after the warnings.
Every year, Texas gets a healthy mix (if not all) of the following: floods, hurricanes, ice storms, wind storms, dust storms, hailstorms, tornadoes, periods of drought, wildfires, and heat waves in the form of weeks-on-end triple-digit temperatures.
Texas has land surveys, building codes, laws, and insurance for a reason. A commercial concern that is 100 years old has had 100 years to prepare and should be ready to meet those contingencies.
When it rains, you know where the water will go.
When there are hurricanes, you know which coast will be hit.
Before the earthquake strikes, you know where the faults are.
Texas is a part of “Tornado Alley.” If it has a name, it has a history.
Bad things happen. They have and they will again. I think businesses and people should be prepared.
How many children died in all of the CA fires?
Have you lambasted CA and YOUR Gov for the ineptitude that caused all of those deaths?
Have you laid out exactly what needs to be done to prevent further atrocities???
This was a catastrophic and horrific event ... for these families and for Texas.
Go fix your own state before chiding another.
As with Cile’s family ... hundreds of other Texas families ... generations attended camps, over the decades, at Camp Mystic.
Give it a rest, Condo.
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