Updated 11:15 p.m. April 28
About 11 hours into the marathon hearing, legislators began asking questions of officials with the Department of State Health Services, which is tasked with evaluating and licensing all Texas youth camps.
Investigators said a day earlier that Camp Mystic did not have a written, posted disaster evacuation plan at the time of the July 4 flood, in violation of state law. Yet the camp had an active license from the DSHS, and camp operators testified April 18 that state health officials had never directed them to revise their emergency plans.
Lawmakers urged the health department to suspend or revoke Camp Mystic’s license as multiple investigations play out. Members of the Eastland family, which runs the camp, said April 28 that they planned to open their Cypress Lake campsite on May 30. The secondary campsite was not damaged by the July 4 flood, and Mystic’s primary campsite will remain closed, the Eastlands said.
The Eastlands are currently pursuing a renewed license that would allow them to reopen the Cypress Lake location. The DSHS found 22 “deficiencies” in their application, according to previous Community Impact reporting.
Between the 28 deaths that took place at Camp Mystic over the summer and the issues with the application, lawmakers said they felt there was enough evidence to “hit the pause button” on the camp’s license.
“The legislature will support whatever it takes to shut them down as soon as possible,” Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, said.
DSHS Commissioner Jennifer Shuford and her staff said they did not feel the agency has the legal or statutory authority to suspend a camp’s license. Rep. Drew Darby, a San Angelo Republican who authored camp safety legislation during a special session this summer, disagreed.
“House Bill 1 and Senate Bill 1… were passed in direct response to the deaths of 27 children at Camp Mystic,” Darby said April 28. “The legislature acted with specific intent to establish nonnegotiable safety standards, eliminate agency discretion and ensure no procedural mechanism could be used to keep a dangerous camp operating.”
DSHS staff said they had not interpreted the laws that way but would review them following the hearing, which ended around 10:30 p.m. April 28.
Updated 9 p.m. April 28
Through hours of emotional testimony April 28, the parents of seven of the 27 girls who died at Camp Mystic during the July 4 flood eulogized their late daughters. Mothers and fathers shared stories of who their children were, from “a hummingbird” to a soon-to-be Texas Longhorn.
Cile Steward, 8, “was extraordinary,” her mother, CiCi, told lawmakers April 28.
“Cile moved through the world like a hummingbird: quick and bright and nimble, always in motion and hard to pin down, even when she was standing right in front of you,” Steward said. “Like my daughter, a hummingbird’s life is often tragically short, but both burn bright while they’re here.”
Steward said her daughter, a first-year Camp Mystic camper who remains unaccounted for, was brave, bold and loving.
“I recognized her the way you recognize your own reflection,” Steward said. “I will spend the rest of my life walking past mirrors and seeing the woman she should have been.”
Hadley Hanna, 8, was observant, compassionate, caring, silly, smart and full of love, her mother, Carrie, said.
“She was a gentle soul, was a friend to everyone, and her heart was always bursting with kindness,” Carrie Hanna told lawmakers April 28. “She was the hardest worker and always set out to accomplish her goals, but her future was stolen when she was left in her cabin due to complacency and neglect.”
Hadley was attending Camp Mystic for the first time, alongside her older sister, Harper.
“Harper was excited to show Hadley the ropes, and they often spent time throughout the year working on their activity schedule for when they arrived at camp,” their mother said.
Kellyanne Lytal, 8, was beginning her second term at the private Christian girls camp when she died. Her mother, Malorie, said Kellyanne was an athlete, a Girl Scout and “a high-achieving academic student.”
Malorie Lytal said she signed her two daughters up to attend Camp Mystic right after they were born.
“I never knew signing that Mystic application was signing Kellyanne’s death certificate,” she said.
Lytal described her daughter as a beloved daughter, granddaughter, big sister, cousin and friend.
“Every story about Kellyanne always comes back to her kindness and willingness to help others,” Lytal told lawmakers. “We are now tasked with carrying on her legacy and ensuring that every child can go to camp and feel safe and protected.”
