Homes are built in flood plains all over the country, and all up and down the coasts. Properties that weren’t prone to flooding or mud slides are now because of fires in past years (the NM floods are because of heavy rain in an area that had fires last year). There is no vegetation to absorb the water.
Years ago, John Stossle did a personal piece that his beach home was destroyed after beach flooding because of a hurricane. He had federal flood insurance and it paid for a new $$$$Million dollar house. And two years later it happened again. He decided it wasn’t fair for the government to have to keep paying for a new house for him. He sold it to another millionaire who bought federal flood insurance and I’m sure it has happened again and again.
Here we have groups of camps like this (10-15 in the same area) but they are in the mountains and not by a river. The danger is fire and the evacuation plans are for fires. It’s difficult to get the kids out of there quickly as the camps have vans or buses, but not enough for everyone to go at once. Normally they cart 50 kids out and then have to go back for the next 50, a process that can take 2 hours per van load.
I remember I was at camp once when a tornado warning was issued. The cabins were all raise about 4’ off the ground on cinder blocks. The dining hall was the only big building and it too was raised. They had us all go to the field that was sort of a natural gully and lie there until the warning or watch was over. No tornado came, but they didn’t have any way to get 75 girls and about 2 dozen staff to a tornado shelter. I don’t even think there were vans at the camp, probably just some counselor cars and a pick up truck.
In theory, insurance markets should take care of that.
However, “100 year floods”, major earthquakes, and regional wildfires are hard to predict the risk of and can result in catastrophic losses for insurance companies, because a lot of insured property get damaged or destroyed all at once (as opposed to random scattered houses burning down or whatever that is a well known cost). So insurance companies may underestimate risk (and suffer large losses when the big event hits) or are spooked from offering insurance at all, even to lower risk customers.
“…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
Which is to answer: The governmental agency that was wrongheaded enough to greenlight building in those areas.
There isn’t a way to avoid building in areas that might flood, sure. But there sure are ways to avoid building in areas that are legitimate floodways.
(And would I include fire- and hurricane-prone areas? If I were dictator, yes. Like I said when I first brought this up, I will readily admit that my position on this is pretty extreme.)
I’m guessing that the building code was different.
That’s one of the problems, there’s been development for a century, now there is knowledge they didn’t have. So you would have to compensate someone for something they’ve had. For a century.
As it is from one of the articles listed above, the land is more valuable than the revenue from these camps. There was a lawsuit in 2011, I think because of this.
I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about the flood and the aftermath. Horrific what these girls went through. So sad
Camp Mystic Executive Director Richard “Dick” Eastland did not begin to evacuate the young campers asleep in cabins near the rapidly rising Guadalupe River for more than an hour after he received a severe flood warning on his phone from the National Weather Service at 1:14 a.m. on July 4, the family said through a spokesman.
Eastland — who had run the beloved Christian-centered all-girls camp in Hunt, Texas, with his wife since the 1980s — rallied family members, some of whom lived and worked at the camp, on walkie-talkies to “assess the situation” soon after the alert went out, said Jeff Carr, the family’s spokesman. At 2:30 a.m., when rain was falling hard and fast, Eastland decided to begin evacuating campers, Carr said.
The local fire dept has no record that any of the Camp staff called 911 to ask for help with evacuation. Neither does the county sheriff’s dept.
Those who lived and worked at the camp said flooding was common. Campers on Senior Hill often couldn’t get across the walkway to the dining hall in the mornings due to flooding and had to have their meals delivered by canoe. And Tweety Eastman had to be airlifted by military helicopter to get to the hospital to deliver her son in 1985.
Counselors were given conflicting messages from camp staff about whether they should stay or evacuate. Counselors were mostly left on their own to make that decision.
I see many lawsuits happening in the future. Sure sounds like there was a lack of clear leadership at the camp. And reading the article and the what the family spokesperson is saying, I kind of wonder if the family is going to make Dick Eastland a scapegoat and try to paint him as the one responsible for deaths of the campers and counselors.
The nightwatchman’s story is also odd. I assume he got the same severe flood warning at 1:14. If he didn’t have a way to get weather alerts, that camp was severely negligent. He says he was watching flood gauges along the river, but that several of them weren’t working. Why was a counselor the first person to recognize and try to report that her cabin was flooding? The security person should, at the very least, have been walking the grounds at that point. Those college-age counselors are the heroes of this story. The people who were supposed to be in charge of the safety of the campers drastically failed them.
My other thought after reading the article in The Washington Post is I’ll bet that Dick Eastman’s brother (Stanley Eastman) and sister (Nancy Eastman Leaton) with whom he had a prolonged and very nasty internecine legal battle over camp control and ownership are so very glad they sold their interest in the camp to Dick in 2012.
