Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick of Texas sent a blistering letter on Monday asking the Texas Department of State Health Services not to issue a new camp license to Camp Mystic, where 27 girls and the camp’s executive director died in flooding last July.
“I would not feel comfortable sending my grandchildren to a camp where 27 young girls lost their lives less than a year ago,” Mr. Patrick wrote in the letter, which he also posted on social media. “It would be naive to allow Camp Mystic to return to normal operations before all of the facts are known.”
The letter was addressed to Jennifer Shuford, the commissioner of the agency charged with inspecting and licensing summer camps in the state. Ms. Shuford was also named in a lawsuit filed Monday by the parents of nine campers and counselors that accuses the agency of issuing licenses to the camp annually for years even though it did not have an evacuation plan as required by the state.
Lara Anton, a spokeswoman for the Department of State Health Services, said the agency did not comment on pending litigation.
Mikal Watts, a lawyer for Camp Mystic, called the suit against the agency “without merit” and timed to apply pressure immediately before licenses are set to be handed out. “This is nothing more than power politics at its worst,” Mr. Watts said. He added that the camp has complied with all state laws, and spent millions of dollars on new safety technology since the flood.
Camp Mystic has not submitted a license renewal application this year, according to Ms. Anton. But the camp announced months ago that it will partially reopen this summer, and opened registration to families in January. Camps in the state have until March 31 to apply for a renewal license without paying a late fee.
In his letter on Monday, Mr. Patrick also gave an update on the state investigation he opened last fall into what happened at Camp Mystic. Investigating committees in the State Senate and House of Representatives will meet this spring, he said.
“I expect, after those facts are determined, there may be necessary corrective actions for Camp Mystic to take to make sure future campers and counselors are safe and do not lose their lives,” Mr. Patrick wrote.
The letter concluded with a plea: “Please do not renew a 2026 license for Camp Mystic until all legislative investigations are completed and any necessary corrective actions are taken.”
The camp invited Mr. Patrick and the investigative committees to tour its grounds last fall, but they have not visited yet, Mr. Watts said.
“The lieutenant governor of the state of Texas is either the most powerful man in Texas or the second most powerful, and when he issues his verdict before the investigation has begun, it is not helpful,” Mr. Watts said.
Mr. Patrick, a conservative Republican who is running for re-election this year, has described himself as deeply affected by the tragedy at Camp Mystic, an all-girls camp in Central Texas. He has met multiple times with many of the families whose daughters died at the camp.
He supported a package of laws toughening safety requirements for youth camps in the state that passed the State House and Senate overwhelmingly just months after the flood, and was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott in September. The new laws require camps to move cabins away from floodplains, to operate emergency warning systems and public address systems that function even if there is no internet, and to post clear evacuation routes, among other provisions. Other states, including Missouri and Alabama, are now considering similar legislation.
Speaking at the laws’ signing in front of the governor’s mansion in Austin, Mr. Patrick choked up. He made an impromptu suggestion there that portraits of the two counselors who died, Chloe Childress and Katherine Ferruzzo, should hang in the capitol, one in the Senate and one in the House.
Others in the state have criticized the reforms as too expensive and onerous for some camps, particularly the requirement for two sources of internet access, including a fiber-optic connection.
Camp Mystic’s leaders announced weeks after the signing that the camp would partially reopen this summer, a decision that surprised and divided alumni and parents. The campus along the Guadalupe River, where the girls who died were staying, will remain closed, but a newer campus at higher elevation is set to reopen in May.
“We are not only rebuilding cabins and trails, but also a place where laughter, friendship and spiritual growth will continue to flourish,” the email to past campers read. “We look forward to welcoming you back inside the green gates.”
Soon afterward, Mr. Patrick and the speaker of the State House, Dustin Burrows, a Republican, announced the creation of committees in the House and the Senate to investigate the flooding at the camp. In the announcement, Mr. Patrick questioned Mystic’s plans to reopen. “I was shocked to see Camp Mystic begin signing up campers for next year with so many questions unanswered about what happened that fateful morning,” he wrote.
“In my 10 years as lieutenant governor, we’ve had a lot of tragedies and I’ve attended a lot of funerals and memorial services,” he said in an interview with The New York Times last fall. “But this was by far the hardest.”
He attributed the difficulty to the loss of so many young lives, and also to the fact that many parents had to wait for days before getting confirmation that their daughters had died.
One girl, Cile Steward, is still missing. Her parents are seeking an emergency order to stop the camp from reopening, arguing that the restoration process is destroying physical evidence related to their daughter’s death. Families whose daughters died have filed multiple other lawsuits against the camp, accusing its leaders of gross negligence.
The suit filed Monday against Ms. Shuford also names five other department officials, including the inspector who visited Camp Mystic annually since 2015 to ensure compliance.
State regulations require camps to have written emergency plans, including procedures for the “evacuation of each occupied building.” But the agency’s own detailed written criteria allowed for the approval of any kind of emergency plan, whether or not it included specific evacuation plans, the suit claims. Mystic’s plan did not mention evacuation.
“As the waters rose in the early hours of July 4, the camp staff panicked and delayed moving girls to safety until it was too late,” the suit asserts. “The lack of the state-required evacuation plan created chaos that cost 27 young lives.”
Mystic devoted one brief paragraph to floods in its one-page emergency plan submitted to state officials in past years. During a flood, campers in the lower section of camp along the river must “stay in their cabins unless told otherwise by the office,” the plan stated. “All cabins are constructed on high, safe locations.”
An inspector visited Mystic and approved its emergency plans just two days before flooding devastated the Hill Country of Central Texas.
“The D.S.H.S. officials responsible for licensing youth camps deliberately looked the other way,” Paul Yetter, a lawyer representing the families, said in a statement. “While Camp Mystic bears responsibility and is also being sued, state officials knew the emergency plan lacked a required evacuation component and still licensed the camp as safe.”
A lawsuit filed against the camp last year by some of the families whose daughters died said that counselors had been told “by the camp” to stay in their cabins during a flood. Ultimately, some counselors pulled young girls through windows and scrambled up a rocky hill to safety. Others waded with their campers to a large recreation hall. Edward Eastland, the camp’s director, told The New York Times last year that he had not instructed anyone to stay in place during the evacuation.
On its website, Camp Mystic said that the campus that plans to reopen this summer will have illuminated pathways to a designated meeting place on higher ground, and that evacuation drills will be conducted within 48 hours of campers’ arrivals.
The camp will mark its 100th anniversary in April. It has a long history of summer flooding, although no one at the camp had died in floods before last summer.
Ruth Graham is a national reporter, based in Dallas, covering religion, faith and values for The Times.
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