{"id":154555,"date":"2026-02-07T01:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T01:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/154555\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T01:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T01:56:08","slug":"austin-girls-body-never-recovered-after-texas-floods-her-parents-are-suing-camp-mystic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/154555\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin girl\u2019s body never recovered after Texas floods. Her parents are suing Camp Mystic"},"content":{"rendered":"

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 <\/a>at Camp Mystic<\/a> have sued the camp\u2019s 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<\/a> in the flood in the Central Texas town of Hunt.<\/p>\n

\u201cCile 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\u2019s failures are exposed,\u201d Will and Cici Steward said in a news release from their attorneys.<\/p>\n

An attorney for the camp\u2019s owners<\/a>, Mikal Watts, did not respond Friday to a request for comment. The camp is owned by members of the Eastland family. The camp\u2019s attorneys previously said, in response to one of the wrongful death lawsuits<\/a> 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 \u201cunprecedented\u201d in scale.<\/p>\n

The camp has announced plans to reopen a portion of the property that wasn\u2019t flooded this summer with added safety measures.<\/p>\n

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The wrongful death lawsuit, filed Wednesday by Will and Cici Steward, seeks a temporary restraining order<\/a> to stop the camp from reopening until investigations have ended, according to the release. The lawsuit seeks damages of more than $1 million.<\/p>\n

The Eastlands never adopted an emergency evacuation plan or installed warning infrastructure despite the camp\u2019s history of flooding, the lawsuit said. \u201cThey never purchased walkie-talkies for counselors (just for themselves), battery-powered radios, or a back-up generator,\u201d the lawsuit said, adding that a basic communication bundle for every cabin would have cost about $100.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Eastlands\u2019 only plan was to shelter in place,\u201d the Stewards\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen 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,\u201d the release said. \u201cThat order was a death sentence. It defied every policy and guideline every federal and state agency provides for flood emergencies.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\"Cici<\/p>\n

Cici Williams Steward, mother of 8-year-old flood victim\u00a0Cile 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.<\/p>\n

Mikala Compton\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause 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,\u201d the lawsuit said. \u201cMy 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

A safe shelter was \u201c20 paces from Cile\u2019s bunk,\u201d 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\u2019t include Cile\u2019s cabin.<\/p>\n

\u201cDefendants claim this flood was unforeseeable and a magnitude beyond comprehension,\u201d the Stewards\u2019 attorneys said. \u201cNot true. The Eastlands knew Camp Mystic had decades of previous flooding history. They celebrated the 1932 flood every year on trivia night.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Eastlands also received weather warnings on July 2 and July 3, two days before the flood, the lawsuit said.<\/p>\n

Cile was attending her first year at Camp Mystic, the lawsuit said. \u201cCile was a vibrant, intelligent and deeply loved child and older sister,\u201d it said. \u201cShe possessed a rare combination of joy, curiosity, independence, humor, pluck, athleticism and creativity that drew others to her.\u201d The last thing the 8-year-old said to her mother before she left for camp, according to the lawsuit, was \u201cMom, don\u2019t worry, I\u2019m going to be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The parents of an 8-year-old Austin girl whose body has not been recovered since she was swept away…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,2330,815,2327,27,13890,172],"class_list":{"0":"post-154555","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news","11":"tag-camp-mystic","12":"tag-courts","13":"tag-environment","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-texas-flooding","16":"tag-weather"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}