Camp Mystic lawsuits filed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a camp counselor and at that age was very obedient to authority. I hope I would have had the presence of mind and confidence in my judgement to evacuate the kids despite being told to stay, but I'm not sure I would have, especially never having lived through major flooding. I likely would have trusted that the owners knew best. It's such a tragedy.

Those counselors that moved the kids are heroes.

The counselors that moved the kids, and the ones who stayed and died with their kids are all heroes. The counselors didn't have phones. They didn't have walkie talkies or weather radios. They aren't to blame for realizing that the camp leadership was giving them misinformation.

Was it misinformation, though? Or a [ultimately incorrect] risk assessment based on limited information, with dire consequences?

If this has been like the previous catastrophic flood in 1987, the water would have made it into some of the cabins, but probably wouldn't have posed a real danger. Unlike attempting an evacuation through severe weather with small kids, in the dark.

I don't think some of you understand how quickly the water rose and how exceptional the situation was compared to past floods.

I don't know what the camp officials knew or when they knew it. But I'm remembering my days at camp in the midwest. What if a severe storm had come through at night- one with the hallmarks of a storm that generates tornadoes? Do we hunker down in the tents? Hike through the storm to the shelter? At what point do head for a ditch or low ground? Obviously these days we'd expect to be notified of tornadoes based on radar and weather alerts, but that wasn't always the case.

Read the filing.
They were concerned about equipment due to the flood warning- and moved it. They definitely knew about the flooding. They did not check on campers. It was a SHORT walk from the cabins to the rec hall (pictures in the filing). I don’t know about you, but if a cabin has water coming in - I would rather get them to safety higher up than sit & wait having received numerous flash flood warnings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a camp counselor and at that age was very obedient to authority. I hope I would have had the presence of mind and confidence in my judgement to evacuate the kids despite being told to stay, but I'm not sure I would have, especially never having lived through major flooding. I likely would have trusted that the owners knew best. It's such a tragedy.

Those counselors that moved the kids are heroes.

The counselors that moved the kids, and the ones who stayed and died with their kids are all heroes. The counselors didn't have phones. They didn't have walkie talkies or weather radios. They aren't to blame for realizing that the camp leadership was giving them misinformation.

Was it misinformation, though? Or a [ultimately incorrect] risk assessment based on limited information, with dire consequences?

If this has been like the previous catastrophic flood in 1987, the water would have made it into some of the cabins, but probably wouldn't have posed a real danger. Unlike attempting an evacuation through severe weather with small kids, in the dark.

I don't think some of you understand how quickly the water rose and how exceptional the situation was compared to past floods.

I don't know what the camp officials knew or when they knew it. But I'm remembering my days at camp in the midwest. What if a severe storm had come through at night- one with the hallmarks of a storm that generates tornadoes? Do we hunker down in the tents? Hike through the storm to the shelter? At what point do head for a ditch or low ground? Obviously these days we'd expect to be notified of tornadoes based on radar and weather alerts, but that wasn't always the case.

Have you read the filings? They made a series of pisspoor decisions. One of the photos shows kids safely walking through ankle deep water to the rec hall at 3 am. There was a long period of time when evacuating the kids was entirely possible and was happening for some cabins, but for whatever reason not for others, despite them asking to evacuate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many parents dont investigate. They just assume someone is taking care of that stuff, even more so with rich people.

I’ll admit I’m guilty of this. DD spent a good chunk of her summers from ages 10-18 at a camp that I never saw much beyond the pickup/dropoff point, which looked lovely and very safe. Last year, she finally took us on a tour of the entire camp and I was shocked at how isolated and remote some of the areas were. I do think that they had excellent emergency plans in place, but I could also see how things could get dangerous really fast.

I mean, it was a camp for rich/upper middle class girls that has been around for generations. A lot of us go off of word of mouth recs from other parents rather than analyzing camp maps and flood risk data.

But yes the camp deserves to be sued. The wife of the camp owner who died had to be helicoptered out one year because of flood waters. They certainly knew how dangerous the situation was.

