Texas Lawmakers Close Camp Mystic Probe With 115-Page Failure Finding

TL;DR: Texas legislative investigators found Camp Mystic had no compliant written emergency plan and missed evacuation chances before the July 4, 2025 Guadalupe River flood that killed 25 campers and 2 counselors.

On June 18, 2026, state-appointed investigators presented a 115-page final report to a joint Texas House and Senate investigating committee at the Capitol in Austin, concluding that cascading failures at Camp Mystic led to the deaths of 25 campers and two counselors during the July 4, 2025 flood, according to The Texas Tribune in Texas lawmakers issue final Camp Mystic investigative report.

Investigators Casey Garrett and Michael Massengale, hired by the Texas Legislature to examine the flood response, told lawmakers the century-old all-girls Christian camp on the Guadalupe River in Kerr County lacked state-required written emergency plans and adequate evacuation measures, according to the same Texas Tribune reporting.

The joint committee adopted the report on Thursday and said the Legislature had already passed laws addressing all but one deficiency identified by investigators, with the remaining issue promised for the next legislative session, according to The Texas Tribune.

What investigators concluded about emergency planning

The central finding was that Camp Mystic did not have written emergency plans that complied with state licensing requirements.

Investigators said camp leadership did not have state-approved emergency plans posted in each cabin for counselors and campers, other than instructions to shelter in place, according to The Texas Tribune.

Massengale told the House General Investigating Committee on the July 2025 Flooding Events that staff members and counselors were not assigned responsibilities for an evacuation, calling that omission a fatal error, according to The Texas Tribune.

He added that when disaster struck on July 4 of last year, the camp may as well have had no plan at all, according to The Texas Tribune.

A former appellate judge, Massengale said a plan that existed only in the head of longtime camp director Richard “Dick” Eastland did not satisfy state rules for camps like Camp Mystic, according to the Houston Chronicle in Camp Mystic's lack of planning led to preventable flood deaths, report.

Eastland also died in the flood while trying to rescue campers, according to The Texas Tribune.

Houston Chronicle reporting added that camp officials have acknowledged the camp did not have a detailed flood evacuation plan in place when the storm hit, even though one was required to hold a state license.

Warnings on July 3 and overnight timeline

Investigators found the camp had the means to inform itself about severe weather but did not maintain a watch through the night.

The camp had received weather alerts warning of a storm on July 3, investigators said, according to The Texas Tribune.

Massengale said the camp had the means to inform itself and to appropriately protect its campers from severe weather, and that apart from what Eastland was likely doing, nobody else at the camp was watching that night, according to The Texas Tribune.

The reconstructed timeline found that the National Weather Service sent a flash flood warning at 1:14 a.m. on July 4, according to The Texas Tribune.

Eastland called his son, Edward Eastland, for help shortly after 3 a.m., investigators said, according to The Texas Tribune.

Investigators said that interval left time for campers to have been instructed to evacuate to higher ground, according to The Texas Tribune.

The investigators also noted camp operators were well aware of flooding danger because some cabins sat on the banks of the Guadalupe River, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Counselors left without communications or clear orders

The report found camp leadership confiscated counselors’ cellphones while on site and did not provide replacement equipment such as a radio or handheld transmitter for emergency use, according to The Texas Tribune.

Garrett told the 10-member panel that several staffers were not informed or given instruction about what to do during an emergency, according to TPR in Report heading to Texas leaders cites Camp Mystic emergency planning failures before 2025 flood.

She described a senior counselor in Cozy Corner on the walkie-talkie asking what to do, with calls going unanswered from camp leaders, according to TPR.

Garrett also said the lack of training extended to many able-bodied adults at the camp who could have assisted with evacuation but did not know what was happening or what to do, according to the Houston Chronicle.

She cited a recent interview with a camp nurse whose daughter was a camper, who said that if she had known the extent of what was happening just 100 feet away she would have swum to her daughter’s cabin, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Garrett told lawmakers that nobody had any instruction whatsoever about what to do in an emergency, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Additional reporting on the investigation found at least 39 adult staff were within reach of the children, but no one ordered them to help campers for hours when staff could have safely assisted evacuations, and that staff left a camp emergency public address system unused and no one called 911, according to the Dallas Morning News account surfaced in legislative coverage.