Virginia Wynne Naylor, 8, was also in her second year attending Camp Mystic. Known as Wynne, she was described as “a bright light” by her mother, Alli.
“One of my favorite of Wynne’s traits is that she always gave everyone and everything, her all,” Alli Naylor said. “Her grit, her determination, her fight was unmatched, yet she was gentle and felt deeply.”
Naylor said Wynne was “a fighter.” Before Wynne’s body was identified on July 6, her parents hoped she had been able to survive the flood, Naylor said April 28.
“She was scrappy, she climbed trees, she ran faster than the boys her age,” she told lawmakers.
Sarah Marsh, 8, traveled from Alabama to attend Camp Mystic for the first time. She turned 8 less than a month before the camp session started, her father, Patrick Marsh, said.
“Sarah was special. She was supremely confident,” Marsh said. “She believed she could do anything, and she wanted you to see it.”
Marsh said the most special thing about his daughter was her love for others.
“She loved her family, her friends, and even complete strangers—she would hug people out of nowhere and tell them she loved them and she meant it,” he told lawmakers April 28. “She made everyone she knew feel like they were the most important person in the world, because to her, in that moment, they were.”
Linnie McCown, 8, was the middle child to two brothers. She was attending Camp Mystic for the first time with some of her friends from elementary school, according to her father, Michael McCown.
“Linnie was caring, gave big hugs, loved her friends, and, most importantly, loved her family,” he said. “We miss her giggles, the way she pranced and skipped rather than walked, her long hair, her beautiful eyes, her dimple, and her dyslexia.”
Linnie was not afraid to share her opinions, was mischievous and loved gossip, her father told lawmakers.
McCown said that every night before his daughter went to bed, she would “take her hands and ask to tickle my mustache.”
“We didn’t just lose Linnie—the world lost Linnie. Her best friends lost a lifetime friend and the world lost the love and kindness that Linnie gave out so freely,” he said.
Chloe Childress, 18, was one of two counselors taking care of 13 young campers in the Bubble Inn cabin. Along with 19-year-old Katherine Ferruzzo, Chloe attempted to save her campers’ lives as floodwaters rapidly rose inside their cabin, her father said. All occupants of Bubble Inn died in the July 4 flood.
Chloe’s father, Matthew Childress, said he may never know exactly what happened in his daughter’s final moments.
“All I know is that she gave her life for her campers because she was big enough to save herself,” he said April 28. “That’s my hero, that’s our hero, and that’s how she will be remembered.”
Childress said that when his daughter was a newborn, he began giving her 17 kisses each time he saw her. When identifying Chloe’s body after the deadly flood, he again kissed her face 17 times.
“I now kiss her nameplate 17 times where her ashes are interred at St. Luke’s [Church] in Houston,” Childress said.
Chloe was looking forward to attending the University of Texas and planned to later go to medical school, Childress told lawmakers.
“Her life was just launching. She deserved that opportunity, and I can’t give it to her,” he said. “It just hurts so much she’s going to be 18 forever.”
Updated 7:30 p.m. April 28
CiCi and Will Steward’s 8-year-old daughter, Cecilia “Cile” Steward, has been unaccounted for since July 4, 2025. In her first year at Camp Mystic, Cile was a camper in Twins, a pair of cabins that housed some of the camp’s youngest visitors.
“Tomorrow will mark 10 months since I hugged and held my 8-year-old daughter for the last time,” CiCi Steward told lawmakers April 28.
CiCi said that as she dropped her daughter off at Camp Mystic in late June, the last words Cile said to her were, “Don’t worry, Mommy. I’ll be OK.”
“But we all know she was not okay—no child in Bubble Inn, Twins One or Twins Two could have been,” Steward said. “The horrors that Cile and the other children and counselors endured that night, the darkness, the thrashing, the desperate fight for breath and survival, play on an endless loop in my mind.”
Steward, who with her husband sued Camp Mystic for the wrongful death of their daughter, said the Eastland family, which owns and operates the private Christian girls camp, “abandoned all of our daughters.”
“They left Cile with an impossible and unforgivable choice: drown in her cabin or fight violent floodwaters in the dark in a blind, desperate effort to save herself,” Steward said.
