Posted on 08/21/2025 5:54:02 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
“One of the biggest contributors to what we found out– and it could have been any camp, I promise you it could have been any camp– was complacency and human nature, and out of sight, out of mind,” said Republican Texas state Sen. Charles Perry, the committee’s chair.
Perry said Senate Bill 1 is the framework to prevent tragedies like Camp Mystic, but the camps will need to follow the provisions in the law.
“We did not send Linnie to a war zone; we sent her to camp,” said McGown, who remembered his daughter for her gentle, playful manner. “No parent should ever go through what we are living through now.”
It was the first time many of the parents spoke publicly about the death of their children and the lack of sufficient safety measures to prevent their deaths. At the hearing, the parents testified on Senate Bill 1, which aims to improve safety for youth camps across the state.
The camp’s owner and executive director Dick Eastland, who died in the flood while trying to rescue young campers, warned for decades about the hidden dangers of the Guadalupe River, CNN previously reported.
He successfully championed a new flood warning system after 10 children at a nearby camp died in a 1987 flood. That warning system, however, became antiquated and broken over the years.
At the hearing Wednesday, some lawmakers also placed blame on the camp for not doing enough to prepare for potential flooding.
(Excerpt) Read more at amp.cnn.com ...
Ping
Just an observation.
When disasters like this happen, it’s almost always several things that come together and when you look at it in hindsight you go, “that’s obvious.”
What I find disturbing is that the owner who died warned people and pushed for safety measures/systems. This had happened before in 1987.
I would steer a huge wide path around laying any blame on that person. He paid with his life trying to save kids for a problem he warned people about.
At least that’s how I read this.
Shouldn't the parents have inquired about safety measures the camp had, especially with the camp being on a flood plain.
Why does the government have to regulate?
Again, this was a tragedy and RIP to the victims, but sometimes one cannot control nature.
It's a fact of life.
Or maybe don’t build your camp in a flood zone.
Someone is eerily obsessed ... when they should be focused on their own state’s horrific death rates, caused by the REPEATED absence of commonsense measures.
If you are sleeping in a flood zone and it is raining hard and the rain is expected to continue you need to go to Red Alert status.
Camp Mystic, established in 1926, has experienced numerous floods on the Guadalupe River. While a precise count of all flood events is not readily available, the camp has faced significant disruptions and damage from floods throughout its history, including a major flood in 1932. Other notable flood years include 1936, 1952, 1972, 1973, 1978, 1987, 1991, and 1997, according to the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority. The camp's location in a "picturesque bend" of the river has made it particularly vulnerable to flooding.
Exactly.
That’s right.
Yep. Especially when the fire hydrants in Pacific Palisades did not work.
And, the stand down orders given to the firefighters ... to NOT use the FULL reservoir, that was readily available. Criminal.
Have there even been any hearings on that/those actions?
One of my only reasons for logging onto FR is to have an outlet to properly lament Governor Newsom’s and the progressive Left’s reign of terror since before Covid, through Covid, and the negligent fire responses and prevention leading UP to the Palisades and Eaton fires, and then the culmination of all that negligence in those fires themselves
Not to mention the general state of disarray and dereliction of our once beautiful major cities.
Just a clear path/trail to higher grounds would likely have done the trick. Dark...Are you telling me that no one has a flash light...or a flare gun...or something to say they’re in trouble. Radios??
The flood in Texas literally happened in minutes. The fires in Palisades(California) could have been put out in minutes if there had been access to water which was denied.
Nature happens and leftists think they can control it.
bttt
If anything, my radar for this breed of negligence precisely comes from unpacking it with regard to California. So it’s sad when a “red” state fails to set an example to follow (the way say, Florida does.)
But ultimately: you are taking your denial out on me, when really your denial is directed towards the Camp Mystic families and Republican officials who themselves have said human nature played a major role.
And again, both camp owner Dick Eastland AND the local government DID advocate for and have better alert measures in place through the decades into the 80s. Innovative even for the time, and then they dropped the ball in recent years…
It’s not just with natural disasters — but responses to fully manmade ones that institutional shortcomings reveal themselves, Uvalde and the school shooting there is another one. And Uvalde just happens to be in Texas.
When we were kids we were raised to be independent.
I camped in a lot of “Dangerous” places, but always had a plan to get out. Certainly paid attention to the radio that reported rain upstream or fires.
Reliance upon the government to save your butt is stupid.
You are the first responder. Government services we pay for are definitely very useful.
But you and only you are there and can be the first hand best defense.
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