Families allege camp leaders ignored known flood risks in ‘entirely preventable’ tragedy that killed multiple people
Families allege camp leaders ignored known flood risks in ‘entirely preventable’ tragedy that killed multiple people
The families of several campers and two counselors who died in July’s catastrophic Hill Country floods in Texas have filed multiple lawsuits against Camp Mystic and its owners, accusing them of “gross negligence”.
The 4 July floods, which claimed more than 130 lives across the region and was described as some of the US’s deadliest floods in decades, devastated the 99-year-old Christian all-girls camp, located on the banks of the Guadalupe river in Kerr county.
Twenty-five young campers, two teenage counselors and the camp’s longtime owner, Dick Eastland, died after flood waters inundated the property.
Across a series of lawsuits filed by Monday, several families of the young campers and counselors described the tragedy as “entirely preventable” and allege that the camp leaders ignored known flood risks, did not have adequate safety procedures in place, and failed to protect the campers and counselors.
The complaints name Camp Mystic and members of the Eastland family, who owned and operated the camp for decades, as defendants.
One complaint, filed on behalf of the families of five campers and two counselors who died, accuses the camp of putting “profit over safety” and alleges that it chose to house campers “in cabins sitting in flood-prone areas, despite the risk” to “avoid the cost of relocating the cabins”.