The husband knew enough to petition the state to have the doomed cabins removed from the flood plain so that he would be allowed to let girls sleep there.

They petitioned FEMA, likely hoping to reduce their flood insurance costs. And FEMA agreed with them. That seems to refute the claim they knew this was a plausible risk.

I grew up in the upper midwest with floods, but those were far slower floods than flash floods like this incident. It is mind-boggling to me how quickly this flood progressed-- the river rose 26 feet in 45 minutes!

Yes, the area was known for flash flooding, but every aspect of this was a worst-case scenario. This was the highest recorded flood level. It rose extraordinarily fast, even for this area. It happened over a holiday weekend, with less support/warning from local emergency services. And it occurred overnight, likely delaying their understanding of how bad the flood was getting and impairing evacuations.

I do think it was negligent to have cabins with kids that close to the river. And I think the camp should have been more careful with monitoring the situation and calling for evacuations. But it also seems like this was both a truly exceptional event and a situation where emergency services should have more infrastructure in place in detect and warn of major floods as they occur.

The bolded is no reason to not have reasonable plans. It was in a flood plain that had flooded badly in the past. The owners knew and should have been concerned just based on the weather forecast.

The area where the cabins were had not flooded like this before. There's a range of elevations there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many parents dont investigate. They just assume someone is taking care of that stuff, even more so with rich people.

I’ll admit I’m guilty of this. DD spent a good chunk of her summers from ages 10-18 at a camp that I never saw much beyond the pickup/dropoff point, which looked lovely and very safe. Last year, she finally took us on a tour of the entire camp and I was shocked at how isolated and remote some of the areas were. I do think that they had excellent emergency plans in place, but I could also see how things could get dangerous really fast.

I mean, it was a camp for rich/upper middle class girls that has been around for generations. A lot of us go off of word of mouth recs from other parents rather than analyzing camp maps and flood risk data.

But yes the camp deserves to be sued. The wife of the camp owner who died had to be helicoptered out one year because of flood waters. They certainly knew how dangerous the situation was.

The husband knew enough to petition the state to have the doomed cabins removed from the flood plain so that he would be allowed to let girls sleep there.

They petitioned FEMA, likely hoping to reduce their flood insurance costs. And FEMA agreed with them. That seems to refute the claim they knew this was a plausible risk.

I grew up in the upper midwest with floods, but those were far slower floods than flash floods like this incident. It is mind-boggling to me how quickly this flood progressed-- the river rose 26 feet in 45 minutes!

Yes, the area was known for flash flooding, but every aspect of this was a worst-case scenario. This was the highest recorded flood level. It rose extraordinarily fast, even for this area. It happened over a holiday weekend, with less support/warning from local emergency services. And it occurred overnight, likely delaying their understanding of how bad the flood was getting and impairing evacuations.

I do think it was negligent to have cabins with kids that close to the river. And I think the camp should have been more careful with monitoring the situation and calling for evacuations. But it also seems like this was both a truly exceptional event and a situation where emergency services should have more infrastructure in place in detect and warn of major floods as they occur.

The bolded is no reason to not have reasonable plans. It was in a flood plain that had flooded badly in the past. The owners knew and should have been concerned just based on the weather forecast.

No one in that region was preparing for a record-level flood based on the weather forecast. It wasn't just them. I'm sure they all knew there would be flooding, but this wasn't their typical flooding. Not even close.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a camp counselor and at that age was very obedient to authority. I hope I would have had the presence of mind and confidence in my judgement to evacuate the kids despite being told to stay, but I'm not sure I would have, especially never having lived through major flooding. I likely would have trusted that the owners knew best. It's such a tragedy.

Those counselors that moved the kids are heroes.

The counselors that moved the kids, and the ones who stayed and died with their kids are all heroes. The counselors didn't have phones. They didn't have walkie talkies or weather radios. They aren't to blame for realizing that the camp leadership was giving them misinformation.

Was it misinformation, though? Or a [ultimately incorrect] risk assessment based on limited information, with dire consequences?