Steward implored legislators to prevent Camp Mystic’s state license from being renewed. While there are no plans to reopen Camp Mystic’s Guadalupe River site, where 27 campers and counselors died, the Eastlands said April 28 that they intend to open their nearby Cypress Lake campsite as soon as May 30.
“No camp will be safe for any child as long as the Eastlands are associated with it,” Steward said. “If a child dies at a Texas camp this summer, it will not be because we lack the information to prevent it. It will be because we did not act on it.”
Members of the joint legislative committee visited Camp Mystic and met with investigators on April 20, one week before the two-day hearing began. Steward said she was also in Hunt that day.
“It was raining hard—a stark reminder, I hope, of the reason of why you were all out there. I stood along the banks of the river calling out to my sweet baby’s spirit, asking her to help us bring her home,” Steward said April 28.
Co-committee chair Rep. Morgan Meyer, R-University Park, told Steward that lawmakers “will not rest” until the state finds Cile’s body.
Updated 4:30 p.m. April 28
After about 1.5 hours of testimony from Nim Kidd, who leads the Texas Division of Emergency Management, the joint committee began hearing testimony from the families of young girls who survived the July 4 flood at Camp Mystic.
Julie Sprunt Marshall, an Austin surgeon, urged lawmakers to take action to prevent the Eastland family from opening Camp Mystic’s Cypress Lake campsite later this year.
“The Eastlands’ prayers didn’t save the girls that night,” she said. “I worry the Eastlands’ prayers going forward are not an appropriate safety plan.”
Marshall said she attended Camp Mystic as a child and expected the Eastlands would “maintain appropriate safety plans” when she sent her 9-year-old daughter, McKenzie, to the Texas Hill Country Camp.
“Over time, the girls were moved to the top of the bunk beds as the water rose. Mckenzie told me that eventually she and the other girls understood no more adults were coming to rescue them,” Marshall told lawmakers. “Once the water was two feet from the ceiling, the bunk bed tipped, spilling the girls into the water. McKenzie was swept out of the window in total darkness amid fast-moving, churning, debris-filled water.”
Marshall said her daughter “thought she should just give up” and “described thinking, ‘This is what it is like to die” as she was swept about a mile downriver. McKenzie later landed in a debris pile and was rescued by Grant Griffin, whose family lived along the Guadalupe River.
“Camp Mystic made no effort to reunite our girls with their cabinmates, nor did they provide updates to us about their location or well-being,” she said. “They remained in the care of the Griffins, who, at that time, were strangers to us, whose house was barely standing.”
Marshall said she was asked to conduct medical evaluations of surviving campers on July 4 and 5. She asserted that Mary Liz Eastland, one of the directors at Camp Mystic’s Guadalupe River campsite and the camp’s health officer, “was nowhere to be found.”
“I’m asking this committee, please, to act,” Marshall said. “Do not let this camp reopen on the schedule and on the terms set by the people who failed our daughters.”
Updated 2:30 p.m. April 28
Meyer asked the four members of the Eastland family who testified April 28 to answer a series of questions.
When asked if they disagreed with any information presented a day earlier by state investigators, the family said countered assertions that they were “complacent” during the July 4 flood, but said they felt investigators were “thorough” and “did a good job.”
“In hindsight, as you sit here today, do you agree the camp was not prepared for this tragedy?” Meyer asked. “Do you agree that the camp didn’t call for a timely evacuation?”
The Eastland family responded “no” to both questions.
In total, committee members asked questions of the Eastland family for about four hours before taking a 30-minute break and hearing testimony from Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
Updated 1:30 p.m. April 28
Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, asked the Eastland family what they would do if Camp Mystic’s application to renew its operating license was denied by the state health department. The department is currently reviewing license applications from hundreds of Texas youth camps, and Camp Mystic must be licensed to open its Cypress Lake campsite next month.
Richard Eastland, Camp Mystic’s head chef, said if the camp’s license was denied, “we’d probably appeal it, but we will not open Cypress if we do not have a license.”
