AUSTIN, Texa (AP) — The director of the Texas summer camp where 27 campers and counselors were killed by a devastating flood in 2025 said Monday he did not see early federal and state warnings issued the day before
the storm hit, and that staff had no meetings about the pending danger.
Camp Mystic director Edward Eastland testified in a court hearing about preserving damaged areas of the camp's grounds as evidence in several lawsuits filed by families of the victims of the July 4th disaster on the banks of the Guadalupe River.
A judge last month ordered the camp to preserve those areas, and camp operators have appealed. The groups were back in court Monday for further testimony about the camp and what happened there before and during the flood.
This week's hearing, which could produce the most extensive public comment from the all-girls Christian camp's operators, comes amid their application for a state license to reopen Camp Mystic this summer on a part of campus that did not flood.
Camp director Edward Eastland testified for several hours Monday in a courtroom packed with the families of the girls who were killed.
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 3rd.
Eastland said he wasn't following those agencies on social media and thought the local “CodeRED” mobile phone alert system and phone weather apps staff had at the time “was 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.
Eastland said that his father, camp co-owner Richard Eastland, typically monitored weather issues. Edward Eastland said he did not believe camp staff held a meeting about the alerts and warnings that day.
The storms would hit overnight, killing 25 campers, two teenage counselors and Richard Eastland.
“We did not expect what was going to happen,” Edward Eastland said.
“You were warned,” said Brad Beckworth, an attorney representing families who have sued Camp Mystic.
Eastland was pressed on the limited information campers and the cabin counselors would have had because cellphones were not allowed in the cabins, and only some staff carried walkie-talkies for communication.
The courtroom heard part of a video of “Taps” played over loudspeakers when the campers went to bed at 10 p.m. July 3. Those loudspeakers were not used to issue a weather warning, Eastland said.
Eastland said he went to bed about 11 p.m. 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 river front.
Eastland said he never got a National Weather Service flash flood warning at 1:14 a.m. and that he slept through a CodeRED alert text at the same time that was specific for his area. The alert warned of a flood event that could last several hours.
Lawyers for the families pressed Eastland on a signed statement from a counselor who woke up during the storm and said she could see girls running for shelter.
“The water was rising faster than anything I have ever witnessed,” the counselor wrote.
All told, the destructive flooding killed at least 136 people along a several-mile stretch of the river, raising questions about how things went so terribly wrong.
Families of several of the girls who died have sued the camp’s operators, arguing that camp officials failed to take necessary steps to protect the campers as life-threatening floodwaters approached.
The camp's efforts to reopen have outraged the families of the girls and Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has said the license should be denied while state lawmakers and agencies investigate. Camp operators have said nearly 900 campers have signed up to return.
Texas health regulators said last week they are investigating hundreds of complaints filed against the camp owners. The Texas Rangers are also helping look into allegations of neglect, according to the Texas Department of Safety, although the scope of the state’s elite investigations unit was not immediately clear.
