Beginning at 8 years old, Chloe Childress followed a family tradition of spending summers at Camp Mystic, a private Christian summer camp for girls located along the Guadalupe River in Texas Hill Country in an area known as “Flash Flood Alley.”
This year, she turned 18, and went from camper to counselor.
“She was very excited to return, and excited to take care of those little girls, and was even very worried about that,” her mother, Wendie Childress, told CBS News. “Just like everything else, she wanted to do a good job, that was very important to her in the week before she left for camp.”
Wendie and Matthew Childress learned on the 4th of July that their daughter was missing after the devastating flash flooding that struck the region, killing at least 130 people, including more than two dozen Camp Mystic campers and counselors.
They began trying to piece together what had happened at the camp leading up to and during the flooding.
“Something is not right here,” Wendie said.
Added Matthew, “It was mostly that everything was preventable.”
They joined the parents of other girls who demanded lawmakers make immediate changes for camps.
Two new campground safety laws passed by the Texas Legislature on Wednesday and sent to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk for his signature will prohibit cabins in flood zones, provide warning systems, require training for emergencies, and strengthen communications when there is no power or cell service.
Some camps told lawmakers they were concerned about the financial burden of the new laws.
“We think that that is an unfortunate stance for them to take because they should be embracing this, because it is positive for the camps,” Matthew said. “And longer term, they will thrive if they actually make the appropriate changes.”
In an editorial in the Houston Chronicle last month, Matthew wrote it was “complacency” in the old rules that left him and other parents in the tortured position of questioning their own role in their daughters’ deaths.
“My daughter, I taught her right from wrong,” Matthew told CBS News. “I taught her those things. She obeyed the authorities. She followed directions.”
“But because the rule was to stay in place, they stayed in place, and it cost all of those children…their lives,” Wendie said.
The Childress family plans to be in Austin, the Texas capital, when those bills are set to be signed into law Friday by Abbott.
They hope this also sets the tone for other states to look at safety regulations for camps.
Jason, a Southern California native, came to North Texas after working as a reporter for four years in Orlando. He received his bachelor’s degree in communication arts from Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, Illinois, and then began his career as a producer/reporter at Primary Focus. Jason went on to work as a reporter/anchor at KTWO-TV in Casper, Wyoming, and later as a reporter at WBAY-TV in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
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