![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1777384149_923_.webp\")
An investigator found that the camp\u2019s counselors, most of whom were college-age and responsible for caring for children as young as 8 years old, lacked emergency training. (Rachel Osier Lindley | The Texas Newsroom)<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\tAn investigator found that the camp\u2019s counselors, most of whom were college-age and responsible for caring for children as young as 8 years old, lacked emergency training. (Rachel Osier Lindley | The Texas Newsroom)<\/p>\n
The leaders of Camp Mystic exhibited a \u201ccomplacent\u201d attitude toward flooding prior to last July\u2019s deluge that resulted in the deaths of 28 people at the historic Christian girls\u2019 summer camp, an investigator told state lawmakers on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just part of life there,\u201d Casey Garrett said at a joint hearing of two legislative committees tasked<\/a> with investigating the flood.<\/p>\n That\u2019s despite the camp\u2019s owners, members of the Eastland family, being familiar with the danger flooding posed to the area, she said.<\/p>\n Garrett, who conducted more than 140 interviews, described hearing how some campers staying in an area called Senior Hill would have food delivered to their cabins when the land bridge connecting them to the rest of the camp became inundated with floodwater from nearby Cypress Creek.<\/p>\n \u201cMany people in this room told me \u2026 \u2018We liked it because we could stay in our cabins and have food delivered to us by boat,’\u201d Garrett said. \u201cIt was novel. It was part of camp lore.\u201d<\/p>\n RELATED: New details about Camp Mystic flood response could play role in wrongful death lawsuits<\/a><\/p>\n That attitude, she told lawmakers, ultimately proved to be deadly.<\/p>\n \u201c[The Eastlands] are loving, Christian people. Unfortunately, they were running a multi-million-dollar, for-profit business like \u2026 something from 1965,\u201d Garrett said. \u201cThese people did not want this to happen. They are good people that cared about these girls and these families, but nothing had changed in decades.\u201d<\/p>\n She said the camp\u2019s counselors, most of whom were college-age and responsible for caring for children as young as 8 years old, lacked emergency training. They also lacked access to radios, walkie-talkies, phones, tool kits, ladders or life jackets.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately, every single person that I\u2019ve spoken with that are former counselors, current counselors \u2014 there was never any real training. There were never drills, no drills of any kind,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n