Updated 4:30 p.m. April 28
After about 1.5 hours of testimony from Nim Kidd, who leads the Texas Division of Emergency Management, the joint committee began hearing testimony from the families of young girls who survived the July 4 flood at Camp Mystic.
Julie Sprunt Marshall, an Austin surgeon, urged lawmakers to take action to prevent the Eastland family from opening Camp Mystic’s Cypress Lake campsite later this year.
“The Eastlands’ prayers didn’t save the girls that night,” she said. “I worry the Eastlands’ prayers going forward are not an appropriate safety plan.”
Marshall said she attended Camp Mystic as a child and expected the Eastlands would “maintain appropriate safety plans” when she sent her 9-year-old daughter, McKenzie, to the Texas Hill Country Camp.
“Over time, the girls were moved to the top of the bunk beds as the water rose. Mckenzie told me that eventually she and the other girls understood no more adults were coming to rescue them,” Marshall told lawmakers. “Once the water was two feet from the ceiling, the bunk bed tipped, spilling the girls into the water. McKenzie was swept out of the window in total darkness amid fast-moving, churning, debris-filled water.”
Marshall said her daughter “thought she should just give up” and “described thinking, ‘This is what it is like to die” as she was swept about a mile downriver. McKenzie later landed in a debris pile and was rescued by Grant Griffin, whose family lived along the Guadalupe River.
“Camp Mystic made no effort to reunite our girls with their cabinmates, nor did they provide updates to us about their location or well-being,” she said. “They remained in the care of the Griffins, who, at that time, were strangers to us, whose house was barely standing.”
Marshall said she was asked to conduct medical evaluations of surviving campers on July 4 and 5. She asserted that Mary Liz Eastland, one of the directors at Camp Mystic’s Guadalupe River campsite and the camp’s health officer, “was nowhere to be found.”
“I’m asking this committee, please, to act,” Marshall said. “Do not let this camp reopen on the schedule and on the terms set by the people who failed our daughters.”
Updated 2:30 p.m. April 28
Meyer asked the four members of the Eastland family who testified April 28 to answer a series of questions.
When asked if they disagreed with any information presented a day earlier by state investigators, the family said countered assertions that they were “complacent” during the July 4 flood, but said they felt investigators were “thorough” and “did a good job.”
“In hindsight, as you sit here today, do you agree the camp was not prepared for this tragedy?” Meyer asked. “Do you agree that the camp didn’t call for a timely evacuation?”
The Eastland family responded “no” to both questions.
In total, committee members asked questions of the Eastland family for about four hours before taking a 30-minute break and hearing testimony from Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
Updated 1:30 p.m. April 28
Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, asked the Eastland family what they would do if Camp Mystic’s application to renew its operating license was denied by the state health department. The department is currently reviewing license applications from hundreds of Texas youth camps, and Camp Mystic must be licensed to open its Cypress Lake campsite next month.
Richard Eastland, Camp Mystic’s head chef, said if the camp’s license was denied, “we’d probably appeal it, but we will not open Cypress if we do not have a license.”
Cypress Lake director Britt Eastland backtracked on his brother’s remarks, telling lawmakers the family “can’t say anything on the record about what we’ll do in that aspect.”
“All camps that have applied for renewal do have a valid license, and so I believe that it’ll be a family decision,” he said.
Updated 1:15 p.m. April 28
Rep. Morgan Meyer, a University Park Republican and co-chair of the joint committee, grilled the Eastland family April 28 about why they did not have a written evacuation plan for a flood like what happened on July 4. Investigators said April 27 that Camp Mystic’s flood plan directed counselors and campers to shelter in place until told to do otherwise. The Eastlands did not contest that fact, telling lawmakers they wanted to prevent “kids from wandering off” on their own and getting caught in floodwaters.
“But if the plan in place was to evacuate, they wouldn’t be wandering by the river,” Meyer said. “They would be evacuating with their camp counselors in an orderly fashion. … The plan to shelter in place clearly did not work and they were obedient to a fault, to where these cabins filled with water and they weren’t going anywhere.”
Britt Eastland said the family is working on a 60-page emergency plan, which contains detailed evacuation measures and information about safety drills, for future camp sessions.
Updated 1 p.m. April 28
During the April 28 hearing, Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, referenced a segment of the Texas Administrative Code that deals with the health and safety of youth camps.
State code requires that if any camper die or contract certain communicable diseases at camp, it must be reported to the Texas Department of State Health services within 24 hours. Kolkhorst asked Mary Liz Eastland, a registered nurse and one of the leaders of Camp Mystic’s Guadalupe River site, if she had reported the July 4 deaths of the 25 campers and two counselors to the state.
“No, ma’am, I have not,” Mary Liz Eastland replied, adding that “everyone knows, at this point.”
Kolkhorst urged the Eastland family to report the girls’ deaths to the state health department, telling them that “a license is a privilege to have.”
“We set a standard in some of our daycares [that] if they have one death, we take their license away—we shut them down,” Kolkhorst, who leads the Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee, said.
Several lawmakers cited a letter state health officials sent to Camp Mystic on April 23, which outlines 22 “deficiencies” in the camp’s emergency plan as part of its application for license renewal.
“As y’all are going through so much, think this through,” Kolkhorst said. “Are you ready to take on 500-plus children with 22 deficiencies and something so glaring as you have not reported the 27 deaths that are required by law?”
Britt Eastland, who leads Camp Mystic’s Cypress Lake campsite, said his family does not want to “create any more pain” for the 27 families who lost their children in the July 4 flood. The Eastland family told lawmakers they hope to reopen the Cypress Lake site, which was not damaged in the flood, as soon as May 30.