Staffing levels and experience gaps

The camp normally employed three counselors per cabin but reduced the number to two in certain cabins, the report found, according to The Texas Tribune.

A senior counselor had expressed to camp leadership that some younger teenage staff struggled to keep up with their cabins and needed assistance, according to The Texas Tribune.

The report said having older, more experienced counselors at the camp could have helped prevent more deaths, according to The Texas Tribune.

That staffing detail was part of broader findings that counselors received lackluster instructions about safe flood evacuation beyond haphazard planning by director Eastland, according to The Texas Tribune.

The report drew on months of work including new interviews with surviving campers and state and local officials, according to The Texas Tribune.

Thursday’s meeting marked the first time the legislative panel had convened since two days of testimony in late April where Garrett questioned camp leaders and examined staff actions as the tragedy unfolded, according to TPR.

During those April hearings, Edward Eastland, one of the directors of Camp Mystic, apologized to families who lost daughters at the all-girls summer camp, according to TPR.

Chaotic reunification traumatized families

Investigators found reunification efforts and incident management after the storm were chaotic, according to The Texas Tribune.

That chaos left campers’ parents unnecessarily traumatized by incomplete and conflicting information while they waited to learn whether their children survived, according to The Texas Tribune.

Family members attended Thursday’s hearing, including Davin Hunt, father of 9-year-old Janie Hunt, a camper who died in the flood, with several family members wearing pins honoring loved ones, according to The Texas Tribune.

Matthew Childress, whose daughter Chloe was a counselor at Mystic and died in the flood, said every parent in the group would give anything to have their child back and that the findings provided an important measure of truth and accountability, according to The Texas Tribune.

Childress, who helped lead the push for reforms, added that the children deserved better and that new laws were helping ensure camps across Texas were better prepared to protect children entrusted to their care, according to The Texas Tribune.

He also said families stood ready to work with lawmakers if the committee’s findings pointed to further improvements, according to The Texas Tribune.

Scale of the July 4, 2025 floods

More than 130 people were killed in the July Fourth floods, with the majority of deaths in Kerr County in the Texas Hill Country, where Camp Mystic is one of many summer camps lining the Guadalupe River, according to TPR.

Nearly 30 children were killed when floodwaters tore through the area on July 4 along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, according to TPR’s description of the May 28, 2026 memorial site reporting.

Camp Mystic had initially planned to reopen this summer but abandoned those plans at the end of April after opposition from lawmakers and families who lost daughters, according to the Houston Chronicle.

The camp is still facing several wrongful death lawsuits, according to the Houston Chronicle.

What lawmakers say they already changed

A joint committee of state representatives and senators said the Legislature addressed all but one deficiency outlined in the investigators’ report by passing a series of laws last year, according to The Texas Tribune.

The remaining problem cited was the inability of camp counselors to reach the camp’s owners during the flood, which lawmakers promised to address in the next legislative session that begins in January, according to The Texas Tribune.

A letter attached to the report said lawmakers did not recall being aware of that deficiency when they developed and passed the laws and were thankful the process revealed it, according to The Texas Tribune.

State Sen. Pete Flores, a committee chair, said the report represented months of careful work by Senate and House General Investigative Committees to establish a complete factual record, honor those lost, and identify lessons to help prevent future loss of life, according to TPR.

State Sen. Charles Perry told the panel he believed a good portion of the issues cited were already addressed by legislation from a special session on youth camp safety and emergency preparedness, with only tweaks needed going forward, according to TPR.

Perry said he did not want to bring back the hurt of the conversations if lawmakers had already addressed the issues, according to TPR.

Rep. Joe Moody said more work remained, noting the committee had not yet addressed trailer parks, rural homes, and Texas Division of Emergency Management positioning of assets, according to TPR.

The report will be given to House and Senate leaders to help guide new laws during the upcoming 2027 legislative session, according to TPR.

State Rep. Morgan Meyer, the committee’s co-chair, said the report documented not only what went wrong but what must go right, listing strong emergency planning requirements, real training and regular drills, clear lines of authority in a crisis, better warning systems, and oversight with enforcement authority, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Meyer told families who lost children that nothing the committee had done could return what was taken, but that the account now stood in the public record because families insisted it should, according to the Houston Chronicle.