186 Felix Fisher Rd S, Hunt, TX 78204
Author: Jewls Krueger
In the early morning hours of July 4, 2025, catastrophic flash flooding swept through the Texas Hill Country and killed 28 people at Camp Mystic, a nearly 100 year old all girls Christian summer camp along the Guadalupe River in unincorporated Kerr County, Texas. Twenty-five of the dead were campers between the ages of eight and ten, two were teenage counselors, and one was the camp's longtime director. Across the broader flooding event, roughly 138 people were killed.
Subsequent investigations by the Texas Legislature concluded that the deaths at Camp Mystic were largely preventable and pointed to a series of cascading failures in emergency planning, staff training, and warning systems.
Camp Mystic was founded in 1926 by former University of Texas football coach E. J. "Doc" Stewart under the name Stewart's Camp for Girls. In 1939, the camp was purchased by William "Pop" and Agnes "Ag" Stacy, whose family has run it ever since. Since 1974, the camp has been operated by Ag Stacy's granddaughter Tweety Eastland and her husband Dick Eastland.
The camp sits on approximately 725 acres roughly six miles southwest of Hunt, Texas, at the confluence of the South Fork of the Guadalupe River and Cypress Creek. The property is divided into two adjacent campuses, the original Guadalupe Camp on the river and the newer Cypress Lake campus set back from the river. The camp serves girls ages eight to seventeen and typically runs three summer sessions per year. At the time of the July 2025 flood, roughly 750 campers and 108 staff members were on the property.
Camp Mystic has been hit by three major flash floods before July 2025: in 1932, 1978, and 1987. Kerr County sits in an area of Central Texas that meteorologists and emergency planners call "Flash Flood Alley," a limestone dominated corridor of the Hill Country where heavy rain can rapidly convert into powerful flash floods. In 2011, the Federal Emergency Management Agency designated the Camp Mystic property as a "special flood hazard area." Between 2011 and 2020, FEMA revised its 100 year flood map several times in response to appeals from the camp's ownership, removing roughly 30 buildings from the official flood hazard zone during a period when the camp was actively expanding into and around the floodplain.
The flood waters at Camp Mystic - Public Domain
Beginning on the evening of July 3, 2025, a slow moving mesoscale convective vortex fed by tropical moisture stalled over the Texas Hill Country and began to dump extreme rainfall on the upper Guadalupe River watershed. Rainfall totals exceeded 20 inches in some parts of the watershed.
The National Weather Service issued a Flash Flood Warning for the Camp Mystic area at approximately 1:14 a.m. on July 4. Camp director Dick Eastland was awake and monitoring the situation. According to the Texas Legislature's investigative report, by 1:45 a.m. he had radioed his son Edward Eastland, the director of the Guadalupe Camp portion of the property, about rising water, but no evacuation of the cabins was ordered. At 2:37 a.m., Dick Eastland drove several counselors who had come to the office back to their cabins, telling them to place towels along the doorways and shelter in place. By 3 a.m., the camp road was covered in water.
Between 3 a.m. and 5:10 a.m., the Guadalupe River rose by approximately 27 feet, cresting at a record 37.52 feet by around 5 a.m. and surging an estimated 29 feet through the Hunt area. Dick Eastland then began attempting to evacuate cabins by driving girls out one cabin at a time in his personal vehicle rather than instructing them to move to higher ground on foot. When he arrived at the Bubble Inn cabin, the lowest lying cabin at the camp, he loaded all 13 campers and both of their counselors into his SUV. The vehicle was overtaken by the floodwaters. Every person inside, including Dick Eastland, died. Investigators later found his SUV lodged against a tree along the Guadalupe River.
Meanwhile, Edward Eastland was working to evacuate the two connected cabins known as Twins I and Twins II. When the water became too high for the girls to remain, they were carried out into the current. Edward survived. Eleven of the Twins campers, and one additional camper who had returned to a cabin to retrieve a personal item after evacuating, did not.
Of the 28 people from the camp who died, 25 campers were between the ages of 8 and 10. The two counselors were 18 and 19 years old, including 19 year old Chloe Childress of Houston. As of early 2026, one camper remained missing after months of search and recovery efforts along the Guadalupe River.
Topographic map of Camp Mystic - Public Domain
In the months that followed the flood, the Texas Legislature convened a bipartisan investigative committee to examine the events at Camp Mystic. The committee's 115 page final report, released on June 18, 2026 and based on more than 140 interviews, concluded that the deaths at Camp Mystic were preventable. Among the findings, investigators determined that the camp's emergency operations plan did not comply with state law, that the camp had never adopted a legally required evacuation plan for its cabins, that most of the camp's 39 adult staff members did not know how to evacuate campers to higher ground, that the camp had no radios, walkie talkies, or public address system in the cabins, and that campers had been told they could not bring their cell phones to camp, meaning the National Weather Service's early morning mobile alerts never reached them.
Investigators also found that the camp had cultivated an internal culture in which counselors were trained not to question decisions made by camp leadership. Texas state health inspector had approved the camp's safety plan just two days before the flood, despite it being out of compliance with state requirements.
Beginning in November 2025, the families of six children and both teenage counselors filed lawsuits against Camp Mystic and its owners in Travis County District Court, alleging negligence and reckless disregard for safety. By February 2026, five lawsuits representing 15 families had been filed. Camp Mystic had originally planned to reopen its undamaged Cypress Lake campus for the summer of 2026, its 100th anniversary, but withdrew its application in April 2026 amid a public backlash and legislative scrutiny. In June 2026, chief camp health officer Mary Elizabeth Eastland's nursing license was temporarily suspended after the Texas Board of Nursing found she had failed to contact 911 after campers were reported missing and failed to report the deaths to state authorities within the required 24 hours.
The Texas Legislature also passed a series of new laws in response, including the Youth Camp Alert, Mitigation, Preparedness, and Emergency Response Act (Youth CAMPER Act), which requires all youth camps to maintain approved emergency plans and staff training, and the Heaven's 27 Camp Safety Act, which prohibits overnight cabins in designated floodplains.
A Memorial for the Victims of the Floods - Public Domain
Camp Mystic sits along the South Fork of the Guadalupe River off Camp Mystic Way South in unincorporated Kerr County, Texas, roughly six miles southwest of the small town of Hunt and about 90 miles northwest of San Antonio. On June 24, 2026, Camp Mystic Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas, listing assets between $1 million and $10 million and liabilities between $10 million and $50 million. As of the summer of 2026, Camp Mystic is not operating and its long term future is uncertain.
Along the banks of the Guadalupe River near the camp, a 10 foot memorial cross was placed by mourners in the days after the flood, along with a growing collection of flowers, stuffed animals, and handwritten notes for the girls, the counselors, and Dick Eastland. The camp property itself remains private and is not open to the public. Please be respectful of the surrounding families and community, do not attempt to enter camp property, stay on public roads at all times, and remember that this remains a place of profound loss for the families of 28 people and for the larger Kerr County community.
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