Owners and employees of Camp Mystic faced pointed questions Tuesday from Texas lawmakers investigating their handling of catastrophic flooding last year, as the state considers whether to grant the camp a license to reopen.
Their testimony came on the second day of hearings at the State Capitol in Austin about the tragedy at Camp Mystic, where 25 campers, two counselors and the camp’s executive director died after the Guadalupe River flooded camp buildings on July 4.
On Monday, members of the Eastland family, which owns the camp, listened silently in a small hearing room as legislative investigators told lawmakers that the camp did not have an evacuation plan as required by the state.
On Tuesday, they began by describing their experience.
“This flood, we did not see coming,” said Edward Eastland, a director at the camp who was involved in the rescue attempts. Their actions were based on “the knowledge we had from previous floods” that had hit the camp, he said, his voice shaking. “Our concept of high ground has now changed forever.”
Camp Mystic has faced a renewed round of scrutiny from state officials and police. Last week, state health officials said the camp needed to make major revisions to its emergency plans in order to receive a license to partially reopen in May in an area that did not flood.
State Senator Charles Perry told the Eastlands that the camp appeared to be “cavalier” and “nonchalant” in its approach to meeting the requirements for reopening, which resulted in multiple “deficiencies” in its planning.
The family may not “have the privilege of running a business” anymore, Mr. Perry said, adding that the Eastlands would not be able to run Camp Mystic in the future “if I can have anything to say with that.”
“If y’all are left as an operator in any form or fashion, what deterrent does that send to another operator that I can have kids die on my watch and still be an operator?” Mr. Perry said.
“We’re willing to take a step back if camp can go on,” said Edward Eastland’s wife, Mary Liz, who also helps run Camp Mystic, speaking later in the hearing. “We’re willing to step back.”
The camp also faces lawsuits brought by the families of the victims. The families have argued that the owners were negligent in their preparations for an emergency and in their response to the flooding.
Tuesday’s hearing followed a presentation on Monday of a report from the legislative investigators that found Camp Mystic’s procedures included only emergency shelter plans and did not include instructions on how to evacuate during a disaster.
“Sheltering in place is the right thing to do under certain circumstances,” Ms. Garrett, a lawyer who also investigated the mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, told the joint meeting of the Texas House and Senate General Investigating Committees. “There was not an evacuation plan for when sheltering in place was no longer viable.”
Ms. Garrett also said there had been inadequate training on the emergency plan.
“Campers were not instructed,” she said. “No specific assignments were given to staff or counselors.”
In harrowing detail, she described how the lack of preparation and poor communication contributed to the “mayhem” surrounding the eventual evacuation last July. Some inside the hearing room cried as Ms. Garrett showed photos and videos of flooded cabins and of children wading in the water.
The camp did not provide a statement on Monday in response to the investigators’ report. Last week, a spokesman said the camp’s owners planned to adjust their emergency plans to meet new, more stringent state requirements, and that they still intended to reopen on May 30.
In her presentation on Monday, Ms. Garrett acknowledged how much the Eastlands had cared for the campers. But she said a culture of “obedience” to the camp’s late director, Dick Eastland, pervaded the camp, where counselors felt as if they could not speak up and leaders dismissed concerns.
The Eastlands were running the camp “like something from 1965,” she said. “Nothing had changed in decades.”
Mr. Eastland died in the flooding while attempting to rescue campers.
At the start of Monday’s hearing, one of the state senators on the committee, Pete Flores, promised that lawmakers would act.
The investigators were asked to look only at events at Camp Mystic. But Ms. Garrett, who also called the local and county response a failure, noted that members of the community have asked for a broader investigation. More than 100 people across several counties died in the floods that began July 4.
“It wasn’t just Mystic,” she said at the end of her presentation, adding that other camps had been “lucky” that nothing worse had happened to them.
J. David Goodman is the Texas bureau chief for The Times, based in Houston.
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