AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The director of the Texas summer camp where 27 campers and counselors were killed by a devastating flood in 2025 testified Monday he did not see official warnings issued the day before the storm hit, that staff had no meetings about the pending danger and that they did not make the call to evacuate until it was too late.
Over several hours of sometimes emotional testimony at a court hearing packed with families of campers who were killed, Edward Eastland provided the most detailed description yet of how camp staff did or didn’t respond as floodwaters along the Guadalupe River quickly rose to historic levels, trapping children and counselors in cabins before they were swept away in the early morning dark of July Fourth.
“I wish we never had camp that summer,” Eastland said near the end of his testimony. He acknowledged lives could have been saved if camp staff acted sooner, but insisted they could not have anticipated the severity of the storm.
This week’s hearing comes during a legal battle between the camp owners and victims’ families who have filed multiple lawsuits and the families’ demands to preserve the damage at the camp site as evidence.
And it comes as Camp Mystic plans to reopen in less than two months. The camp has applied with state regulators to renew its license so that it can open an elevated area that did not flood. Camp operators have said nearly 900 girls have registered to attend.
Eastland acknowledged the camp had no detailed written flood evacuation plan. He also said more campers would have survived if he and his father, camp co-owner Richard Eastland, as well as a camp safety director had made quicker decisions to evacuate.
By the time they did, the waters were so high and so fast they were producing rapids that swirled around some cabins, he said.
Eastland also acknowledged staff didn’t use simple measures like using campus loudspeakers to tell campers and counselors to leave their cabins and get to higher ground earlier in the storm.
Cici Steward, whose 8-year-old daughter Cile is the only camp victim still missing, said after the testimony the state should deny the camp’s license.
“It is so clear they are incapable of keeping children safe,” Cici Steward said.
Eastland attorney Mikal Watts declined comment immediately after the hearing.
Missed warnings and missed chances to evacuate
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 3.
Eastland said he 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 typically monitored weather issues and that he did not believe camp staff held a meeting about the alerts and warnings that day.
The storms would hit in the overnight hours, killing 25 campers, two teenage counselors and Richard Eastland, who had loaded up his large SUV with campers before the vehicle was swept away. None survived.
“We did not expect what was going to happen,” Edward Eastland said.
“You were warned,” said Brad Beckworth, an attorney representing the Steward family.
Eastland says campus loudspeakers were not used to issue a weather warning
The courtroom heard part of a video of “Taps” played over loudspeakers when the campers went to bed at around 10 p.m. July 3.
Eastland said he went to bed about 11 p.m. and never received a National Weather Service flash flood warning at 1:14 a.m.. He said he slept through a CodeRED alert text at the same time that warned of a flood event that could last several hours.
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 riverfront. They did not move to evacuate cabins at that point.
“It was not reasonable to do that at that time,” Eastland said. “The water wasn’t out of the Guadalupe River. It was pouring down rain and lightning and the cabins were safe at that time.”
Richard Eastland made the call to evacuate cabins about 3 a.m., Edward Eastland said.
Lawyers for the families introduced a signed statement from a counselor who described the horror of the night. She woke up during the storm and could see girls running for shelter.
“The water was rising faster than anything I have ever witnessed,” the counselor wrote. She said Edward Eastland eventually approached the cabin in knee-deep water, told her it was too late to leave and they should ride out the storm there.
The counselor said she tried to keep the children out of the rising water pouring in before she was eventually swept away herself.
Eastland also tearfully described trying to grab two girls and a third who jumped on his back while he stood bracing himself in a cabin doorway before they were washed away. He and a counselor eventually were pushed into a tree.
“The water was over my head very quickly. The water was churning,” Eastland said.
At one point, several family members left the courtroom during a cellphone video taken the night of the flood. Someone could be heard yelling “Help!” in the background.
Flooding killed at least 136 people along the Guadalupe River
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.
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.
The hearing is scheduled to continue Tuesday.
