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Dateline NBC Season Episode 18 englishsubtitle watchfull⚡️⚡️
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00:00We prayed to God that she was out there holding on.
00:04You are seeing trunks float down the river.
00:07You're seeing cars fly by you.
00:1027 girls died.
00:13It should have never happened.
00:15Could this tragedy have been averted?
00:17100% our girls should be here.
00:20They were told to stay in their cabins.
00:24Hundreds of girls' lives were saved.
00:26So you're making an argument for keeping them inside the cabins.
00:29It's called Shelter in Place.
00:31It is the closest to hell that I had ever been.
00:34The terrifying floods here at Camp Mystic.
00:37One year later, anguish, anger, and haunting questions.
00:42I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.
00:51Here is After the Flood.
01:00For many kids, summer camp is a rite of passage.
01:04At Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian camp in the Texas Hill Country, that tradition ran deep.
01:10I have been attending Mystic for 10 summers as a camper.
01:15First-year counselor Ainsley Beshara.
01:18I had always known that I was going to be a counselor, and Mystic is the closest thing to heaven
01:24that I've ever experienced.
01:25It's where my faith began.
01:28Owned and operated by Dick and Tweedy Eastland since 1974, Camp Mystic had drawn Texas families to the Guadalupe River
01:36for almost a century.
01:38They were so invested in every single girl.
01:41I mean, you could just see the love that the two of them had, and it was so special.
01:45Eleven-year-old Gwen Gettin, in her fourth year, had felt that love.
01:50Now it was her nine-year-old sister Ellen's turn.
01:53She was finally old enough to be a big girl and kind of go off and, you know, not have
01:58her mom and dad around.
01:59Their parents, Jenny and Doug.
02:02How did Gwen feel about having her sister at the camp?
02:05Very excited.
02:06They had already figured out before they even left what activities they were going to try to do together.
02:10Camp Mystic offered everything from horseback riding to river canoeing.
02:14Lindsay McCrory hoped that for her eight-year-old daughter, Blakely, it could also be a place of healing.
02:21Blakely had lost her father a few months before camp, my late husband, after a brief battle of cancer.
02:27And then her uncle died in June, my brother.
02:30So we were happy for her to spend time outdoors and just be a kid.
02:36Blakely, Ellen, and more than 500 campers arrived on June 29, 2025, spread across cabins near the river and up
02:45on higher ground.
02:46Blakely was assigned to a cabin called Twins One, one of two interconnected cabins about 400 feet from the river.
02:54Ellen got Bubble Inn, right next door.
02:57And Ainsley was a few steps away in Gigglebox, one of three counselors responsible for 16 young campers aged 8
03:06to 10.
03:07So younger kids would have been staying closer to the river?
03:09Yes.
03:10The camp settled into its usual rhythm of games, activities, and Sunday devotionals.
03:16Ellen went fishing and joined the crafts group.
03:19As the end of the first week neared, she and her sister looked forward to the big July 4th celebration.
03:26On July 3rd, Gwen went to her cabin.
03:30They were having a dance party and kissed Ellen goodnight, and Ellen kissed her cheek, and they said they loved
03:36each other.
03:36Outside, a storm was brewing.
03:39A powerful weather system had stalled over central Texas and was about to unleash waves of thunderstorms over the same
03:46area for hours.
03:48Dick Eastland was awake and monitoring the weather when the National Weather Service issued its first flash flood warning on
03:56July 4th at 1.14 a.m.
03:58It was scary.
04:00About a half hour later, 10-year-old Lucy Kennedy woke up disoriented and frightened.
04:06Her cabin was down the road from Ellen and Blakely.
04:09There was like a really loud thunder, and my whole cabin, I think everyone woke up because it was really
04:17loud.
04:19I mean, it sounded like people were shooting fireworks off in our cabin.
04:22The rain was falling so hard that by 2.14 a.m., an hour after the flash flood warning, a
04:29dry creek that cut through the camp had turned into a torrent.
04:32The river kept rising at a record rate.
04:35At 3.11 a.m., Dick Eastland and his son Edward, who was in charge of the younger campers, started
04:42evacuating the cabins closest to the river.
04:45About 10 minutes later, it was Lucy's cabin's turn.
04:49When the water started coming up, was anybody giving you instructions as to what to do?
04:54Our counselor said to grab, like, maybe, like, a pillow and blanket just in case we had to sleep, and,
05:01like, a water and a flashlight.
05:03And then they told us to be strong and go to the wreck, and then they went after us.
05:09At 3.26 a.m., a counselor snapped this photo.
05:14Girls from Lucy's cabin struggling through rising waters to reach the two-story wreck hall.
05:20How strong was the water?
05:22Really strong.
05:23I mean, was it pulling at you or pulling at things around you?
05:26Yeah.
05:28Were you able to stay close to your friends?
05:31Yeah.
05:32Ainsley saw Lucy's group race by her cabin and wondered, as a counselor, what she should do.
05:38The girls are either running from their cabins or they're being taken in a suburban in a truck through the
05:44main road.
