Editorial: Bankruptcy should not protect Camp Mystic from lawsuits

The owners of Camp Mystic, where 25 girls and two teenage counselors died in a flash flood last summer, filed for bankruptcy last week. That's a good thing, if it's the first step toward the Eastland family, which owns the camp, selling the property and transitioning into another line of business. It's a bad thing if it's only a way to protect assets from multiple lawsuits.

State investigators who examined the Camp Mystic disaster recently released their final report, and it is unsparing. It makes clear that all the girls could have been saved, regardless of whether emergency plans were adequate, or who had cell phones, or when the power went off. If Camp Director Richard Eastland, or another senior staff member, had just instructed girls in riverside cabins to evacuate to higher ground when the water started seeping in, they could have survived.

Because the Eastlands were in charge, and they failed so miserably, family members must never be entrusted with other people's children again. As the investigators' report noted, emergency instructions posted in each building of the Guadalupe River campus included this sentence: "All cabins are constructed on high, safe locations." That statement was false. It misled campers, counselors and parents. The best outcome would be for the Eastlands to relinquish ownership of and affiliation with the camp and find other work.

During a special session last year, legislators passed multiple reforms, many of which were reasonable and a few that could give a false sense of security. Of course, camps should have detailed emergency and evacuation plans, with staff and counselors assigned specific duties. Of course, campers should have age-appropriate training on emergency procedures soon after they arrive.

But the value of warning sirens in rural areas is less clear. Would people hear them? The July 4 thunderstorms over the Hill Country were exceptionally loud - yet some seasonal employees at Camp Mystic, who stayed in a building on slightly higher ground, slept through them. And visitors to the region might hear a siren and think tornado, not flash flood.

The requirement for redundant fiber optic broadband access also caused frustration for camp directors in remote areas. A last-minute deal allowed camps to obtain state licenses even if they didn't have fiber optic internet access, as long as they had similar access through satellite, cellular or microwave technology. The Department of State Health Services website shows that almost 300 youth camps received licenses to operate this summer.

Still, no law can replace good judgment and erring on the side of caution during dangerous situations. The investigators' report noted that the worst flood to hit Camp Mystic before last year happened in July 1932. That was a decade before radar was first used to detect storms, and decades before text alerts.

Camp was in session at the time, the report states, and "...campers were eating lunch as flood waters neared the dining hall. The Camp Mystic director calmly directed them through the back door and sent them up a nearby hill."

They all survived.

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