Camp Mystic lawsuits filed

[Anonymous]

This is Texas

They don't care about kids
Ulvade told us that
They don't care about criminals Paxton still has a job.
They don't care about families Tony Tinderholt 5 times DV still has his job as a state rep.

[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.

You knew how close the cabins were to the river, presumably.

[Anonymous]

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.

They moved the equipment to the same level as the cabins. They didn’t move it to higher ground than the cabins.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

DP here. There is a huge in depth piece with maps, pictures, videos and interactive graphics on NYT. Extremely well done.

I support the families suing. The Eastlands were extremely negligent. That being said, I truly think they were just not smart. I don’t think they realized the risk they were taking. It was interesting in the article to see that the water line in Bubble Inn was only 6 feet. Meaning if they could have stayed on the top bunks without floating away, they would have lived. Of course they had no way to know the water wouldn’t rise to the ceiling. But it didn’t, at least not in that specific cabin.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

DP here. There is a huge in depth piece with maps, pictures, videos and interactive graphics on NYT. Extremely well done.

I support the families suing. The Eastlands were extremely negligent. That being said, I truly think they were just not smart. I don’t think they realized the risk they were taking. It was interesting in the article to see that the water line in Bubble Inn was only 6 feet. Meaning if they could have stayed on the top bunks without floating away, they would have lived. Of course they had no way to know the water wouldn’t rise to the ceiling. But it didn’t, at least not in that specific cabin.

Clearly they should have known exactly how high the water would go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

DP here. There is a huge in depth piece with maps, pictures, videos and interactive graphics on NYT. Extremely well done.

I support the families suing. The Eastlands were extremely negligent. That being said, I truly think they were just not smart. I don’t think they realized the risk they were taking. It was interesting in the article to see that the water line in Bubble Inn was only 6 feet. Meaning if they could have stayed on the top bunks without floating away, they would have lived. Of course they had no way to know the water wouldn’t rise to the ceiling. But it didn’t, at least not in that specific cabin.

Clearly they should have known exactly how high the water would go.

Read the article. Point is, nothing they did that night indicated they had any clue what could and did happen until it was far too late.

[Anonymous]

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.

But maybe you shouldn’t just use word of mouth when it comes to the safety of your kids. That’s the lesson.

I mean these are people who are outsourcing all their kids’ basic needs to other people from the time they’re born. They’re in the habit of choosing the highly-rated help and trusting the reputation

Are you a SAHP who never had a babysitter or a child in daycare? Do you home school your child? Most parents in this area do work outside the home these days, and most get childcare solutions by getting references from other parents, checking online reviews and getting background checks for people working in their home.

If you're pulling flood maps and checking the building inspection report of your kids' school, more power to you, but most people don't do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

DP here. There is a huge in depth piece with maps, pictures, videos and interactive graphics on NYT. Extremely well done.

I support the families suing. The Eastlands were extremely negligent. That being said, I truly think they were just not smart. I don’t think they realized the risk they were taking. It was interesting in the article to see that the water line in Bubble Inn was only 6 feet. Meaning if they could have stayed on the top bunks without floating away, they would have lived. Of course they had no way to know the water wouldn’t rise to the ceiling. But it didn’t, at least not in that specific cabin.

Clearly they should have known exactly how high the water would go.

Read the article. Point is, nothing they did that night indicated they had any clue what could and did happen until it was far too late.

What did their hydrologist tell them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

It's not understandable when you're responsible for other people's children. In our school system, if there's a tornado warning, we live the portable classrooms and go inside the main building. We don't wait to see if it's really going to be bad or not. The actions of the Camp Mystic owners are indefensible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

It's not understandable when you're responsible for other people's children. In our school system, if there's a tornado warning, we live the portable classrooms and go inside the main building. We don't wait to see if it's really going to be bad or not. The actions of the Camp Mystic owners are indefensible.

We LEAVE the portable classrooms...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

DP here. There is a huge in depth piece with maps, pictures, videos and interactive graphics on NYT. Extremely well done.

I support the families suing. The Eastlands were extremely negligent. That being said, I truly think they were just not smart. I don’t think they realized the risk they were taking. It was interesting in the article to see that the water line in Bubble Inn was only 6 feet. Meaning if they could have stayed on the top bunks without floating away, they would have lived. Of course they had no way to know the water wouldn’t rise to the ceiling. But it didn’t, at least not in that specific cabin.

Clearly they should have known exactly how high the water would go.

Read the article. Point is, nothing they did that night indicated they had any clue what could and did happen until it was far too late.

