The parents of an 8-year-old Austin girl whose body has not been recovered since she was swept away in the July Fourth flood at Camp Mystic have sued the camp’s owners and management, alleging they failed to have an evacuation plan required by state law and ignored weather warnings from emergency management officials before the Guadalupe River rose to historic levels. Twenty-seven campers and counselors died in the flood in the Central Texas town of Hunt.
“Cile was taken from us seven months ago and while we recognize this lawsuit will not bring her back, we feel compelled to ensure the truth of Camp Mystic’s failures are exposed,” Will and Cici Steward said in a news release from their attorneys.
An attorney for the camp’s owners, Mikal Watts, did not respond Friday to a request for comment. The camp is owned by members of the Eastland family. The camp’s attorneys previously said, in response to one of the wrongful death lawsuits filed against the camp, that the owners and management could not have reasonably taken steps to prepare for the flooding that night because it was “unprecedented” in scale.
The camp has announced plans to reopen a portion of the property that wasn’t flooded this summer with added safety measures.
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The wrongful death lawsuit, filed Wednesday by Will and Cici Steward, seeks a temporary restraining order to stop the camp from reopening until investigations have ended, according to the release. The lawsuit seeks damages of more than $1 million.
The Eastlands never adopted an emergency evacuation plan or installed warning infrastructure despite the camp’s history of flooding, the lawsuit said. “They never purchased walkie-talkies for counselors (just for themselves), battery-powered radios, or a back-up generator,” the lawsuit said, adding that a basic communication bundle for every cabin would have cost about $100.
“The Eastlands’ only plan was to shelter in place,” the Stewards’ attorneys said. The plan consisted of a seven-sentence paragraph posted in each cabin instructing campers and counselors to stay inside because they were on high ground, according to the release. It said instructions would be given over a loudspeaker during a flood and by walkie-talkie if the power failed. Those instructions were false, the release said.
“When the flood was happening, the only instructions Cile or her counselor got were when Edward (Eastland) yelled from outside to stay in the cabin until the water was too high,” the release said. “That order was a death sentence. It defied every policy and guideline every federal and state agency provides for flood emergencies.”
After floodwaters filled the Twins II cabin where Cile was staying, the girls swam toward their counselors, the lawsuit said. One counselor broke a side window with a camper’s trunk, and the campers floated out on mattresses. Cile was on a mattress with two or three other campers before she fell off and reached a tree where most survivors were found, the lawsuit said. She was then swept away by the current.
Cici Williams Steward, mother of 8-year-old flood victim Cile Steward, meets with Gov. Greg Abbott in September. Cile’s body has never been found and her parents have sued the owners of Camp Mystic, alleging they had no evacuation plan and ignored weather warnings.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
“Because of the Eastland family, Cile was left with an impossible choice: drown in her cabin or fight violent floodwaters in the dark in a blind effort of escape and survive,” the lawsuit said. “My baby was a fighter. She was a strong swimmer and a great climber. Cile did not die because there was nowhere to go. She died because she was told not to go.”
One of the owners of the camp, Dick Eastland, who died while trying to evacuate campers, received a warning from the National Weather Service three hours before Cile was swept away, the lawsuit said. A flash flood warning for Kerr County was issued at 1:14 a.m., but Eastland ignored it, according to the lawsuit. Instead, it said, he ordered his staff to move canoes to higher ground, even though all evacuation routes were still open at the time.
A safe shelter was “20 paces from Cile’s bunk,” according to the suit. As late as 3 a.m., a clear evacuation route remained for all cabins. It said Dick Eastland, Edward Eastland and the night watchman decided they needed to evacuate the five cabins closest to the river at 3 a.m., but those didn’t include Cile’s cabin.
“Defendants claim this flood was unforeseeable and a magnitude beyond comprehension,” the Stewards’ attorneys said. “Not true. The Eastlands knew Camp Mystic had decades of previous flooding history. They celebrated the 1932 flood every year on trivia night.”
The Eastlands also received weather warnings on July 2 and July 3, two days before the flood, the lawsuit said.
Cile was attending her first year at Camp Mystic, the lawsuit said. “Cile was a vibrant, intelligent and deeply loved child and older sister,” it said. “She possessed a rare combination of joy, curiosity, independence, humor, pluck, athleticism and creativity that drew others to her.” The last thing the 8-year-old said to her mother before she left for camp, according to the lawsuit, was “Mom, don’t worry, I’m going to be OK.”