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In Austin, Texas, the director of a summer camp testified on Monday regarding a tragic incident in 2025 where 27 campers and counselors lost their lives due to a catastrophic flood. The director revealed that he did not receive official weather warnings the day before the storm, no precautionary meetings were held among the staff regarding the impending threat, and the decision to evacuate came too late.
During a court hearing filled with the grieving families of the victims, Edward Eastland shared an emotional and detailed account of the camp’s response as the Guadalupe River’s floodwaters surged to unprecedented levels. The flood trapped campers and counselors in their cabins, ultimately sweeping them away in the pre-dawn hours of July Fourth.
“I wish we never had camp that summer,” Eastland stated towards the conclusion of his testimony. He admitted that timely action could have saved lives but maintained that the storm’s severity was unforeseen by the camp staff.
This hearing is part of an ongoing legal dispute between the camp owners and the victims’ families, who have filed numerous lawsuits and are pushing for the preservation of the camp’s damage as evidence.
Meanwhile, Camp Mystic is preparing to reopen in less than two months. The camp has sought approval from state regulators to renew its license, planning to operate from a higher ground area that was unaffected by the flood. Nearly 900 girls are already registered for the upcoming session.
Eastland acknowledged the camp had no detailed written flood evacuation plan. He also said more campers would have survived if he and his father, camp co-owner Richard Eastland, as well as a camp safety director had made quicker decisions to evacuate.
By the time they did, the waters were so high and so fast they were producing rapids that swirled around some cabins, he said.
Eastland also acknowledged staff didn’t use simple measures like using campus loudspeakers to tell campers and counselors to leave their cabins and get to higher ground earlier in the storm.
Cici Steward, whose 8-year-old daughter Cile is the only camp victim still missing, said after the testimony the state should deny the camp’s license.
“It is so clear they are incapable of keeping children safe,” Cici Steward said.
Eastland attorney Mikal Watts declined comment immediately after the hearing.
Missed warnings and missed chances to evacuate
Eastland said he and other staff were signed up for an emergency warning system on their phones and used other weather apps. But he said he did not see flood watch social media posts by the National Weather Service and the Texas Department of Emergency Management on July 2 and 3.
Eastland said he thought the local “CodeRED” mobile phone alert system and phone weather apps staff had at the time “was enough.”
A July 3 National Weather Service alert asked area broadcasters to note that locally heavy rainfall could cause flash flooding in rivers, creeks, streams and low-lying areas, all features of the Camp Mystic property.
Eastland said that his father typically monitored weather issues and that he did not believe camp staff held a meeting about the alerts and warnings that day.
The storms would hit in the overnight hours, killing 25 campers, two teenage counselors and Richard Eastland, who had loaded up his large SUV with campers before the vehicle was swept away. None survived.
“We did not expect what was going to happen,” Edward Eastland said.
“You were warned,” said Brad Beckworth, an attorney representing the Steward family.
Eastland says campus loudspeakers were not used to issue a weather warning
The courtroom heard part of a video of “Taps” played over loudspeakers when the campers went to bed at around 10 p.m. July 3.
Eastland said he went to bed about 11 p.m. and never received a National Weather Service flash flood warning at 1:14 a.m.. He said he slept through a CodeRED alert text at the same time that warned of a flood event that could last several hours.
His father called him on a walkie-talkie shortly before 2 a.m. to tell him about hard rain falling and the need to move canoes and water equipment off the riverfront. They did not move to evacuate cabins at that point.
“It was not reasonable to do that at that time,” Eastland said. “The water wasn’t out of the Guadalupe River. It was pouring down rain and lightning and the cabins were safe at that time.”
Richard Eastland made the call to evacuate cabins about 3 a.m., Edward Eastland said.
Lawyers for the families introduced a signed statement from a counselor who described the horror of the night. She woke up during the storm and could see girls running for shelter.
“The water was rising faster than anything I have ever witnessed,” the counselor wrote. She said Edward Eastland eventually approached the cabin in knee-deep water, told her it was too late to leave and they should ride out the storm there.
The counselor said she tried to keep the children out of the rising water pouring in before she was eventually swept away herself.
Eastland also tearfully described trying to grab two girls and a third who jumped on his back while he stood bracing himself in a cabin doorway before they were washed away. He and a counselor eventually were pushed into a tree.
“The water was over my head very quickly. The water was churning,” Eastland said.
At one point, several family members left the courtroom during a cellphone video taken the night of the flood. Someone could be heard yelling “Help!” in the background.
Flooding killed at least 136 people along the Guadalupe River
All told, the destructive flooding killed at least 136 people along a several-mile stretch of the river, raising questions about how things went so terribly wrong.
Texas health regulators said last week they are investigating hundreds of complaints filed against the camp owners. The Texas Rangers are also helping look into allegations of neglect, according to the Texas Department of Safety, although the scope of the state’s elite investigations unit was not immediately clear.
The hearing is scheduled to continue Tuesday.
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