If this has been like the previous catastrophic flood in 1987, the water would have made it into some of the cabins, but probably wouldn't have posed a real danger. Unlike attempting an evacuation through severe weather with small kids, in the dark.

I don't think some of you understand how quickly the water rose and how exceptional the situation was compared to past floods.

I don't know what the camp officials knew or when they knew it. But I'm remembering my days at camp in the midwest. What if a severe storm had come through at night- one with the hallmarks of a storm that generates tornadoes? Do we hunker down in the tents? Hike through the storm to the shelter? At what point do head for a ditch or low ground? Obviously these days we'd expect to be notified of tornadoes based on radar and weather alerts, but that wasn't always the case.

Have you read the filings? They made a series of pisspoor decisions. One of the photos shows kids safely walking through ankle deep water to the rec hall at 3 am. There was a long period of time when evacuating the kids was entirely possible and was happening for some cabins, but for whatever reason not for others, despite them asking to evacuate.

Are you kidding? What you saw in that picture was kids "safely walking" through water? It was obviously deeper than ankle-high. Worse, you can't see through muddy floodwater in the dark, so you didn't know how deep the next step would be.

That was absolutely not safe. With hindsight it was obviously worth the risk. But that's with hindsight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thing that gets me is this: most; if not all, of the girls who were lost had mothers and other relatives who went there before. They knew the setup. Why would you alllow your child to live in a structure well within flooding range? It’s just so dumb.

I went to Camp Mystic and had I had a daughter, would have sent her. The camp had been in operation 99 years and nothing bad has ever happened. There was never any flooding while I was there and it’s safe to say these parents assumed their daughters would have the same experience they had. This tragedy was unimaginable. I do hold the camp owners responsible since they did have knowledge the cabins were in a flood plain and rather than moving the cabins uphill, they worked to have this area excluded. I also don’t think there were proper safety measures in place. I suspect the victims will prevail in their lawsuits and I hope this gives their families some peace.

This sums it up well. I suspect these families were extremely upset by the news that the camp was planning to reopen this summer and may have pushed some to join the lawsuit. The owners of the camp probably should have "read the room" and figured out how to work with these families in a meaningful way to possibly reopen the camp in a much longer timeframe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many parents dont investigate. They just assume someone is taking care of that stuff, even more so with rich people.

I’ll admit I’m guilty of this. DD spent a good chunk of her summers from ages 10-18 at a camp that I never saw much beyond the pickup/dropoff point, which looked lovely and very safe. Last year, she finally took us on a tour of the entire camp and I was shocked at how isolated and remote some of the areas were. I do think that they had excellent emergency plans in place, but I could also see how things could get dangerous really fast.

I mean, it was a camp for rich/upper middle class girls that has been around for generations. A lot of us go off of word of mouth recs from other parents rather than analyzing camp maps and flood risk data.

But yes the camp deserves to be sued. The wife of the camp owner who died had to be helicoptered out one year because of flood waters. They certainly knew how dangerous the situation was.

The husband knew enough to petition the state to have the doomed cabins removed from the flood plain so that he would be allowed to let girls sleep there.

They petitioned FEMA, likely hoping to reduce their flood insurance costs. And FEMA agreed with them. That seems to refute the claim they knew this was a plausible risk.

I grew up in the upper midwest with floods, but those were far slower floods than flash floods like this incident. It is mind-boggling to me how quickly this flood progressed-- the river rose 26 feet in 45 minutes!

Yes, the area was known for flash flooding, but every aspect of this was a worst-case scenario. This was the highest recorded flood level. It rose extraordinarily fast, even for this area. It happened over a holiday weekend, with less support/warning from local emergency services. And it occurred overnight, likely delaying their understanding of how bad the flood was getting and impairing evacuations.

I do think it was negligent to have cabins with kids that close to the river. And I think the camp should have been more careful with monitoring the situation and calling for evacuations. But it also seems like this was both a truly exceptional event and a situation where emergency services should have more infrastructure in place in detect and warn of major floods as they occur.

