Camp Mystic Official Admits Not Reporting Flood Deaths to Texas Health Agency
In a poignant legal hearing this week, Mary Liz Eastland, the medical officer for Camp Mystic in Texas, testified that she has still not officially reported the deaths of 27 girls and counselors from catastrophic flash floods to the state health agency. This admission comes as the Christian summer camp, owned and operated by the Eastland family, applies to reopen for the upcoming summer season, following the devastating event on 11 July 2025 in Kerrville, Texas.
The hearing is part of a lawsuit brought by the family of eight-year-old camper Cecilia "Cile" Steward, whose body remains missing. The Steward family is seeking to temporarily close off the camp's flooded areas to preserve evidence while their legal case proceeds. Under Texas administrative code, camps are required to report deaths to state health regulators within 24 hours, a requirement Eastland acknowledged she overlooked.
Testimony Reveals Lapses in Protocol and Emotional Accounts
During her testimony, Mary Liz Eastland explained her failure to report the deaths, stating, "I did not think of this requirement in the moments happening after the flood." She added that she had not done so before the camp filed its reopening application in March. When asked if she should report the deaths now, with the camp's license pending, she replied, "I guess so." Eastland also testified that she could not recall exactly when she first learned of the fatalities, estimating it might have been a day or several days after the 4 July flooding.
She described the chaotic scene, noting how water poured into her home that night, forcing her to break a window to escape with her children to higher ground. At sunrise, she and other staff gathered survivors for a head count, checking names against cabin rosters. "I had to figure out who we had and didn't have at that point," she said. Eastland testified that she did not attempt to evacuate campers from low-lying areas early on due to rapidly rising flood waters making access impossible.
In a tense exchange, an attorney for the Steward family questioned her actions, asking, "You knew the property. You knew the flood lines. You knew access points. Your children knew them. And these were first-year campers, you had 34 more years of experience than Cile. She needed your help, and you abandoned her, didn't you?" Eastland responded, "Yes."
Camp Director's Testimony Highlights Lack of Preparedness
Mary Liz Eastland's testimony followed hours of questioning of her husband, Edward Eastland, a camp director whose father, Richard Eastland, was also killed in the flood. Edward Eastland told the court that he had not seen official weather warnings before the storm, did not convene a staff meeting about potential flooding, and acknowledged the camp lacked a detailed, written flood evacuation plan.
He maintained that earlier action could have saved lives but argued they could not have anticipated the storm's scale. At times emotional, Edward Eastland described his efforts to save campers on 4 July, saying, "There were girls going out of the front door. I grabbed two girls, and there was a third one I didn't grab," as reported by the Washington Post. He added that another girl "jumped on my back – I don't know who it was – before we got washed out." He recounted, "The water came up over my head very quickly. The water was churning." When asked about Cile Steward's fate, he said, "I don't know."
Community members in Kerrville recently held a candlelight vigil to honor the more than 120 lives lost in the flash floods, highlighting the ongoing grief and impact of the disaster. The Associated Press contributed to this reporting, underscoring the broader context of extreme weather events in Texas.
