Camp Mystic failed to train teenage counselors for floods, expert says

Several Camp Mystic cabins with girls as young as 8 were supervised by inexperienced teenage counselors during last year's deadly floods, and some had expressed concerns to their parents about their lack of training for emergencies, an expert told the legislative committee examining the tragedy on Monday.

Casey Garrett, a lawyer and investigator hired by a select joint committee of the state Senate and House, said the operators of the family-owned Christian retreat for girls were well aware of the flooding dangers when torrential rains descended upon the Guadalupe River in Kerr County. Many of them had previously survived devastating storms there that forced evacuations and leveled some of the cabins.

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"There was never any real training. There were never drills," Garrett told the committee, a fact that had not been fleshed out in that level of detail before. "No drills of any kind."

The select committee is investigating circumstances surrounding the overnight flood that killed 25 children and two counselors at the camp. Lawmakers last year enacted reforms prompted by the flooding, including requiring youth camps in flood-prone areas of Hill Country to install flood warning sirens. The committee, appointed by House Speaker Dustin Burrows and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, is charged with building on those measures.

Investigator Casey Garrett speaks at a joint House and Senate flood investigating committee hearing at the Texas Capitol on Monday, April 27, 2026.
Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman

Dozens of flood victim family members listen as investigator Casey Garrett addresses the joint House and Senate flood investigating committee during a hearing at the Texas Capitol on Monday, April 27, 2026.
Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman

Monday's hearing, which was set to pick up on Tuesday, only included invited testimony.

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Edward Eastland, a camp official whose father, Richard "Dick" Eastland, was a co-owner, acknowledged earlier this month during a legal hearing that the camp did not have a detailed written flood evacuation plan in place when the storm hit. He also testified that staff hadn't turned to simple measures like using campus loudspeakers to tell campers and counselors to leave their cabins and get to higher ground earlier in the storm.

Garrett did not immediately provide examples to the committee on Monday of counselors who had previously expressed concerns about their lack of training. She said several counselors have not agreed to speak with her or been blocked by their lawyers or parents.

Garrett laid out an almost minute-by-minute timeline based on texts and calls starting with weather updates after midnight on July 4, and gaining intensity over the next few hours. At 2:11 a.m., as torrential rains hit and the river began to rise, camp officials sent texts that contained short videos showing the waters rushing through the channels of the Guadalupe and its feeder creeks. At one point, the campers were told to "stay put," but later, camp counselors and senior staff began to realize the magnitude of the flooding.

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"My cabin is flooding," messaged counselor Frances Blackwell at one point. By 3 a.m., camp owner and manager Dick Eastland wrote, "We need to get the girls out of Bug House," the name of one of the cabins. Ten minutes later, Eastland's wife, Tweety, messaged, "Our house is flooded."

The presentation, which went on for several hours, contained photos and videos of the chaotic efforts to evacuate the many riverside cabins that were inundated with water. Garrett's description of the events prompted audible crying from Camp Mystic family members who packed into the hearing room in the Capitol.

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Senior staff members were able to get to some of the cabins. In other cases, no help came. In one cabin, counselors resorted to sending girls out windows as the water rose inside. On the outside, counselors sought to lead the children to higher ground. The process, Garrett said, "was far from orderly."

"It's mayhem, it's madness," she said. "Heroic actions on the part of those counselors, but it was not a safe evacuation plan."

The members of the committee remained silent as Garrett gave her account, sometimes in emotional detail. Some of the lawmakers dabbed their eyes with tissues, as did audience members.

Garrett told of one child who was being evacuated and suddenly broke from the group because she had forgotten something in the cabin.

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"'I saw her, and then I didn't,'" Garrett said, quoting a child who had survived.

Committee Clerk Haylee Plumley wipes her eyes while listening to testimony during a joint House and Senate flood investigating committee hearing at the Texas Capitol on Monday, April 27, 2026.
Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman

She also told of a child who managed to latch onto a tree and was later swept more than six miles down the river and landed in a debris pile. The child was rescued by two sisters who heard her pleas for help.

Another child gave Garrett an account of her own survival, a recording of which was played in the hearing room.

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"We all fell out of the window, and the water started rushing, and it ran this way, and I went out under water and I was drowning," the girl said. "I thought I was going to die."

Eastland and others attempted to rescue children by driving from cabin to cabin. After guiding several children from the cabin, Dick Eastland's sport utility vehicle was lifted by rising water and was pinned to a tree. He radioed his son, Edward, a Camp Mystic executive, for assistance. The son was with another group of girls but unable to navigate through the rising water.

"Dad, I'm sorry," Edward replied. "I can't help you."

Dick Eastland's vehicle was discovered in the river after daylight. His body and those of several girls were inside.

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Garrett described what she called a Camp Mystic "culture" that stressed obedience and conformity, which she said might have stifled individual initiative by counselors and others as the storm approached, but before the devastation that would follow.

She described Dick Eastland as the "patriarch" and "leader" of Camp Mystic, but also someone who obsessed over weather forecasts and one unlikely to knowingly leave children in harm's way.

"He ruled," Garrett said. "It was his way or the highway. (But) people loved and respected Dick Eastland."

Both she and fellow investigator Michael Massengale, a former appeals court judge who is now an attorney in private practice, faulted Eastland for not having a formal emergency evacuation plan and a more thorough training program for counselors, most of whom were either recent high school graduates or college students.

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Their observations were based on interviews conducted with as many as 150 people associated with the camp and suggested that his deep experience at the camp had led to a level of "complacency."

Massengale said that if those in charge in the predawn hours of July 4 acted decisively, all the girls in the camp could have been saved within two hours of the first flash-flood alert for the region.

"This is hindsight. If they had walked to each cabin, told girls to move to higher ground, they had time to do that," Massengale said.

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State Sen. Lois Kolhkorst, R-Brenham, cautioned against painting Eastland as a villain. "Obviously, Dick Eastland died trying to save these girls," she said.

At Tuesday's hearing, the panel is expected to hear from members of the Eastland family who work at the camp as well as family members of the girls who were at Mystic when the flooding hit. Also scheduled to appear are representatives of state regulatory agencies who oversee youth camps.

Camp Mystic failed to train teenage counselors for floods, expert tells lawmakers