Edward Eastland, the director of the Texas summer camp where 27 campers and counselors died in a 2025 Guadalupe River flood, testified Monday that he did not see official flood warnings issued the day before the storm and that staff did not discuss the danger beforehand. Eastland’s testimony came during a court hearing attended by families of the victims, as lawyers litigated what camp operators knew, how they responded, and what evidence should be preserved.
Eastland described how staff did or didn’t respond as the river rose quickly to historic levels, with children and counselors in cabins as floodwaters surged through the night of July Fourth. He said he did not expect the severity of the storm, while acknowledging that more lives could have been saved if staff acted sooner.
Eastland testified that the hearing is happening amid multiple lawsuits by victims’ families and their efforts to preserve damage at the camp site as evidence, even as Camp Mystic has sought to reopen. The camp has applied with state regulators to renew its license so it can open an elevated area that did not flood, and camp operators have said nearly 900 girls have registered for the upcoming summer sessions.
In his account, Eastland said there was no detailed written flood evacuation plan and he later agreed that quicker decisions by him, by his father, and by a camp safety director could have improved survival odds. He also testified that when evacuation decisions were eventually made, water levels and speed had already increased so much that rapids formed around some cabins.
Eastland said staff did not use basic communication measures such as campus loudspeakers to tell campers and counselors to leave cabins and move to higher ground earlier in the storm. Lawyers played part of a video of “Taps” played over loudspeakers when campers went to bed at about 10 p.m. on July 3.
On warnings and timing, Eastland testified he was signed up for an emergency warning system on his phone and used other weather apps. He said he did not see flood watch posts on social media from the National Weather Service and the Texas Department of Emergency Management on July 2 and 3, and he said CodeRED mobile phone alert texts he received during the night covered an event that could last several hours.
Eastland told the court he went to bed about 11 p.m. and said he never received a National Weather Service flash flood warning at 1:14 a.m. He said his father called him on a walkie-talkie shortly before 2 a.m. about hard rain and the need to move canoes and water equipment off the riverfront, but that they did not evacuate cabins at that time because the Guadalupe River was still below cabin levels and rain and lightning continued.
Eastland said Richard Eastland made the call to evacuate cabins at about 3 a.m. He also addressed moments described in testimony introduced by the families’ lawyers, including a signed statement from a counselor who wrote that water was rising faster than anything she had seen and that the head of the camp later told her it was too late to leave and that they should ride out the storm in the cabin.
After Eastland’s testimony, Brad Beckworth, an attorney representing the Steward family, told the court that “You were warned,” according to his remark reported after the hearing. Cici Steward, whose 8-year-old daughter Cile is the only camp victim still missing, said she wanted the state to deny the camp’s license, saying, “It is so clear they are incapable of keeping children safe.”
Texas health regulators said last week they are investigating hundreds of complaints filed against the camp owners, and the Texas Rangers are also involved in looking into allegations of neglect, according to the Texas Department of Safety. The hearing is scheduled to continue Tuesday.