AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Young and inexperienced Camp Mystic counselors were not trained to help campers during floods or other emergencies, and feared making decisions on their own, an investigator into the flood that killed 27 counselors and campers told Texas lawmakers Monday.
Lawmakers heard an emotional and sweeping review of a camp "obedience" culture that paired poorly trained teenage counselors with the youngest campers; was complacent about flood warnings; had poor communications; and critically delayed evacuation efforts.
"There was never any real training, no drills of any kind," for counselors or campers of what do to or where to go in a flood threat, said Casey Garrett, a special legislative committee's investigator. She was addressing the committee's first hearing on the July Fourth flood that swept through the all-girls Christian camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River.
Twenty-five campers and two teenage counselors were killed. Camp owner Richard Eastland was also killed as he desperately tried to evacuate girls to higher ground.
Training and an earlier evacuation call likely would have saved every girl, some of whom would have needed to walk just about 20 steps to get to a two-story building, Garrett said.
Garrett noted that most of the victims were under age 10, some attending camp for the first time, and that the counselors in the hardest hit cabins were among the youngest and most inexperienced at the camp.
Many of the grim details had already been made public through hearings, media reports and interviews, but the state report presentation — built on interviews with about 150 people including campers, counselors, the Eastland family and victims' families — presented them in a stark, streamlined review. A written report of findings is expected later this year.
READ MORE: Camp Mystic parents seek stronger camp regulations in other states
"The fate of those girls was set before any drop of rain fell." Sen. Charles Perry said during the hearing.
He continued: "The things that were common sense and the things that should have been done, didn't get done."
Dozens of victim family members attended the hearing. Some sobbed or walked out when photos of their girls and the destroyed camp site were displayed, or when they heard their loved ones' names read aloud.
The report laid out almost a minute-by-minute account of flood warnings, communications among Eastland family members and calls for help. It also noted some harrowing survivor accounts, including of a girl who was swept more than 6 miles downriver. She told investigators she was sucked underwater several times before she washed up on a debris pile and fell asleep. She was rescued the next morning by two women who heard her cries for help.
One girl recalled how the floodwaters in her cabin rose so high that her chin touched the ceiling. Garret described another girl bear-hugging a column with her arms and legs to stay out of the water. One counselor told investigators she pushed girls underwater to get them through the door of a flooded cabin.
The committee saw video of water rushing into a building through cracks in the door. In cellphone video shot by a stranded camper, a girl can be heard yelling "Help!" in the dark, raging floodwaters.
Garrett, a Houston attorney who also helped with the Legislature's report on the 2022 Uvalde school shooting, several times noted the lack of emergency training for the teenage counselors and child campers.
There was no detailed evacuation plan, she said, and the only instruction for the girls in low-lying areas of the camp was a one-paragraph directive that told them to "stay in their cabins unless told otherwise by the office. All cabins are constructed on high, safe locations." A state inspector approved that plan two days before the flood.
Eventually, some counselors took matters into their own hands and pushed girls through cabin windows to scramble up a hill.
"It wasn't a plan. It wasn't a safe plan, It was an option taken, thank God," Garrett said. "It was very ad hoc."
Some of the young counselors had told their parents before the flood they were concerned about a lack of training for emergencies, she said.
Camp Mystic's owners want to reopen in late May and have said they will only use parts of the camp that didn't flood. They expect nearly 900 girls on campus this summer. Those plans have angered victims' families, and some prominent state officials have called for state regulators to deny or delay renewal of the camp's license, which is under review.
Last year, Texas lawmakers passed new measures to demand more detailed planning and training, and the installation of emergency warning systems. The Legislature doesn't meet again until January 2027 and the panel does not control the review of Camp Mystic's license.
Some counselors told investigators they feared getting into trouble if they were to take children to higher ground or out into the storm without explicit instructions.
Garrett described the camp's "obedience-encouraged" culture dominated by Eastland, the campus patriarch. Some members of the Eastland family and camp staff referred to him as "The General" and "The Eagle."
"He ruled," his wife, Tweety, told investigators. Several Eastland family members attended the hearing and some are expected to speak to the panel on Tuesday.
"He was running the show over there. … You just really didn't cross him," Garrett said of Richard Eastland.
The camp relied almost exclusively on Eastland for how to act in a flood emergency. The owner's son, Edward Eastland, testified in a lawsuit last week that any detailed flood evacuation plan was simply inside his father's head. Family members told investigators Richard Eastland was "obsessed" with weather and monitored warnings.
Richard Eastland and several girls were was found dead in his vehicle after he tried to drive them to safety. Edward Eastland was swept by the floodwaters into a tree. Camp security officer Glenn Juenke survived although he was trapped in a flooded cabin with campers.
Garrett also described Richard Eastland as a popular camp leader who taught generations of girls how to fish. He also had a knack for comforting young campers who were nervous about their first time away from home.
"We do know Dick Eastland loved every little girl who came to Camp Mystic," Garrett said.
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