“On July 4, the Camp chose to take no steps to protect its camps and counselors while it knew a storm and ‘life threatening flash flooding’ were approaching,” the lawsuit alleges. “Instead, with the river rising, the Camp chose to direct its groundskeepers to spend over an hour evacuating camp equipment, not its campers and counselors.”
The families of seven campers and two counselors who died after flash floods hit Camp Mystic in Texas have filed a series of three lawsuits against the site’s owner.
According to CNN, one of the lawsuits was filed on behalf of the families of five campers and two counselors, all of whom died during the July 4 floods. The victims identified in the first lawsuit include: Anna Margaret Bellows, Lila Bonner, Chloe Childress, Molly DeWitt, Katherine Ferruzzo, Lainey Landry, and Blakely McCrory.
The second lawsuit was lodged by the family of 8-year-old Eloise “Lulu” Peck, an attorney told CNN; the third lawsuit was filed by relatives of 9-year-old Ellen Getten.
All three of the lawsuits seek damages in excess of $1 million and name Camp Mystic and members of the Eastland family, which owns the property, as defendants.
“We continue to pray for the grieving families and ask for God’s healing and comfort,” Camp Mystic said in a statement released shortly after the lawsuits were announced.
CNN notes that more than two-dozen campers and staff members died in the early hours of July 4 after heavy rainfall inundated the area and triggered a flash flood. Many of the younger victims were, at the time of the incident, lodging in cabins set along the bank of the Guadalupe River.
A spokesperson for the Eastland family has since said that Richard “Dick” Eastland, a co-owner of the girls-only Christian camp, died while trying to save some of the children.
In total, at least 136 people across the region lost their lives due to the flood, which caused the river to rise from 3 feet to almost 30 feet in less than an hour. Attorneys for the families say that Camp Mystic should have anticipated the possibility of a dangerous flood and negligently failed to implement any kind of meaningful safety or evacuation plan.
“Today, campers Margeret, Lila, Molly, Lianey, and Blakely should be third graders, and counselors Chloe and Katherine should be freshmen at the University of Texas,” the lawsuit states. “They are all gone.”
“These young girls died because a for-profit camp put profit over safety,” it says. “The Camp chose to house young girls in cabins sitting in flood-prone areas, despite the risk, to avoid the cost of relocating the cabins. The Camp chose not to make plans to safely evacuate its campers and counselors from those cabins, despite state rules requiring evacuation plans, and not to spend time and money on safety training and tools.”
Attorneys emphasized the absence of strong plans in the early hours of July 4, when the camp’s owners allegedly knew, or should have known, that “life threatening flash flooding” was an impending possibility.
“On July 4, the Camp chose to take no steps to protect its camps and counselors while it knew a storm and ‘life threatening flash flooding’ were approaching,” the lawsuit alleges. “Instead, with the river rising, the Camp chose to direct its groundskeepers to spend over an hour evacuating camp equipment, not its campers and counselors. The Camp chose not to evacuate its campers and counselors, even as floodwater reached the cabins, until counselors demanded it.”
“Camp [Mystic] chose not to evacuate the Bubble Inn and Twins cabins when other campers and counselors had been moved to safe, higher ground just 300 feet away,” the lawsuit says. “Instead, the Camp chose to order its campers and counselors to remain in the Bubble Inn and Twins cabins while the flood waters overwhelmed the camp. Finally, when it was too late, the Camp made a hopeless ‘rescue’ effort from its self-created disaster in which 25 campers, two counselors, and the Camp director died.”
“The Camp’s failure to act led to utter chaos and mass panic,” the lawsuit adds.
The lawsuit seeks a jury trial in Texas’s Travis County District County and seeks compensation for mental anguish among other damages.
In a statement addressing the lawsuit, Jeff Ray, legal counsel for Camp Mystic, said that his clients intend to prove that there is no way they could have reasonably anticipated the severity and extent of the flood.
“We empathize with the families of them campers and counselors and all families in the Hill Country who just loved ones in the horrific and unprecedented flood of July 4,” Ray said.
“We intend to demonstrate and prove that this sudden surge of floodwaters far exceeded any previous flood in the area by several magnitudes, that it was unexpected and that no adequate warning systems existed in the area,” Ray continued. “We disagree with several accusations and misinformation in the legal filings regarding the actions of Camp Mystic and Dick Eastland, who lost his life as well.”
Sources
Suits Accuse Camp Mystic of Gross Negligence in Children’s Deaths
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