AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Young and inexperienced Camp Mystic counselors were not trained to help campers during floods or other emergencies, and they were afraid to make decisions on their own, an investigator into the 2025 flood that killed 27 counselors and campers told Texas lawmakers Monday.
Lawmakers heard an emotional and sweeping review of a camp “obedience” culture that connects poorly trained teen counselors with the youngest campers. Was satisfied about the flood warning; There was poor communication; and critically delay evacuation efforts.
“There was no real training, no practice of any kind” for counselors or campers on what to do or where to go in case of flooding, said Casey Garrett, a special legislative committee investigator. He was addressing the committee’s first hearing on the Fourth of July floods that washed away an all-girls Christian camp along the Guadalupe River.
Twenty-five campers and two teenage counselors were killed. Richard Eastland, the owner of the camp, was also killed as he tried to remove the girls to higher ground.
Garrett noted that most of the victims were under 10 years old, some were attending the camp for the first time, and the counselors in the hardest hit cabins were the youngest and most inexperienced at the camp.
Many of the grim details had been made public through hearings, media reports and interviews, but the state report — including interviews with about 150 people, including campers, counselors, the Eastland family and victims’ families — presented them in a rigorous, systematic review.
“The fate of those girls was decided before a drop of rain fell.” Sen. Charles Perry said during the hearing.
He continued: “Things that were common sense and things that needed to be done didn’t get done.”
The victim’s family is preparing for the hearing
Dozens of victims’ family members filled the committee room on Monday. Some cried or passed out as they were shown pictures of the victims and destroyed camp sites, or heard the names of their loved ones read aloud.
The report cited some harrowing survival accounts, including a girl who was swept downriver more than 6 miles. She told investigators that she had been choked underwater several times before she was washed up on a pile of debris and fell asleep. He was rescued the next morning by two women who heard his cries for help.
One girl recalled how floodwaters rose so high in her cabin that her chin touched the ceiling, Garrett said. A counselor told investigators she pushed the girls underwater to get them through a flooded cabin door.
The committee watched a video of water entering the house through a crack in the door. In a cellphone video taken by a stranded camper, a girl screams “Help!” Screams can be heard. In the dark, flood waters.
Garrett played an interview with a counselor who said she boarded the two-story recreation hall with about 100 campers. He described their panic as the rising flood waters closed in on them.
Campers and counselors had no emergency training
Garrett, a Houston attorney who also helped with the Legislature’s report on the 2022 Uvalde school shooting, repeatedly cited a lack of emergency training for teen counselors and children’s camps.
There was no detailed evacuation plan, he said, and the only instruction for the girls in the lower areas of the camp was a one-paragraph instruction telling them to “remain in their cabins until the office says otherwise. All the cabins are built in high, safe places.” State inspectors approved that plan two days before the flood.
Eventually, some of the counselors took matters into their own hands and pushed the girls up the hill through the cabin windows.
“It wasn’t a plan. It wasn’t a safe plan, it was an option taken, thank God,” Garrett said. “It was very ad hoc.”
The owners of Camp Mystic are seeking permission to reopen at the end of May and have said they will only use parts of the camp that were not flooded. They expect about 900 girls on campus this summer. Plans to reopen have angered victims’ families, and some prominent state officials have called on state regulators to deny or delay the renewal of its license, which is under review.
Last year, Texas lawmakers passed new measures to require more detailed planning and training, and the installation of emergency warning systems. The Legislature does not meet again until January 2027 and the panel will not control the review of Camp Mystic’s license.
The investigator describes the camp’s powerful boss
Some counselors told researchers they feared they would get into trouble if they took children out into high places or into storms without clear instructions.
Garrett describes the camp’s “obedience-encouraging” culture dominated by Eastland, the campus patriarch. Some members of the Eastland family and camp staff referred to him as “The General” and “The Eagle”.
“He ruled,” his wife Tweety told investigators. Several members of the Eastland family attended the hearing.
“He was out there running the show … you never really got past him,” Garrett said.
The camp relied solely on Eastland on how to act in a flood emergency. The owner’s son, Edward Eastland, testified at a trial last week that any detailed flood evacuation plan was only inside his father’s head.
Richard Eastland and several girls were found dead in his vehicle as he tried to drive them to safety. Edward Eastland was swept into a tree by floodwaters. Glen Juenke, the camp’s security officer, survived, but was trapped in a flooded cabin with campers.
Garrett described Richard Eastland as a popular camp leader who taught generations of girls how to fish. He had a knack for comforting young campers who were worried about being away from home for the first time.
“We know Dick Eastland loved every little girl that came to Camp Mystic,” Garrett said.