Government agencies knew and even gave them money to put systems in place to reduce fatalities. Texas said no. ODD is a source of pride there and they didn’t want the “feds” and Biden telling them what to do. They insist on the freedom to make bad choices. This is the consequence.

My mother went to Mystic. It’s a great place. But they and Texas authorities made a series of bad decisions that all revolved around contempt for government, and these deaths were preventable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

DP here. There is a huge in depth piece with maps, pictures, videos and interactive graphics on NYT. Extremely well done.

I support the families suing. The Eastlands were extremely negligent. That being said, I truly think they were just not smart. I don’t think they realized the risk they were taking. It was interesting in the article to see that the water line in Bubble Inn was only 6 feet. Meaning if they could have stayed on the top bunks without floating away, they would have lived. Of course they had no way to know the water wouldn’t rise to the ceiling. But it didn’t, at least not in that specific cabin.

Clearly they should have known exactly how high the water would go.

Read the article. Point is, nothing they did that night indicated they had any clue what could and did happen until it was far too late.

Government agencies knew and even gave them money to put systems in place to reduce fatalities. Texas said no. ODD is a source of pride there and they didn’t want the “feds” and Biden telling them what to do. They insist on the freedom to make bad choices. This is the consequence.

My mother went to Mystic. It’s a great place. But they and Texas authorities made a series of bad decisions that all revolved around contempt for government, and these deaths were preventable.

+1 This was bad camp management and incompetent local government meshed up together to kill a bunch of little girls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

DP here. There is a huge in depth piece with maps, pictures, videos and interactive graphics on NYT. Extremely well done.

I support the families suing. The Eastlands were extremely negligent. That being said, I truly think they were just not smart. I don’t think they realized the risk they were taking. It was interesting in the article to see that the water line in Bubble Inn was only 6 feet. Meaning if they could have stayed on the top bunks without floating away, they would have lived. Of course they had no way to know the water wouldn’t rise to the ceiling. But it didn’t, at least not in that specific cabin.

Wrong. Read the lawsuits, they include pictures. The water rose in one cabin to 5.75 inches from the ceiling. Horrific. It was either Bubble Inn or Twins.

[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.

No. You are wrong. Stop making excuses for these people.
For the last two summers I worked for a few weeks at an overnight summer camp in NC. Had in-depth conversations with the camp owner about what it means to responsible for hundreds of young people in your care. How you anticipate problems, even worst case scenarios. How you spend money to make sure your camp is as safe as possible, and you happily invite inspections so you can be accredited.
She was so angry and disgusted with the Camp Mystic owners. As am I. They knew better, but were happy to cut corners and take those risks.

You often don't know you're in a worst-case scenario until after it's over. That's the problem. You need to make decisions off incomplete information. How do you balance the moderate-impact risks that are direct and apparent (i.e., an evacuation at night through severe weather) against unprecedented (and thus, highly unlikely) risks with catastrophic impacts (i.e., a record-level flood that grew in record time)?

Suppose it had been like the 1987 flood, but they chose to evacuate through dangerous conditions, leading to (a much smaller number of) injuries or deaths? People now would be saying they should have sheltered-in-place, on the basis that this kind of flood was highly unlikely.

PP here - the risk I’m talking about, mostly, is the location of the cabins. Why build cabins in a flood plain? It’s my understanding that camp mystic owners lobbied to have that particular area un-designated as a part of a flood plain. So, why did they do that? Money? Cram more campers into that camp?
Also, the camp where I worked had all kinds of storm/lightning/weather alert systems installed. Cost them a lot of money, but gotta keep kids safe! Doesn’t seem like the mystic folks felt the need to do that…

[Anonymous]

That whole part of Texas is called Flood Alley. The Republican controlled local govt turned down free federal government money to install a flood warning system because they wanted to stick it to Biden. Stick it to a few cabins full of dead 9 year olds is more like it.

Flooded Texas County Turned Down Funds for Warning System From Biden Admin in 2021: 'We Don't Want to Be Bought'
A Texas county devastated by deadly flooding earlier this month rejected federal funds in 2021 that could have helped install a flood warning system, with local officials and residents arguing they didn't want to be "bought" by the Biden administration.

As far back as 2016, officials considered a $1 million siren and gauge system to warn both locals and the flood-prone region's many visitors, the Texas Tribune reported. But despite multiple meetings and FEMA grant applications, funding efforts repeatedly stalled, first due to missing mitigation plans, then due to shifting priorities after Hurricane Harvey.