Cypress Lake director Britt Eastland backtracked on his brother’s remarks, telling lawmakers the family “can’t say anything on the record about what we’ll do in that aspect.”
“All camps that have applied for renewal do have a valid license, and so I believe that it’ll be a family decision,” he said.
Updated 1:15 p.m. April 28
Rep. Morgan Meyer, a University Park Republican and co-chair of the joint committee, grilled the Eastland family April 28 about why they did not have a written evacuation plan for a flood like what happened on July 4. Investigators said April 27 that Camp Mystic’s flood plan directed counselors and campers to shelter in place until told to do otherwise. The Eastlands did not contest that fact, telling lawmakers they wanted to prevent “kids from wandering off” on their own and getting caught in floodwaters.
“But if the plan in place was to evacuate, they wouldn’t be wandering by the river,” Meyer said. “They would be evacuating with their camp counselors in an orderly fashion. … The plan to shelter in place clearly did not work and they were obedient to a fault, to where these cabins filled with water and they weren’t going anywhere.”
Britt Eastland said the family is working on a 60-page emergency plan, which contains detailed evacuation measures and information about safety drills, for future camp sessions.
Updated 1 p.m. April 28
During the April 28 hearing, Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, referenced a segment of the Texas Administrative Code that deals with the health and safety of youth camps.
State code requires that if any camper die or contract certain communicable diseases at camp, it must be reported to the Texas Department of State Health services within 24 hours. Kolkhorst asked Mary Liz Eastland, a registered nurse and one of the leaders of Camp Mystic’s Guadalupe River site, if she had reported the July 4 deaths of the 25 campers and two counselors to the state.
“No, ma’am, I have not,” Mary Liz Eastland replied, adding that “everyone knows, at this point.”
Kolkhorst urged the Eastland family to report the girls’ deaths to the state health department, telling them that “a license is a privilege to have.”
“We set a standard in some of our daycares [that] if they have one death, we take their license away—we shut them down,” Kolkhorst, who leads the Texas Senate Health and Human Services Committee, said.
Several lawmakers cited a letter state health officials sent to Camp Mystic on April 23, which outlines 22 “deficiencies” in the camp’s emergency plan as part of its application for license renewal.
“As y’all are going through so much, think this through,” Kolkhorst said. “Are you ready to take on 500-plus children with 22 deficiencies and something so glaring as you have not reported the 27 deaths that are required by law?”
Britt Eastland, who leads Camp Mystic’s Cypress Lake campsite, said his family does not want to “create any more pain” for the 27 families who lost their children in the July 4 flood. The Eastland family told lawmakers they hope to reopen the Cypress Lake site, which was not damaged in the flood, as soon as May 30.
“We pray that we can reconcile with the families, and we believe if we do it right, a year from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, they will be glad that we had camp this summer,” Britt Eastland said. “I know right now it doesn’t seem that way, but I really believe that.”
Cici Steward, whose daughter, 8-year-old Cecilia “Cile” Steward, is still missing, said “what?” and left the room after Britt Eastland’s remarks.
Updated 12:15 p.m. April 28
The leaders of Camp Mystic said they felt they “acted reasonably” in the early hours of July 4, as rain poured and the Guadalupe River rose.
“I believe, based on what we knew then, we acted reasonably,” Britt Eastland, one of the camp’s directors, told lawmakers April 28. “But now that we know what this river can do, … we’re ready. Everyone, I think, in the camping community is ready to make changes.”
During the first day of hearings April 27, state investigators and lawmakers said they were concerned the Eastland family was “complacent” and did not make changes to disaster plans after past floods. Family members who testified before the committee April 28 pushed back on those concerns, noting that the July 4 flood was more severe than previous storms in the area.
“I don’t think that we had a culture of complacency—I disagree with that,” said Richard Eastland, Camp Mystic’s head chef. “My father was very diligent that night. [But] I know that we failed these families behind us.”
The Eastlands’ father, Dick, died in the July 4 flood.
Updated 11:30 a.m. April 28
Answering questions from lawmakers April 28, members of the Eastland family laid out changes they were making to improve safety and security at Camp Mystic. The Eastlands plan to welcome campers this summer to their Cypress Lake location, which was undamaged by the flooding. The parents of some flood victims have objected to the planned reopening.
