Posted on 04/29/2026 5:58:54 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
After two days of emotional testimony, Texas lawmakers and investigators Tuesday laid out a grim assessment of Camp Mystic’s leaders’ role in last summer’s devastating floods that left 27 dead: no real evacuation plan and a delayed response as waters rose. That’s raised mounting doubts for state lawmakers about whether the camp should reopen as planned.
The work of the state legislative committee – led by the same two investigators lawmakers hired in 2022 to investigate the Uvalde school massacre – offered the clearest picture yet of what happened at Camp Mystic’s Guadalupe River campus in July, pieced together through heart-wrenching testimony and chilling accounts.
The investigators said the Eastland family, which owns and runs the camp, failed to build a flash flood evacuation plan, hold drills or give camp counselors any serious training in preparation for a major weather event.
And despite closely monitoring weather alerts in the early morning hours of the flooding, Dick Eastland, the longtime and beloved camp director, waited far too long to take action, investigators said. He died in the floodwaters after evacuating several campers and trying to save others.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
They dare to describe a plan for ‘re-opening’, after that unfathomable disaster? One would think the owners would at very least want to change the name of the facility.
It would be like a Cruise Company christening their new ship
the “Titanic”. “We are accepting reservations!”
I don’t see how a camp for kids could be allowed below the high water mark of a river that floods frequently. The existing structure needs to be bulldozed.
I can tell you that a kids camp in a flood plain is a gigantic error. It doesn’t made how many times they apologize, it will never be enough. The camp should never be allowed to open again, ever!
Most of the camp is in a flood plain and under any type of zoning they could not rebuild on that site. Even if flood plain restrictions are lax why would any thinking person want to rebuild there?
I have been through this area many times on motorcycle cycle rides. My only insight is that in my wildest dreams I can’t imagine the Guadalupe River (which is tiny at this point and for miles upstream) raising to even the base of these camp structures, much less inundating them and washing them away. In hindsight, I see it now.
Flash floods are unfortunate part of life in the West.
Using flood plain for recreation is very common, and probably one of the best use of that land, but no living quarters like dormitories should be allowed there!.
And even if the camp was a day camp only, safety towers would be in order.
Close it down and move on. Theres a girl still unaccounted for.
Weirdos
In my long life in Central Texas I have spent much time on and around the Guadalupe River and I’ve seen first hand how FAST these hill country streams can come up (we are talking minutes). On the shores of Lake Travis, in a similar flood, we got moved out of our house but the water on the wheels of the Uhaul Trucks as we left was 1 foot deep! The next day, we floated on top of our house and looked down into it.
The argument’s about time are superfluous. If I had OWNED that camp and had the advantage of all the modern weather alerts those girls would have all been MOVED OUT of danger within minutes. No way the Eastlands should be granted another license and I don’t believe they will be. Very poor judgment and decision making took place that night.
There was a flash flood shortly (weeks?) before that in Texas. Kids camping in a different area had to be evacuated.
Houston floods every year around Memorial Day and every time a hurricane comes through. Most times there are many deaths as well.
But Houston still opens afterward.
IF they are puahing to repoen, without proper safety guidelines and changes made, then their “apology” is worthless! Sorry camp Mystic, but the kid’s safety is your TOP PRIORITY!, NOT your reopening so you can resume bringing in money!
It’s simply amazing how politicians always pounce on tragedies that NOBODY saw coming. Sure, Mr. Eastland could have predicted a flood of Biblical proportions would hit in the middle of the night! For once I would like to see a politician be honest: To the victims’ families, we mourn the loss of your daughters. However, this was a once in a 150-year event that no reasonable person could have predicted, and I am not going to capitalize on your grief.
I am in Kerr County. Apparently, according to trial testimony, the Eastlands moved equipment before campers. Guess those vehicles, mowers, etc were deemed more important than the little girls.
Nope. WRONG. Eastland had owned the camp for decades...DECADES. And I posted that photo from 1987 for a reason...the region had already seen catastrophic flooding IN HIS LIFETIME and AROUND THE CAMP.
He was famously on top of things and on the cutting edge of flood preparation. The entire community was...both he and local leaders ONLY dropped the ball in recent decades...even after residents requested funding for updated alert systems.
...Dick Eastland warned for decades about the hidden dangers of the beautiful but volatile Guadalupe River, a peril he saw firsthand while running his family’s youth camp alongside its banks.
...Eastland saw floods damage Camp Mystic again and again – and his pregnant wife was even airlifted to a hospital while the camp in central Texas was cut off by floodwaters.
...He successfully pushed for a new flood warning system after 10 children at a nearby camp were swept to their deaths in 1987, and in recent years served on the board of the local river authority as it supported renewed efforts to improve warnings on the Guadalupe.
...In the following years, the early flood warning system that Eastland advocated for – and was once considered state-of-the-art – started to suffer problems. In April 1998, the company that maintained the system “closed its doors without notice,” and the gauge system soon stopped functioning because of lack of maintenance, the Kerrville Daily Times reported.
...About a decade after it was installed, the warning system Eastland had championed in the late ‘80s became antiquated and broken. The river authority ultimately shut it down in 1999, saying it was “unreliable with some of the system’s stations not reporting information,” according to an article in the Kerrville Daily Times.
...Yet periodic attempts to adopt a more modern flood-monitoring system, including one with warning sirens that might have alerted campers last week, repeatedly failed to gain traction – stalled by low budgets, some local opposition and a lack of state support.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/11/us/camp-mystic-owner-warnings-texas-flooding-invs
My brother is a hunter and outdoor sports columnist, and he lives near there and goes hunting in that area. He couldn’t believe someone built a children’s camp there. He told me he would never camp there overnight because when you get a big Texas gullywasher storm (which can come up out of nowhere), the river rises so fast that even if you have some sort of alert on your phone, by the time you can wake up, grab your stuff and get to your truck, it’s too late to outrun the flood waters.
Governor Ron DeSantis deserves credit for running Florida like a well oiled machine even BEFORE a hurricane strikes! A former electrician, He devotes energies to making sure emergency prep at every layer of infrastructure is in place.
Local & state leaders in Kerr County and TX at large dropped the ball with regard to what should be BASIC infrastructure updates. They failed to revamp alert systems, and monitor building codes. The clincher is they HAD been on top of things decades earlier...But when pressed by residents in recent years to fund these things, they refused to allot room in their budget.
What's MORE shameful is how some try to gaslight the public or defend the negligence - as though this is just a "Biblical" event/impossible to predict sort of thing. No, it wasn't. The camp owner himself had witnessed catastrophes in his day. But he too got complacent...and there never should have been cabins at that level to begin with.
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