Parents who lost daughters at Camp Mystic: Their deaths were ‘100% preventable’

By Bethany Blankley
The Center Square

Parents who lost their daughters from flood waters at Camp Mystic said their deaths were “100% preventable” and asked the legislature to implement mandatory safety protocols for camps statewide.

Camp Mystic, an elite Hill Country multi-million-dollar enterprise, repeatedly appealed to FEMA to remove it from a 100-year flood plain designation; the appeals were granted, according to federal records. Located in “Flash Flood Alley,” the Guadeloupe River tore through part of the camp, taking the lives of 27 campers and counselors and one of the camp’s owners.

The camp charges roughly $8,800 for four weeks and roughly $15,000 for the summer, with an additional $2,000 for horseback riding, a relative who lost a camper told The Center Square. The camp had no alarms, no cell phone tower or communication capabilities, including radios, or evacuation system in place, parents said. Campers were told to stay in their cabins.

A Houston area mother, Lindsey McLeod McCrory, who attended the camp, told news outlets the policy she and others followed during a 1987 flood event was to stay in their cabins. Thirty-eight years later, her daughter, Blakely, died from flood waters that killed the youngest children bunked just feet from the river.

At a Texas Senate committee hearing on Wednesday, Michael McCown, who lost his daughter, Linnie, 8, said, “We trusted Camp Mystic with her precious life, but that trust was broken in the most devastating way. The camp had a heightened duty of care, and they failed to perform. That failure costs 25 campers and two young counselors their lives. No one had to die that day.”

“We did not send Linnie to a war zone. We sent her to camp. We trusted that she would be safe. There was never a question in my mind that a camp would not be prepared.”

The camp’s no cell phone policy should not apply to staff, he said, adding that all camps should have “fully up-to-date” communication systems and “safety measures must not lag behind.” He expressed support for SB 1, which includes “keeping cabins out of floodplains, requiring real emergency plans, mandating weather radios and alert systems,” which he said “should already be the baseline for every summer camp.”

Cici Williams Steward told the committee, “My daughter was stolen from us. Cile’s life ended. Not because of an unavoidable act of nature. But because of preventable failures.”

Her daughter, Cile Steward, 8, is the only Camp Mystic camper still missing. She is one of two known victims who remain unaccounted for.

“Texas summer camps must be properly equipped, trained, and held accountable so that future generations of children can experience the joy of camp without being placed in preventable danger,” Steward said. “Cile’s chance to experience camp only existed because I was ensured that her safety and the safety of all the young girls was paramount. I ask you, what could have been more important than that? But that assurance was betrayed. Obvious common sense safety measures were absent. Protocols that should have been in place were ignored.”

Clark Baker, who lost his daughter, Mary Grace, said, “My daughter should still be here. Her death was 100% preventable. Complacency, among other things, led to the deaths of 27 amazing, innocent, beautiful girls. We can’t let complacency claim the life of another child. We simply ask for mandatory, common sense, state regulated safety protocols for camps.”

“Camps, especially those in areas prone to flash floods, should have adequate warning systems and not build cabins in dangerous floodplains,” he said. “Surely don’t put 8- and 9-year-olds in them. Have a legitimate evacuation plan. Know the plan. Practice the plan. Train workers and counselors to implement the plan.” He said camps “should be held to a standard similar to other institutions that oversee our children.”

Baker, who lives in Beaumont, said, “Hurricane Harvey hit us hard. The very next year we were blasted by Hurricane Imelda. These disasters were both considered 500-year-floods.” Another flood or natural disaster “will happen again,” he said, which is why safety measures must be put in place for 1,100 camps in Texas.

Blake Bonner, who lost his daughter, Lila, said, “Knowing what we know now about that night makes one thing painfully clear. … This was an act of pure complacency. A common tragic theme you will find amongst the 27 angels we lost is that they … followed the rules. They did exactly what they were told to do that morning: stay in their cabins.

“Our daughters paid the ultimate price for their obedience to a plan that was destined to fail. This risk is obviously not theoretical.”

He said what happened was “Preventable failure. It was a failure of planning, prevention, detection and response. Which leads us to the questions that will forever haunt us: Why were our children sleeping in a known high risk flood zone? Why was the stated evacuation plan to stay in place? Why were there no adequate warning systems in the cabins, despite a similar tragedy on the very river as recently as 1987? Why were summer camps entrusted with the care of our most precious gifts, exempt from the basic safety standards required of every daycare and school in Texas?

“These are the questions that demand answers … in the form of meaningful legislative action. To delay action is to tell every parent in Texas that their child’s safety is not a priority. It is to accept a risk that has already been paid by the lives of our daughters.”

Every parent who testified expressed support for SB 1, which includes a series of reforms for camp safety in Texas. The committee advanced the bill, which is expected to pass the legislature and be signed into law.