{"id":254356,"date":"2026-04-17T15:47:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T15:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/254356\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T15:47:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T15:47:30","slug":"witnesses-testify-on-last-day-of-camp-mystic-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/254356\/","title":{"rendered":"Witnesses testify on last day of Camp Mystic lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 A hearing in the lawsuit filed by the parents of Cile Steward, an 8-year-old girl who died in the July 4 flood at Camp Mystic, concluded with testimony from two final witnesses<\/a> detailing the events of that morning.<\/p>\n

Cile Steward\u2019s body has not been found. She was among 27 campers and counselors who died when floodwaters swept through the camp.<\/p>\n

Catie Eastland, director of Camp Mystic Cypress Lake, testified about her actions during the early hours of the flooding. The Eastland family owns the camp, and Cypress Lake is a section that was not inundated. On the stand, Eastland denied abandoning the child, stating, \u201cNo ma\u2019am, I had no access to Cile.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eastland described attempting to account for campers amid rapidly deteriorating conditions. When asked when she realized the severity of the situation, she said it became clear during evacuations, adding that it was \u201cprobably around 7:30\u201d when she left on an amphibious vehicle.<\/p>\n

Glenn Jaunke, the security guard on duty that night, also testified. He told the court his shift was scheduled from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., but he remained on site as heavy rain intensified. \u201cIt started raining very hard,\u201d he said, explaining why he did not leave at the end of his shift.<\/p>\n

RELATED| ‘I wish we had more information’: Camp Mystic directors take stand at Day 2 of hearing<\/a><\/p>\n

KEYE<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Jaunke said he was unaware of the scale of the flooding approaching. When he checked upstream rain gauges, he found that \u201cthe majority of them were not online.\u201d<\/p>\n

He testified that he attempted to evacuate campers by moving through rising water to reach cabins, including one known as Bubble Inn. According to his testimony, the water that engulfed the cabin came from Edmondson Creek.<\/p>\n

Jaunke told the court he later informed Eastland that the flooding was catastrophic, stating, \u201cI don\u2019t care what kind of evacuation plans there were, nothing would have worked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attorneys for the Steward family argued that Camp Mystic lacked a written evacuation plan, that no announcement was made over a loudspeaker directing campers to higher ground, and that alerts issued before the flooding were not acted upon. During testimony, Jaunke acknowledged that if he had been paying attention to his phone, he would have known about a life-threatening flood.<\/p>\n

The judge ordered that evidence be preserved but allowed the camp\u2019s owners continued access to the property for maintenance. The first of five lawsuits filed by parents is scheduled to go to trial<\/a> in May of next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 A hearing in the lawsuit filed by the parents of Cile Steward, an 8-year-old girl…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-254356","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"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254356","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=254356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}