The bolded is no reason to not have reasonable plans. It was in a flood plain that had flooded badly in the past. The owners knew and should have been concerned just based on the weather forecast.

No one in that region was preparing for a record-level flood based on the weather forecast. It wasn't just them. I'm sure they all knew there would be flooding, but this wasn't their typical flooding. Not even close.

And yet FEMA warned them and Biden gave them money to mitigate fatalities and risk but Texans have ODD and don’t like being “told what to do” so they turned it down and spent it elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the lawsuits makes it very plain that if they had only allowed the girls to walk the short distance to the rec hall even 20 mins earlier or hours earlier..they’d be alive.
Also mentioned they moved equipment to higher ground before evacuating a single camper. [/quote]

WHAT?? I did not know this before. This is criminal.

“The Camp Ignored the Warnings and Protected Equipment, Not Girls.

68. Richard and Edward met in the main office around 1:45 a.m., some 30 minutes after the warning. Rather than turning to the cabins, they convened the grounds crew and started securing equipment. The Camp reports it has a picture of Richard Eastland with the grounds crew at 2:13 a.m. still working on this task. By that point, 59 critical minutes had passed since defendants were warned
by the weather service of “life threatening flash flooding” impacting their camp.”

Page 15.
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/bellows-v-camp-mystic-lawsuit.pdf

So they had warning, they had time, they prioritized equipment over lives.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So many parents dont investigate. They just assume someone is taking care of that stuff, even more so with rich people.

I’ll admit I’m guilty of this. DD spent a good chunk of her summers from ages 10-18 at a camp that I never saw much beyond the pickup/dropoff point, which looked lovely and very safe. Last year, she finally took us on a tour of the entire camp and I was shocked at how isolated and remote some of the areas were. I do think that they had excellent emergency plans in place, but I could also see how things could get dangerous really fast.

I mean, it was a camp for rich/upper middle class girls that has been around for generations. A lot of us go off of word of mouth recs from other parents rather than analyzing camp maps and flood risk data.

But yes the camp deserves to be sued. The wife of the camp owner who died had to be helicoptered out one year because of flood waters. They certainly knew how dangerous the situation was.

The husband knew enough to petition the state to have the doomed cabins removed from the flood plain so that he would be allowed to let girls sleep there.

They petitioned FEMA, likely hoping to reduce their flood insurance costs. And FEMA agreed with them. That seems to refute the claim they knew this was a plausible risk.

I grew up in the upper midwest with floods, but those were far slower floods than flash floods like this incident. It is mind-boggling to me how quickly this flood progressed-- the river rose 26 feet in 45 minutes!

Yes, the area was known for flash flooding, but every aspect of this was a worst-case scenario. This was the highest recorded flood level. It rose extraordinarily fast, even for this area. It happened over a holiday weekend, with less support/warning from local emergency services. And it occurred overnight, likely delaying their understanding of how bad the flood was getting and impairing evacuations.

I do think it was negligent to have cabins with kids that close to the river. And I think the camp should have been more careful with monitoring the situation and calling for evacuations. But it also seems like this was both a truly exceptional event and a situation where emergency services should have more infrastructure in place in detect and warn of major floods as they occur.

The bolded is no reason to not have reasonable plans. It was in a flood plain that had flooded badly in the past. The owners knew and should have been concerned just based on the weather forecast.

No one in that region was preparing for a record-level flood based on the weather forecast. It wasn't just them. I'm sure they all knew there would be flooding, but this wasn't their typical flooding. Not even close.

And yet FEMA warned them and Biden gave them money to mitigate fatalities and risk but Texans have ODD and don’t like being “told what to do” so they turned it down and spent it elsewhere.

Huh? FEMA took areas *out* of the flood plain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the lawsuits makes it very plain that if they had only allowed the girls to walk the short distance to the rec hall even 20 mins earlier or hours earlier..they’d be alive.
[b]Also mentioned they moved equipment to higher ground before evacuating a single camper.

WHAT?? I did not know this before. This is criminal.

“The Camp Ignored the Warnings and Protected Equipment, Not Girls.

