 "Certified safe, proven fatal: Camp Mystic’s disaster plan under scrutiny after deadly Texas flood")
Texas’ ill-fated Camp Mystic may not have been following state regulations regarding emergency measures, despite it having received green light from state inspectors just two days before flash flooding killed more than two dozen people at the all-girls Christian summer camp.
News agency Associated Press accessed five years of inspection reports and found that key details regarding the implementation of safety and emergency measures were missing.
On Tuesday (July 8), the Department of State Health Services released documents showing how the camp was following state regulations regarding disaster response. Among them was instructing campers what to do if they need to evacuate and assigning specific duties to each staff member and counsellor.
However, inspection reports accessed by AP didn’t have those details.
How tragedy unfolded
The camp, whose history dates back to 1926, didn’t order immediate evacuation even after the Guadalupe River rose from 14 feet (4.2 meters) to 29.5 feet (9 meters) within an hour.
According to figures released Tuesday, at least 27 campers and counsellors died during the floods.
Among the dead was Richard “Dick” Eastland, the camp’s beloved director described by campers as a father figure.
‘Never received emergency instructions’
Charlotte Lauten, 19, attended Camp Mystic for nine summers, most recently in 2023. She noted that she never received guidance as a camper on handling weather emergencies.
Lauten mentioned that the darkness likely made it difficult for the girls to escape.
She explained that campers lack access to phones during camp and that the remote location has no cell service.
Nod from inspectors
On July 2, the Texas Department of State Health Services inspected Camp Mystic, coinciding with the Texas Division of Emergency Management’s activation of emergency resources due to expected flooding.
The inspection found no issues across numerous health and safety standards.
At the time, the camp hosted 557 campers and over 100 staff members across its Guadalupe and Cypress Lake sites.
Lara Anton, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services, stated that while disaster plans must be displayed in all camp buildings, they are not required to be submitted to the state.
Impact Shorts
View All“We do not have them,” Anton said in an email. “You’d have to get it from the camp.”
“The inspector checked that they had plans posted for those elements in every building,” Anton said, “and that they had trained staff and volunteers on what to do.”
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