Clinging to Trees, Screaming for Help: Lawsuits Detail Girls’ Final Moments at Camp Mystic

Clinging to Trees, Screaming for Help: Lawsuits Detail Girls’ Final Moments at Camp Mystic

EDITOR’S NOTE: This account of the deadly Camp Mystic flooding in Hunt, Texas, is based on lawsuits, official statements and reporting from CNN and its affiliates.

Weeks before 8-year-old Eloise “Lulu” Peck was swept away in the catastrophic July flood, her parents say she filled a notebook page with drawings of rising water and dark skies — a quiet reflection of fears no child should have to name. In the early hours of Independence Day, an intense storm sent the Guadalupe River surging to roughly 30 feet, sweeping cabins, vehicles and people downstream and killing 27 campers and counselors at the all-girls Christian camp.

In four lawsuits filed last week, grieving families accuse Camp Mystic and its owners of gross negligence. The complaints allege the camp failed to relocate cabins from flood-prone areas, lacked a meaningful evacuation plan and basic communications, and prioritized cost savings — including a 2013 change to FEMA flood-map designations — over campers’ safety. Plaintiffs say those failures turned what could have been a survivable emergency into an avoidable tragedy.

What the lawsuits describe

According to the filings, some girls clung to tree branches as foul, debris-laden water swirled around them; others were trapped inside cabins as water rose above reach. Counselors and campers who climbed to higher ground report hearing “screams for help” from lower cabins, where children had been told to remain. The complaints detail horrifying last moments: frantic attempts to reach higher bunks, desperate swims through raging water, and children swept away while friends watched helplessly from trees and higher structures.

“That she left this world in the very way she feared most is a truth too heavy to bear,” the Peck family lawsuit says.

Camp response and disputed facts

Camp lawyers and spokespeople say conditions were chaotic, cell coverage was unreliable, and the flood surge was unprecedented. They note that camp directors, including Richard “Dick” Eastland — who died during the rescue effort, according to a family spokesperson — and his son Edward worked to evacuate children and that 166 girls were moved to safety during those hours, as one camp attorney told CNN. Defense counsel disputes some factual claims in the lawsuits and says the camp followed long-standing guidance that cautioned against moving through floodwaters.

Background and warnings

Plaintiffs point to a long history of dangerous flooding on the Guadalupe River, noting major floods in 1932, 1978 and 1984 and a deadly 1987 incident at a nearby camp. They say earlier warning systems championed by the Eastlands deteriorated over time and that plans to modernize monitoring and sirens stalled for years. The lawsuits also allege that a 2013 map change reduced the number of cabins listed in FEMA’s 100-year Special Flood Hazard Area, saving the camp insurance and renovation costs while leaving structures exposed.

Emergency planning and reopening

Families contend the camp’s written emergency plan was minimal — a single page covering multiple disaster scenarios — and that its instructions to shelter in place during flooding were effectively fatal. Camp attorneys counter that shelter-in-place guidance followed national and local safety recommendations that warn against moving through floodwaters.

Camp Mystic has announced plans to partially reopen next summer for its 100th anniversary, keeping the riverside section closed while reopening an uphill expansion. Several families say early fundraising and promotion felt like the camp was moving on before answering questions about accountability and safety reforms.

Aftermath

Months after the disaster, the families say they have received little meaningful acknowledgement and are seeking accountability through the courts. The lawsuits aim both to recover damages and to force a reckoning over decisions plaintiffs say made the camp uniquely vulnerable to a foreseeable danger.

Contributors: CNN’s Curt Devine, Casey Tolan, Pamela Brown, Shoshana Dubnow and Eric Levenson contributed reporting to the original accounts.