68. Richard and Edward met in the main office around 1:45 a.m., some 30 minutes after the warning. Rather than turning to the cabins, they convened the grounds crew and started securing equipment. The Camp reports it has a picture of Richard Eastland with the grounds crew at 2:13 a.m. still working on this task. By that point, 59 critical minutes had passed since defendants were warned
by the weather service of “life threatening flash flooding” impacting their camp.”

Page 15.
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/bellows-v-camp-mystic-lawsuit.pdf

So they had warning, they had time, they prioritized equipment over lives.

The equipment was outside and typically lower in elevation. Like everyone else, they were preparing for a typical flood, not a record-breaking one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the lawsuits makes it very plain that if they had only allowed the girls to walk the short distance to the rec hall even 20 mins earlier or hours earlier..they’d be alive.
[b]Also mentioned they moved equipment to higher ground before evacuating a single camper.

WHAT?? I did not know this before. This is criminal.

“The Camp Ignored the Warnings and Protected Equipment, Not Girls.

68. Richard and Edward met in the main office around 1:45 a.m., some 30 minutes after the warning. Rather than turning to the cabins, they convened the grounds crew and started securing equipment. The Camp reports it has a picture of Richard Eastland with the grounds crew at 2:13 a.m. still working on this task. By that point, 59 critical minutes had passed since defendants were warned
by the weather service of “life threatening flash flooding” impacting their camp.”

Page 15.
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/bellows-v-camp-mystic-lawsuit.pdf

So they had warning, they had time, they prioritized equipment over lives.

The equipment was outside and typically lower in elevation. Like everyone else, they were preparing for a typical flood, not a record-breaking one.

Even though this was well after they heard the announcement predicting record breaking flooding?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the lawsuits makes it very plain that if they had only allowed the girls to walk the short distance to the rec hall even 20 mins earlier or hours earlier..they’d be alive.
[b]Also mentioned they moved equipment to higher ground before evacuating a single camper.

WHAT?? I did not know this before. This is criminal.

“The Camp Ignored the Warnings and Protected Equipment, Not Girls.

68. Richard and Edward met in the main office around 1:45 a.m., some 30 minutes after the warning. Rather than turning to the cabins, they convened the grounds crew and started securing equipment. The Camp reports it has a picture of Richard Eastland with the grounds crew at 2:13 a.m. still working on this task. By that point, 59 critical minutes had passed since defendants were warned
by the weather service of “life threatening flash flooding” impacting their camp.”

Page 15.
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/bellows-v-camp-mystic-lawsuit.pdf

So they had warning, they had time, they prioritized equipment over lives.

The equipment was outside and typically lower in elevation. Like everyone else, they were preparing for a typical flood, not a record-breaking one.

Even though this was well after they heard the announcement predicting record breaking flooding?

Who was predicting record-breaking flooding?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the lawsuits makes it very plain that if they had only allowed the girls to walk the short distance to the rec hall even 20 mins earlier or hours earlier..they’d be alive.
[b]Also mentioned they moved equipment to higher ground before evacuating a single camper.

WHAT?? I did not know this before. This is criminal.

“The Camp Ignored the Warnings and Protected Equipment, Not Girls.

68. Richard and Edward met in the main office around 1:45 a.m., some 30 minutes after the warning. Rather than turning to the cabins, they convened the grounds crew and started securing equipment. The Camp reports it has a picture of Richard Eastland with the grounds crew at 2:13 a.m. still working on this task. By that point, 59 critical minutes had passed since defendants were warned
by the weather service of “life threatening flash flooding” impacting their camp.”

Page 15.
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/bellows-v-camp-mystic-lawsuit.pdf

So they had warning, they had time, they prioritized equipment over lives.

The equipment was outside and typically lower in elevation. Like everyone else, they were preparing for a typical flood, not a record-breaking one.

Even though this was well after they heard the announcement predicting record breaking flooding?

Who was predicting record-breaking flooding?

Thursday, July 3: First flood watches for the hard-hit area were issued in the afternoon around 1 p.m., predicting rain amounts of between 5 to 7 inches.