The brother and sister have multi-million dollar liens against the camp and its property. (Because Dick Eastman didn’t have the cash to buy them out.) I’ll bet the land ends up getting sold to pay off the liens and legal settlements with the families of the deceased campers and counselors.
A tiny thing in that article that is really bothering me. The Eastlands had a walkie-talkie system to communicate with each other. I wonder if that system included the security person. The counselors in the cabins had no way to communicate with anyone except in person. That seems like a huge lapse.
Ok, I’m late to this thread because it hit too hard. I haven’t even read all the responses because some made me angry and that isn’t right because everyone deserves their opinion.
My daughter went to Heart O’ the Hills just down the street from Mystic for years. Jane Ragsdale was a person we considered a friend. She died at her camp in the flooding. She phoned her brother when she found the water running (He is co-owner/director of the boys camp on the North Fork of the Guadalupe. He was able to run out and rescue some friends that lived on camp property. Their mother also lives at the boys camp. They are devastated. Heart was almost totally destroyed in the flooding. It has stood since the 1920s. Buildings my daugher had spent her summers in were washed away. It was just lucky for that camp they were between terms and the counselors were taking a break that night too. This was a wonderful camp with wonderful owners who advocated for safety. I am so sad for this loss.
The boys camp where my son went for years, played sports on the off season and where he found his love for veterinary medicine was on the North fork of the Guadalupe along with a girl’s camp Waldermar (and many others). Mystic and Heart were on the South Fork which had the dramatic flooding. The boy’s camp survived with minimal damage. Again that camp was on it’s break between terms.
I heard these camps advocate for a siren system. They wanted it and it kept being turned down. Now I hope it is put into place. They camps made huge differences in my children’s lives. These people love the children that go there. Many like my son become friends. He even invited the owner to his wedding and had people from camp there. He started camp at age 6 and went until he was 17. I would do it again.
I had met the Eastlands (owner/directors of Mystic) a couple of times at parties and they were wonderful people. The entire town is like a big family. We know people that lost their homes, family members, friends.
The loss of those little girl’s is tragic and I cry for them, their parents and families. I know the camp community will be safer from all this. Will it be foolproof no. Would I send my grandson to the boys camp? Yes I would, I would want to know details on the way they would handle something like this today. (That camp did have communications with the cabins available at all times, I think it was Walkie Talkies in each cabin but I don’t remember for sure).
Just please realize these camps had been there almost 100 years or more. They feel like home to many of us. We added it up and my son spent over a year of his life at camp because he loved it so much! We are heartbroken over the entire event and the fact that no one would listen about the sirens and felt money was more important that potentially saving lives.
Information is coming out that other camps in the area were keeping track of the weather and took action to move their campers to higher ground.
I suspect that lawsuits against Camp Mystic will use the fact that other camps took early action (and suffered no casualties as a result) to show that Mystic leadership failed in a spectacular way. I don’t know if the camp can survive this. One of the parents who lost two daughters in this tragedy is a highly respected attorney-a litigator, in fact. After all of the dust settles, he may decide to organize a class action suit against the camp. It won’t bring his daughters back, but often the reason for lawsuits of this kind are to effect meaningful change.
You don’t need a class action (which usually end up with a big fee for the law firm and a much reduced payment to those injured) when the parties are known. Class actions usually have unknown plaintiffs who need to be identified by the attorneys who filed for the class, like all those postcards we get in the mail to get $5.75 from Round-up, an insurance company. Equifax. In this case, the plaintiffs will be the named campers (probably all 700+, not just the 27 who died) but the group is finite. Or each camper could file separately.
Some of the other camps were not open yet so no campers there on July 4. Others were more uphill. And yes, more probably evacuated at 1 am.
I agree that the camp won’t survive and the land will be sold to pay the judgments that insurance doesn’t cover.
And not only them, but all ‘campers’ around the nation. A vlogger I follow went to an all girls camp in upstate NY and said she’s been talking to her camp friends since this happened because they are all still close some 35 years later and their friendships are important to them.
The family I was a nanny for had 3 kids who went to camp for K-12, building their seniority thru the years, becoming counselors. One married another camper when they were about 25.
After reading the 2011 Texas Monthly article about Camp Mystic and the family conflict and lawsuit concerning its operation, I am forced to conclude that the couple (Dick and Tweety Eastland) who ran the camp bear major responsibility for the loss of life in this horrible flood. It’s quite tragic that Dick Eastland himself died while trying to rescue campers but that (plus their major social clout in the area) should not override their apparent negligence.
Of course, there’s plenty of blame to go around with the local area failing to install flood warning sirens and the very limited phone signal in the area. However, the seeds for this tragedy were planted long before 2025.
Yeah. No need for a class action. Likely though a consolidation of all the lawsuits filed before one court. Though the family of the child from Alabama might want to file there if possible ( if the camp sent info there it’s likely that a suit there vs Texas woukd be available. I don’t remember if any of the other girls were from other states.
