The director of Camp Mystic says he slept through the warning about the deadly Texas floods
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The director of a Texas summer camp where 27 campers and counselors died in floods last year testified Monday that he had not seen official warnings issued the day before the storm and that staff had no meetings about the impending danger.
Edward Eastland gave the most detailed description yet of how the camp responded as floodwaters along the Guadalupe River quickly rose to historic levels, trapping children and counselors in cabins before they were swept away on July 4, 2025. Eastland’s emotional testimony sometimes came with a room full of families of slain campers,
“I wish we hadn’t had camp that summer,” Eastland said at the end of his testimony. He admitted that life could have been saved if the camp staff had taken immediate action, but stressed that they could not have expected how intense the storm would be.
Eastland admitted that the Christian girls’ camp did not have a written flood evacuation plan. He also said that many of the campers would have survived if he and his father, camp owner Richard Eastland, and the camp’s security director had made quick decisions to evacuate.
The storms raged through the night, killing 25 girls between the ages of eight and 10, two young women counselors and Richard Eastland.
Cici Steward, whose 8-year-old daughter Cile is the only victim who disappeared from the camp, said that after the evidence the state should ban the camp.
“It is clear that they cannot keep the children safe,” she said.
Overall, Devastating floods killed at least 136 people in Texas within a few miles of Guadalupe.
‘You have been warned’
At an evidentiary hearing in the case against Camp Mystic, Eastland said he and other employees were signed up to an emergency alert system on their phones and used other weather apps. But he said he did not see the flooding posted on social media by the National Weather Service and the Texas Department of Emergency Management on July 2 and 3.
Eastland said he thought the “CodeRED” mobile phone system and phone weather apps employees had at the time were “sufficient.”
A July 3 warning from the National Weather Service asked local broadcasters to be aware that heavy rain in the area could cause flooding in rivers, streams, creeks and low-lying areas, all aspects of the Camp Mystic property.
Eastland said his father often monitored weather news and did not believe the camp staff had a meeting about warnings and cautions that day.
“We didn’t expect what would happen,” he said.
“You’ve been warned,” said Brad Beckworth, an attorney representing the Steward family.
Eastland said he went to bed around 11 p.m. and didn’t receive a National Weather Service flood warning until 1:14 a.m. He said he slept through a CodeRED alert at the same time warning of a flash flood that could last for several hours.
His father called him on the walkie-talkie just before two in the morning to tell him about the heavy rain and the need to move boats and water supplies near the river. They made no move to evacuate the cabins at that time.
“It made sense to do that at the time,” Eastland said. “The water was not coming out of the Guadalupe River. It was raining and lightning and the toilets were safe at that time.”
Eastland said his father asked him to get people out at around 03:00 in the morning
Dozens of campers and staff died when flooding swept through a girls’ summer camp along the Guadalupe River in central Texas. CBC’s Eli Glaser examines how Camp Mystic’s location and structure may have contributed to the damage.
Lawyers for the families presented a signed statement from a counselor detailing the night’s horror. He woke up when there was a storm and saw the girls running to hide.
“The water was rising faster than anything I’ve ever seen,” the advisor wrote. He said that Edward Eastland finally came to the cottage in knee-deep water, and told him that it was too late to leave and that they should ride out the storm there.
The counselor said he tried to keep the children out of the rising water before finally taking him away.
Eastland also tearfully described trying to hold on to two girls and a third who jumped onto his back as he stood in the doorway of the house before being swept away. He and the counselor ended up being pushed into a tree.
“The water was immediately over my head. The water was flowing,” Eastland said.
At one point, several family members walked out of court during cell phone video taken the night of the flood. Someone could be heard shouting “Help!” behind.
Texas health officials said last week they were investigating hundreds of complaints filed against camp owners.
The hearing is expected to continue on Tuesday. This came at a time when there was a legal dispute between the camp owners and the families of the victims who filed multiple lawsuits and the families’ demands to preserve the damage to the camp site as evidence.
Camp Mystic has also applied to state regulators to renew its license so it can open in two months, at an elevation that didn’t flood last year. Those who work at the camps say that approximately 900 girls have registered to attend.