Kerr County warnings

Thursday, July 3, 12:41 a.m.: First flash flood watch (not to be confused with a flood watch) issued for Kerr County. Isolated rain amounts of 10 inches was mentioned.

Friday, July 4, 1:14 a.m.: Flash flood warning issued for Kerr County with the potential for life-threatening flooding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the lawsuits makes it very plain that if they had only allowed the girls to walk the short distance to the rec hall even 20 mins earlier or hours earlier..they’d be alive.
Also mentioned they moved equipment to higher ground before evacuating a single camper.

WHAT?? I did not know this before. This is criminal.

“The Camp Ignored the Warnings and Protected Equipment, Not Girls.

68. Richard and Edward met in the main office around 1:45 a.m., some 30 minutes after the warning. Rather than turning to the cabins, they convened the grounds crew and started securing equipment. The Camp reports it has a picture of Richard Eastland with the grounds crew at 2:13 a.m. still working on this task. By that point, 59 critical minutes had passed since defendants were warned
by the weather service of “life threatening flash flooding” impacting their camp.”

Page 15.
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/bellows-v-camp-mystic-lawsuit.pdf

So they had warning, they had time, they prioritized equipment over lives.

The equipment was outside and typically lower in elevation. Like everyone else, they were preparing for a typical flood, not a record-breaking one.

Even though this was well after they heard the announcement predicting record breaking flooding?

Who was predicting record-breaking flooding?

Thursday, July 3: First flood watches for the hard-hit area were issued in the afternoon around 1 p.m., predicting rain amounts of between 5 to 7 inches.

Kerr County warnings

Thursday, July 3, 12:41 a.m.: First flash flood watch (not to be confused with a flood watch) issued for Kerr County. Isolated rain amounts of 10 inches was mentioned.

Friday, July 4, 1:14 a.m.: Flash flood warning issued for Kerr County with the potential for life-threatening flooding.

Again, where's the prediction for *[b]record-level* flash flooding?

This is an area that frequently receives warnings for flash flooding. They were expecting a flash flood similar to the worst that they had seen. That's not great, but it is understandable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a camp counselor and at that age was very obedient to authority. I hope I would have had the presence of mind and confidence in my judgement to evacuate the kids despite being told to stay, but I'm not sure I would have, especially never having lived through major flooding. I likely would have trusted that the owners knew best. It's such a tragedy.

Those counselors that moved the kids are heroes.

The counselors that moved the kids, and the ones who stayed and died with their kids are all heroes. The counselors didn't have phones. They didn't have walkie talkies or weather radios. They aren't to blame for realizing that the camp leadership was giving them misinformation.

Was it misinformation, though? Or a [ultimately incorrect] risk assessment based on limited information, with dire consequences?

If this has been like the previous catastrophic flood in 1987, the water would have made it into some of the cabins, but probably wouldn't have posed a real danger. Unlike attempting an evacuation through severe weather with small kids, in the dark.

I don't think some of you understand how quickly the water rose and how exceptional the situation was compared to past floods.

I don't know what the camp officials knew or when they knew it. But I'm remembering my days at camp in the midwest. What if a severe storm had come through at night- one with the hallmarks of a storm that generates tornadoes? Do we hunker down in the tents? Hike through the storm to the shelter? At what point do head for a ditch or low ground? Obviously these days we'd expect to be notified of tornadoes based on radar and weather alerts, but that wasn't always the case.

Have you read the filings? They made a series of pisspoor decisions. One of the photos shows kids safely walking through ankle deep water to the rec hall at 3 am. There was a long period of time when evacuating the kids was entirely possible and was happening for some cabins, but for whatever reason not for others, despite them asking to evacuate.

Are you kidding? What you saw in that picture was kids "safely walking" through water? It was obviously deeper than ankle-high. Worse, you can't see through muddy floodwater in the dark, so you didn't know how deep the next step would be.

That was absolutely not safe. With hindsight it was obviously worth the risk. But that's with hindsight.

Where are you seeing these pictures?