HUNT, Texas — The sounds of helicopters and chainsaws are gone, but the reminders of what happened along the Guadalupe River remain. From rescue crews slowing working up and down the river to makeshift crosses sprawled out along the roadway, the body of 8-year-old Cile Steward has still not been found.
“Our Cile was swept away along with other bright, beautiful girls,” said Cile’s mom Cici Williams Steward at Texas Senate hearing in August. “She was stolen from her family, her future, from the world she lit up with her independence and spunk.”
The Stewards joined 27 other families of the girls and counselors that were at Camp Mystic on the Fourth of July and were killed by floodwaters.
“She was my mini-me and my best friend,” Carrie Hanna stated at the hearing. “I promised her she would be safe and okay. I told her camp was the safest place she could be.”
These families traveled to Austin asking lawmakers for change— a change that might’ve saved Ben Landry’s daughter Lainey.
“We’re not here to ask that you take our grief away,” said Landry. “We’re asking that you pass this legislation to give us the comfort and hope that this does not happen to another family.”
Their pleas were heard. The Heaven’s 27 Camp Safety Act was quickly enacted in August, requiring strict emergency preparedness for youth camps, including detailed evacuation plans and weather alerts.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill into law on Sept. 4.
“They shared the beauty of their daughters’ souls. They pleaded for camp safety,” Abbott said.
But Camp Mystic’s announcement that they’d reopen their Cypress Lake location this summer brought on numerous lawsuits from many of those same families, including the Pecks, who lost their 8-year-old daughter Lulu.
Peck family attorney Randy Howry spoke about that being a major reason for suing.
“And I’m sure with my clients, as it was with the others, an aggravating factor which led to the conclusion that this is the only way we’re going to get answers from these folks is to see them in court,” Howry said.
The owners of Camp Mystic have remained steadfast, calling the flood an unavoidable tragedy. The camp quickly joined others in the area by installing state-of-the-art warning systems, hoping to restore hope, faith and normalcy at the camp many generations of women had enjoyed in their youth. It was something Hanna had always considered Camp Mystic to represent.
“I met my best friends there, learned to be a good sport, and grew spiritually.” Hanna stated. “I couldn’t wait to have a daughter so that she could go to Mystic and experience what I did.”
It can be a divisive issue for both those who attended the camps and those who live here.
“When someone you loved becomes a memory, that memory becomes a treasure,” Lars Hollis, father of 8-year-old victim Virginia Hollis, said to the committee in August.
A treasure like the one 8-year-old Virginia left for her parents.
“Her last song she ever composed. Virginia’s Song,” Hollis said.
He held his cellphone up to the microphone as the sound of his daughter playing piano carried throughout the room.
Families are still searching for answers, the Hill Country is still trying to heal, and the path forward is still as murky as the deep waters of the Guadalupe River.