Cypress Lake camp director Britt Eastland said the family was installing generators to power its front office and dining hall; placing walkie talkies in all cabins to ensure counselors receive weather alerts and other communications; requiring counselors to arrive at camp early for emergency training; and running evacuation drills with all campers and staff.
“We knew that if we were ever going to again be able to operate camp, we needed to go above and beyond,” Britt Eastland said.
During an April 27 hearing, investigators hired by the legislature said counselors were not trained on what to do in an disaster and emergency drills were not conducted at the beginning of camp sessions. Counselors also did not have access to emergency ladders, life jackets or portable radios, investigator Casey Garrett said.
Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, reprimanded the family for not having those safety measures in place last summer. Under state law, youth camps must have a written evacuation plan and conduct disaster drills.
“I want to remind people that stuff was already supposed to be done, and I’m almost certain that none of the other camps were doing it, either,” Perry said.
Perry said that if Camp Mystic is allowed to reopen its Cypress Lake location, he did not think the Eastland family should continue running the camp.
“There’s a point where the consequences of not doing your job are so significant and so consequential that you don’t have the privilege of running a business,” he said April 28. “What deterrent does that send to another operator that [you] can have kids die with [your] watch and still be an operator? … “Y’all will not be an operator next season, if I can have anything to say about it, because you just missed it, and it was tragic.”
Mary Liz Eastland, a director at the Guadalupe River camp where 27 campers and counselors died, said she thought Perry’s suggestion was “appropriate.”
“I think we’re willing to take a step back,” she said. “If camp can go on, that’s okay with us.”
Britt Eastland said the family does not yet plan to reopen its Guadalupe River camp, adding that it was “not an easy decision” to move to reopen the Cypress Lake site.
“We’ve heard from hundreds of families that they are asking us to please open. … They’re asking us to provide healing for their daughters,” he said.
Originally posted 11 a.m. April 28
The Eastland family, which owns and operates Camp Mystic, opened the second day of hearings held by special state legislative committees investigating the July 4, 2025, Central Texas flood.
Edward Eastland, who runs the camp’s Guadalupe River location with his wife, Mary Liz, said he was “devastated” about the deaths of 27 campers and counselors in the early hours of July 4.
“We tried our hardest that night, and it wasn’t enough to save your daughters,” Edward Eastland said as dozens of the victims’ families sat silently behind him in a Texas Capitol hearing room.
“Every morning waking up is hard, every moment of every day is hard, and yet that pain feels like nothing compared to what you’re going through,” he added. “To talk openly about our pain feels like I’m insulting you, so I have largely remained quiet.”
Committee members are also set to hear from the state health department, the Texas Division of Emergency Management, flood victims’ families and the parents of some campers who survived the flood during the April 28 hearing.
How we got here
Over 130 Central Texas residents and visitors died over the July 4 weekend as an intense rainstorm and flooding swept through the region. Among them were 28 deaths at Camp Mystic: 25 young campers, two 18-year-old counselors and Richard “Dick” Eastland, the camp’s executive director. The private Christian girls camp has been under scrutiny for the actions camp leaders took to attempt to save campers in cabins near the Guadalupe River.
During an April 27 hearing, investigators told lawmakers studying the flood response that those deaths could have been prevented if camp leadership took action sooner and had a written evacuation plan in place.
“To camp owners across the state of Texas: lives could have been saved without changes in [state] statute,” Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham, said April 27.
One more thing
During special legislative sessions last summer, lawmakers passed a slate of flood planning and response bills, including requirements that youth camps remove cabins from floodplains and counties impacted by the July 4 flood install outdoor warning sirens. Some other emergency response and communication measures did not pass the legislature during the special sessions.
While the special investigative committees can examine what happened on July 4 and make policy recommendations, committee members cannot currently pass new laws, as the legislature’s next regular session does not begin until 2027. Gov. Greg Abbott has the authority to call a special session at any time, although he has not publicly commented on this week’s hearings.