Texas inspectors signed off on Camp Mystic’s emergency planning just two days before catastrophic flooding killed more than two dozen people at the all-girls Christian summer camp, most of them children.
The Department of State Health Services released records Tuesday showing the camp complied with a host of state regulations regarding “procedures to be implemented in case of a disaster.” Among them: instructing campers what to do if they need to evacuate the camp and assigning specific duties to each staff member and counsellor.
Five years of inspection reports released to The Associated Press do not offer any details of those plans at Mystic, raising new questions about the camp’s preparedness ahead of the torrential July 4 rainfall in flood-prone Texas Hill Country.
The U.S. National Weather Service had issued a flood watch for the area on July 3 at 1:18 p.m. local time. That danger prompted at least one of the roughly 18 camps along the Guadalupe River to move dozens of campers to higher ground.
The uncertainty about what happened at Mystic comes as local officials have repeatedly dodged questions about who was monitoring the weather and what measures were taken ahead of the flooding.
Several campers and staff were killed when a flash flood slammed into a summer camp for girls along the Guadalupe River in central Texas. CBC’s Eli Glaser examines how Camp Mystic’s location and layout may have contributed to the devastation.
No evacuation ordered
Camp Mystic, established in 1926, did not evacuate and was especially hard hit when the river rose from 4.2 metres to nine metres within 60 minutes in the early morning hours of the disaster. Flooding on that stretch of the Guadalupe starts at about three metres.
A wall of water overwhelmed people in cabins, tents and trailers along the river’s edge. Some survivors were found clinging to trees.
At least 27 campers and counsellors died during the floods, and officials said Tuesday that five campers and one counsellor have still not been found. Among the dead was Richard “Dick” Eastland, the camp’s beloved director described by campers as a father figure.
Charlotte Lauten, 19, spent nine summers at Camp Mystic, mostly recently in 2023. She said she didn’t recall ever receiving instructions as a camper on what do in the case of a weather emergency.
“I do know that the counsellors go through orientation training for a week before camp starts,” she said. “They do brief them on all those types of things.”
One thing that likely hindered the girls’ ability to escape was how dark it would have been, Lauten said. Campers don’t have access to their phones while at camp, she said, adding they wouldn’t have cell service anyway because of the remote location.
“This is the middle of nowhere and they didn’t have power,” she said. “It would have been pitch black, like could not see five feet in front of you type of darkness. I’ve never seen stars like there because there’s just no light.”
Gov. Greg Abbott took an aerial tour of the flood devastation left behind in parts of central Texas on Tuesday and spoke afterward about the young victims in the area. ‘Nothing is as heart-wrenching as hearing the stories of what the girls around here — especially the girls at Camp Mystic — went through,’ he said.
Inspections found no issues
The state inspected Camp Mystic on July 2, the same day the Texas Division of Emergency Management activated emergency response resources ahead of the anticipated flooding.
The inspection found no deficiencies or violations at the camp in a long list of health and safety criteria. The camp had 557 campers and more than 100 staffers at the time between its Guadalupe and Cypress Lake locations.
The disaster plans are required to be posted in all camp buildings but aren’t filed with the state, said Lara Anton, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services.
“We do not have them,” Anton wrote in an email. “You’d have to get it from the camp.”
Camp Mystic did not respond to requests for comment on its emergency plan. In a statement on its website, the camp said it has been “in communication with local and state authorities who are tirelessly deploying extensive resources to search for our missing girls.”
Camp Mystic notes that it is licensed by the state and a member of the Camping Association for Mutual Progress, which says its goal is to “raise health and safety standards” for summer camps. Leaders of that association didn’t return messages.
The American Camp Association said Tuesday that Camp Mystic is not accredited with that organization, whose standards focus on safety and risk management. Spokesperson Lauren McMillin declined to say whether the camp previously had been accredited with the association, which describes itself as “the only nationwide accrediting organization for all year-round and summer camps.”