“We pray that we can reconcile with the families, and we believe if we do it right, a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, they will be glad that we had camp this summer,” Britt Eastland said. “I know right now it doesn’t seem that way, but I really believe that.”
Cici Steward, whose daughter, 8-year-old Cecilia “Cile” Steward, is still missing, said “what?” and left the room after Britt Eastland’s remarks.
Updated 12:15 p.m. April 28
The leaders of Camp Mystic said they felt they “acted reasonably” in the early hours of July 4, as rain poured and the Guadalupe River rose.
“I believe, based on what we knew then, we acted reasonably,” Britt Eastland, one of the camp’s directors, told lawmakers April 28. “But now that we know what this river can do, … we’re ready. Everyone, I think, in the camping community is ready to make changes.”
During the first day of hearings April 27, state investigators and lawmakers said they were concerned the Eastland family was “complacent” and did not make changes to disaster plans after past floods. Family members who testified before the committee April 28 pushed back on those concerns, noting that the July 4 flood was more severe than previous storms in the area.
“I don’t think that we had a culture of complacency—I disagree with that,” said Richard Eastland, Camp Mystic’s head chef. “My father was very diligent that night. [But] I know that we failed these families behind us.”
The Eastlands’ father, Dick, died in the July 4 flood.
Updated 11:30 a.m. April 28
Answering questions from lawmakers April 28, members of the Eastland family laid out changes they were making to improve safety and security at Camp Mystic. The Eastlands plan to welcome campers this summer to their Cypress Lake location, which was undamaged by the flooding. The parents of some flood victims have objected to the planned reopening.
Cypress Lake camp director Britt Eastland said the family was installing generators to power its front office and dining hall; placing walkie talkies in all cabins to ensure counselors receive weather alerts and other communications; requiring counselors to arrive at camp early for emergency training; and running evacuation drills with all campers and staff.
“We knew that if we were ever going to again be able to operate camp, we needed to go above and beyond,” Britt Eastland said.
During an April 27 hearing, investigators hired by the legislature said counselors were not trained on what to do in an disaster and emergency drills were not conducted at the beginning of camp sessions. Counselors also did not have access to emergency ladders, life jackets or portable radios, investigator Casey Garrett said.
Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, reprimanded the family for not having those safety measures in place last summer. Under state law, youth camps must have a written evacuation plan and conduct disaster drills.
“I want to remind people that stuff was already supposed to be done, and I’m almost certain that none of the other camps were doing it, either,” Perry said.
Perry said that if Camp Mystic is allowed to reopen its Cypress Lake location, he did not think the Eastland family should continue running the camp.
“There’s a point where the consequences of not doing your job are so significant and so consequential that you don’t have the privilege of running a business,” he said April 28. “What deterrent does that send to another operator that [you] can have kids die with [your] watch and still be an operator? … “Y’all will not be an operator next season, if I can have anything to say about it, because you just missed it, and it was tragic.”
Mary Liz Eastland, a director at the Guadalupe River camp where 27 campers and counselors died, said she thought Perry’s suggestion was “appropriate.”
“I think we’re willing to take a step back,” she said. “If camp can go on, that’s okay with us.”
Britt Eastland said the family does not yet plan to reopen its Guadalupe River camp, adding that it was “not an easy decision” to move to reopen the Cypress Lake site.
“We’ve heard from hundreds of families that they are asking us to please open. … They’re asking us to provide healing for their daughters,” he said.
Originally posted 11 a.m. April 28
The Eastland family, which owns and operates Camp Mystic, opened the second day of hearings held by special state legislative committees investigating the July 4, 2025, Central Texas flood.
Edward Eastland, who runs the camp’s Guadalupe River location with his wife, Mary Liz, said he was “devastated” about the deaths of 27 campers and counselors in the early hours of July 4.
“We tried our hardest that night, and it wasn’t enough to save your daughters,” Edward Eastland said as dozens of the victims’ families sat silently behind him in a Texas Capitol hearing room.
“Every morning waking up is hard, every moment of every day is hard, and yet that pain feels like nothing compared to what you’re going through,” he added. “To talk openly about our pain feels like I’m insulting you, so I have largely remained quiet.”
Committee members are also set to hear from the state health department, the Texas Division of Emergency Management, flood victims’ families and the parents of some campers who survived the flood during the April 28 hearing.
How we got here
Over 130 Central Texas residents and visitors died over the July 4 weekend as an intense rainstorm and flooding swept through the region. Among them were 28 deaths at Camp Mystic: 25 young campers, two 18-year-old counselors and Richard “Dick” Eastland, the camp’s executive director. The private Christian girls camp has been under scrutiny for the actions camp leaders took to attempt to save campers in cabins near the Guadalupe River.
During an April 27 hearing, investigators told lawmakers studying the flood response that those deaths could have been prevented if camp leadership took action sooner and had a written evacuation plan in place.
“To camp owners across the state of Texas: lives could have been saved without changes in [state] statute,” Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, said April 27.
One more thing
During special legislative sessions last summer, lawmakers passed a slate of flood planning and response bills, including requirements that youth camps remove cabins from floodplains and counties impacted by the July 4 flood install outdoor warning sirens. Some other emergency response and communication measures did not pass the legislature during the special sessions.
While the special investigative committees can examine what happened on July 4 and make policy recommendations, committee members cannot currently pass new laws, as the legislature’s next regular session does not begin until 2027. Gov. Greg Abbott has the authority to call a special session at any time, although he has not publicly commented on this week’s hearings.