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The director of the Texas summer camp where 27 campers and counsellors were killed by a devastating flood last year testified Monday he did not see official warnings issued the day before the storm hit and that staff had no meetings about the pending danger.
Edward Eastland provided the most detailed description yet of how the camp responded as floodwaters along the Guadalupe River quickly rose to historic levels, trapping children and counsellors in cabins before they were swept away on July 4, 2025. Eastland’s sometimes emotional testimony came with the room packed with families of campers who were killed,
“I wish we never had camp that summer,” Eastland said near the end of his testimony. He acknowledged lives could have been saved if camp staff acted sooner, but insisted they could not have anticipated the severity of the storm.
Eastland acknowledged the Christian girls camp had no detailed written flood evacuation plan. He also said more campers would have survived if he and his father, camp co-owner Richard Eastland, as well as a camp safety director had made quicker decisions to evacuate.
The storms hit overnight, killing 25 girls between the ages of eight and 10, two female teenage counsellors and Richard Eastland.
Cici Steward, whose eight-year-old daughter Cile is the only camp victim still missing, said after the testimony the state should deny the camp’s licence.
“It is so clear they are incapable of keeping children safe,” she said.
Overall, the destructive flash flooding killed at least 136 people in Texas along a several-kilometre stretch of the Guadalupe.
‘You were warned’
At the evidentiary hearing in the civil lawsuit against Camp Mystic, Eastland said he and other staff were signed up for an emergency warning system on their phones and used other weather apps. But he said he did not see flood watch social media posts by the National Weather Service and the Texas Department of Emergency Management on July 2 and 3.
Eastland said he thought the local “CodeRED” mobile phone alert system and phone weather apps staff had at the time were “enough.”
A July 3 National Weather Service alert asked area broadcasters to note that locally heavy rainfall could cause flash flooding in rivers, creeks, streams and low-lying areas, all features of the Camp Mystic property.
A photo of the July 4 flood at Camp Mystic is submitted into evidence during the court hearing on Monday. (Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman/The Associated Press)
Eastland said that his father typically monitored weather issues and that he did not believe camp staff held a meeting about the alerts and warnings that day.
“We did not expect what was going to happen,” he said.
“You were warned,” said Brad Beckworth, an attorney representing the Steward family.
Eastland said he went to bed about 11 p.m. and never received a National Weather Service flash flood warning at 1:14 a.m.. He said he slept through a CodeRED alert text at the same time that warned of a flood that could last several hours.
His father called him on a walkie-talkie shortly before 2 a.m. to tell him about hard rain falling and the need to move canoes and water equipment off the riverfront. They did not move to evacuate cabins at that point.
“It was not reasonable to do that at that time,” Eastland said. “The water wasn’t out of the Guadalupe River. It was pouring down rain and lightning and the cabins were safe at that time.”
Eastland said his father made the call to evacuate cabins about 3 a.m.
WATCH | How the tragedy unfolded:
Texas flash flood: Why Camp Mystic was so vulnerable
Several campers and staff were killed when a flash flood slammed into a summer camp for girls along the Guadalupe River in central Texas. CBC’s Eli Glaser examines how Camp Mystic’s location and layout may have contributed to the devastation.
Lawyers for the families introduced a signed statement from a counsellor who described the horror of the night. She woke up during the storm and could see girls running for shelter.
“The water was rising faster than anything I have ever witnessed,” the counsellor wrote. She said Edward Eastland eventually approached the cabin in knee-deep water, told her it was too late to leave and they should ride out the storm there.
The counsellor said she tried to keep the children out of the rising water pouring in before she was eventually swept away herself.
Eastland also tearfully described trying to grab two girls and a third who jumped on his back while he stood bracing himself in a cabin doorway before they were washed away. He and a counsellor eventually were pushed into a tree.
“The water was over my head very quickly. The water was churning,” Eastland said.
From left to right, Camp Mystic directors Mary Liz Eastland, Edward Eastland and Britt Eastland are shown at the Travis County Courthouse, in Austin at an earlier hearing, on March 4. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman/The Associated Press)
At one point, several family members left the courtroom during a cellphone video taken the night of the flood. Someone could be heard yelling “Help!” in the background.
Texas health regulators said last week they are investigating hundreds of complaints filed against the camp owners.
The hearing is scheduled to continue Tuesday. It comes during a legal battle between the camp owners and victims’ families who have filed multiple lawsuits and the families’ demands to preserve the damage at the camp site as evidence.
Camp Mystic has also applied with state regulators to renew its licence so that it can open in two months, in an elevated area that did not flood last year. Camp operators have said nearly 900 girls have registered to attend.
