Edward Eastland, a director of Camp Mystic, the all-girls Christian camp in the Texas Hill Country where 25 campers and two counsellors were killed in a flash flood last summer, has offered a tearful apology to the victims' families for the loss of life.
Apology at Austin Hearing
“We tried our hardest that night. It wasn’t enough to save your daughters,” Eastland said at a joint Texas House and Senate committee panel in Austin investigating the deadly flooding. “I’m so sorry.”
Eastland and his father, Richard Eastland, the camp director who died in the flood, were at the campsite that night. Eastland described a desperate attempt to save the girls when the banks of the Guadalupe River burst during heavy rain. He survived only after being swept into a tree.
“These girls were our youngest campers and their amazing counsellors who we watched grow up,” he said. “The world was a better place with them in it, and the anger at us for not being able to keep them safe is completely reasonable.”
Missed Warnings and Lack of Plan
The panel comes ahead of a full report into the disaster expected later this year. Camp Mystic’s owners want to reopen the camp in late May, stating they will only use parts that did not flood. Members of the Eastland family testified for hours about their actions during the storm, changes made to evacuation planning and counsellor training, and whether the camp should be allowed to reopen.
Investigators and lawmakers have said the camp operators missed opportunities to move campers to safety and had no real evacuation plan. Lawmakers argued that the Eastlands missed an opportunity to order everyone to higher ground over the camp’s PA system. Edward Eastland said it did not occur to him to leave the girls they were trying to rescue to go back to the camp office to make an announcement. “Every minute was spent trying to get to the next cabin,” he said. “If we had a little more time, we could have gotten everybody out.”
Opposition to Reopening
Many victims’ families oppose the plan to reopen the camp, and some lawmakers argue that the camp remains unprepared. Britt Eastland, another Mystic director, said the camp will dramatically improve training for counsellors and stage drills for campers to prepare for floods, fire, tornadoes and intruders. They expect nearly 900 campers this summer.
“All of these things should have been being done in the first place,” said Charles Perry, a Texas senator from Lubbock. “The fate of those girls was set before any first drop of rain ever fell.”
State regulators last week notified Camp Mystic of 22 deficiencies in its emergency plan. “Are you ready to take on 500-plus children?” asked Lois Kolkhorst, a state senator, about the summer camp session. She added that the license “is a privilege to have”. “We are ready,” Britt Eastland replied, adding that he believes Camp Mystic’s broader community will ultimately “be glad we had camp this summer”. Another of the Eastland sons, Richard, said while the family does not plan to open the camp if their license is not renewed, they would likely appeal if the decision goes against them.
Julie Sprunt Marshall, whose nine-year-old daughter was swept out of her cabin and rescued more than a mile downriver, said the survivors continue to suffer trauma and the camp should not reopen. “The camp will be conducting an incredibly dangerous experiment on children,” Marshall said, “testing what will happen with the first drop of rain, the first clap of thunder, at the first time a noise startles them awake.”
Investigation Findings
Investigators described the late camp director, Richard Eastland, as a patriarchal leader who “ruled” Camp Mystic and was “vigilant” about weather but did not have a solid evacuation plan in case of a flood. “There was never any real training. There were never drills, no drills of any kind,” said Casey Garrett, one of the investigators. Each cabin had emergency guidelines posted but no radios, tool kits, ladders, life jackets or any “real tools to accomplish any kind of emergency preparedness”. Instead, the young campers were expected to shelter in place.
“How is that an evacuation plan? To stay there?” asked Morgan Meyer, a Republican state representative, according to CNN. “Please explain to me how telling someone to stay somewhere is an evacuation plan. That seems like the antithesis of an evacuation plan.”
Richard Eastland said his father’s biggest fear about flooding from the river “was the girls would be curious about them. He was terrified about people wandering down when we’re having a flood event.” The family has said that the camp patriarch had advocated for a siren system along the river and paid close attention to flood threats. Investigators have said that Eastland was obsessively checking weather apps on the night of 4 July but did not start an evacuation until 3am, almost two hours after the National Weather Service issued a flood warning at 1.14am.
An hour after the warning was issued, two counsellors from cabins closest to the river reported flooding to the front office. But Eastland assessed it and told them to lay down some towels, according to the investigation. Half an hour later Eastland reportedly decided to start evacuating the cabins closest to the river. But groundskeepers were ordered to move canoes and were not asked to participate in the evacuations.
“It’s pretty hard to understand why all these adults were here and lacked information. They had no idea what was going on,” Garrett told the panel. “They didn’t have specific assignments, weren’t told where to go. They stayed over in this area and did not take action. It’s a bit of a mystery why.”
