{"id":273636,"date":"2026-04-30T22:51:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T22:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/273636\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T22:51:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T22:51:07","slug":"camp-mystic-drops-summer-reopening-plan-over-outrage-by-families-and-texas-lawmakers-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/273636\/","title":{"rendered":"Camp Mystic drops summer reopening plan over outrage by families and Texas lawmakers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

AUSTIN, Texas\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Camp Mystic on Thursday halted plans to reopen this summer on the Texas river where floodwaters killed 25 girls and two teenage counselors, backing down in the face of outraged families<\/a> and investigations that accused the all-girls Christian camp of dangerous safety and operational deficiencies.<\/p>\n

The decision, a striking reversal of the camp owners\u2019 determination to reopen<\/a>, follows weeks of testimony in court hearings and legislative investigations. Those hearings laid bare<\/a> the camp\u2019s lack of detailed planning for a flood emergency, reliance on poorly trained staff and missed chances for an evacuation that came too late as floodwaters ripped through the camp over the July 4 weekend last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never imagined a world without our daughters, and no decision made now can change that,\u201d Matthew Childress, father of 18-year-old counselor Chloe Childress who died, said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The camp\u2019s owner, Dick Eastland, also died in the flooding.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo administrative process or summer season should move forward while families continue to grieve, while investigations continue and while so many Texans still carry the pain of last July\u2019s tragedy,\u201d Camp Mystic said in a statement.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed Thursday that the camp has withdrawn its application.<\/p>\n

The decision was praised by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who opposed the camp\u2019s reopening<\/a> while investigations were ongoing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am thankful to hear that, today, the Eastland family withdrew their application,\u201d Patrick said in a statement. \u201cGiven the tragic circumstances, this is the correct decision to protect Texas campers and to allow time for all investigations to be completed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has not weighed in publicly on whether the camp should reopen, noted in a statement Thursday that the result of ongoing investigations into Camp Mystic by the Department of State Health Services and the Texas Rangers \u201cwill be made public as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The families of the victims packed the court and legislative hearings, often wearing \u201cHeaven\u2019s 27\u201d pins with photographs of their daughters. They listened to the details of missed flood warning signs, the descriptions of the flood and the decision to leave the girls in their cabins until it was too late. The testimony included video of the raging floodwaters as a girl repeatedly screamed for \u201chelp!\u201d somewhere in the distance.<\/p>\n

Edward Eastland, one of the camp directors and a member of the Eastland family that owns and operates the 100-year-old camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River, offered a tearful public apology to the victims\u2019 families on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tried our hardest that night. It wasn\u2019t enough to save your daughters,\u201d Eastland said, with the victims\u2019 families sitting behind him. \u201cI\u2019m so sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Camp Mystic seemed determined to reopen. Camp officials invited journalists and lawmakers to review safety improvements at the camp, promised that no camp activities would take place in the low-lying area that was devastated and impressed that hundreds of families wanted to return, underscoring how special a place it was for generations of Texans.<\/p>\n

A least 850 campers signed up to return this year. Reports that so many families were prepared to send their daughters back<\/a> this summer caused divisions within the close-knit community of Mystic alumni.<\/p>\n

All told, the destructive flooding killed at least 136 people along a several-mile stretch of the river, raising questions<\/a> about how things went so terribly wrong.<\/p>\n

Texas health regulators have said they are investigating hundreds of complaints against the camp\u2019s owners. The Texas Rangers are also looking into allegations of neglect, according to the Texas Department of Safety, although the scope of the state\u2019s elite investigations unit was not immediately clear.<\/p>\n

The camp, established in 1926, did not evacuate as the storm rolled in and was hit hard when the river rose from 14 feet to 29.5 feet within 60 minutes.<\/p>\n

Vertuno and Murphy write for the Associated Press. Murphy reported from Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Camp Mystic on Thursday halted plans to reopen this summer on the Texas river where floodwaters killed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":273637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,71910,2330,101445,9129,5599,541,101446,45566,100,3811,17154,23914,3731,28655,92162],"class_list":["post-273636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-camp","tag-camp-mystic","tag-camp-owner","tag-daughter","tag-decision","tag-family","tag-floodwater","tag-girl","tag-investigation","tag-july","tag-plan","tag-statement","tag-summer","tag-texas-department","tag-texas-lawmaker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273636","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=273636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}