Camp Mystic Director Gives Most Detailed Timeline of Tragedy Yet

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, the AP reports. 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.

• 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. 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.

• Edward 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. "We did not expect what was going to happen," Edward Eastland said. "You were warned," said an attorney representing a victim's family.

• Eastland said he went to bed about 11pm July 3 and never received a National Weather Service flash flood warning at 1:14am. 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 2am 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 3am, Edward Eastland said. Lawyers for the families introduced a signed statement from a counselor who described the horror of the night. "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.
• Eastland 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.