05:45And I remember listening through the window, and we're being told to stay in our cabin, stay in our cabin,
05:50stay in our cabin.
05:51I see the water pouring into our cabin.
05:54Without a second thought, girls, put on your shoes.
05:57And grab a rain jacket, and we're leaving.
05:59Ainsley tried to open the door.
06:01When the water came through the door, it literally swept me off my feet.
06:04And I remember slamming the door somehow and just being in a state of, what now?
06:11And at this time, a worker from the camp had come up to our window.
06:16It was Edward Eastland, her camp director.
06:19They had said to me, this is crazy.
06:22This is crazy.
06:23I don't know what to do.
06:24I remember thinking in my mind, you don't know what to do?
06:28I have 16 little girls behind me, and I'm just as afraid as they are.
06:33They decided to go through the window.
06:35Edward helped them break out one of the screens, then rushed to evacuate another cabin.
06:40And we get the first girl to get through the window, and thank God that she was too afraid to
06:46jump through the window first.
06:47So without a second thought, I jumped out of the window to grab her and just put her and show
06:52her that it was okay.
06:53And that is when I realized how fast, high, and rapid the water was moving.
06:59I mean, it was rushing just enough to easily swipe a little girl off of her feet and take her
07:05away from us.
07:06It was terrifying.
07:07Fear was about to turn into a race for survival.
07:24Ainsley and two other counselors were trying to save their 8- to 10-year-old campers in the biggest
07:29flood camp Mystic had ever seen.
07:32When they started passing them through their cabin window, the water was almost knee-high and rising fast.
07:39I mean, I would carry three of them at a time, as many as I possibly could, and we saw
07:44this pavilion in higher ground to our cabin.
07:48And we all made trip after trip after trip until all of the girls were out of our cabin and
07:53up to the pavilion.
07:54We were able to look back on our cabin.
07:56You could already see water rushing through the windows and pouring into the cabin from every angle.
08:02But soon, the water reached the pavilion.
08:04There was no way out other than a steep hill behind them.
08:08It was a very steep, steep climb, and with the rain coming down, it was almost a waterfall.
08:15So we would walk the girls up and do a quick head count of them, and we would just yell
08:21prayers over them and just continue to climb the hill, and each time the water would rise.
08:25What was happening below them seemed incomprehensible.
08:28The lightning would strike, and it would kind of light up just a very, like, narrow viewpoint for you, and
08:35you would just see just the destruction that this water was causing to our sanctuary.
08:40You are seeing trunks float down the river.
08:43You're seeing cars fly by you.
08:45You're hearing the trees snap.
08:47I mean, it sounds like they're exploding.
08:48The most horrific sounds, though, were the voices.
08:53You're hearing screams of names.
08:55You're hearing screams for help over and over and over again.
09:00Help!
09:02Some of the screams for help were coming from twins' cabins where Blakely was trapped.
09:07A worker on the second floor of the commissary shot this video of twins' cabins at 3.26 a.m.,
09:15several feet of water swirling below the windows.
09:18Twenty-four minutes later, the cabins were almost entirely submerged.
09:23The situation at Ellen's cabin, Bubble Inn, was just as dire.
09:28Around 3.35 a.m., Dick Eastland arrived and began moving girls into his truck.
09:33Fifteen minutes later, he radioed Edward for help.
09:36I have Bubble Inn cabin in my car, he pleaded.
09:39I'm stuck against a tree.
09:41Then, at 3.58 a.m., a worker who was trapped on the second floor of the commissary made a
09:47call to 911.
09:49We don't know what to do.
09:50Okay.
09:51Right now, the best thing I can tell you is to get to as high a ground as you can.
09:55I know it's not the most ideal.
09:56We cannot.
09:57There's water everywhere.
09:58We cannot move.
09:59Okay.
09:59We are, like, upstairs in a room, and the water level is rising.
10:05The water was also rising at Wreck Hall, where Lucy was.
10:10We were on the bottom floor, and then we had to move to the top floor because it was getting
10:13higher.
10:14What did you hang on to?
10:15Um, we, like, so we didn't really, like, hang on to anything.
10:19The water was, like, about right here.
10:20And then we just stayed on the second floor until it went down.
10:27That happened just before 6 a.m.
10:29The water slowly receding.
10:32Ainsley and her campers worked their way back to the pavilion at the bottom of the hill.
10:37A truck was dropping off several girls from twins' cabins who had been swept into the current and survived by
10:43clinging for hours to a branch of an uprooted tree.
10:46You just run out and you grab these little girls who look like a ghost, and you just hug them
10:52and say,
10:53It's okay.
10:53It's okay.
10:54Like, you're safe.
10:55We have you.
10:57And that wasn't the only survival story.
10:59Ainsley learned another group trapped in their cabin stayed afloat on mattresses, the rising water stopping just as they reached
11:07the ceiling.
11:09And at this point, the sky starts to lighten, and it's morning time.
11:14And so your vision is just slowly getting better, and you're seeing more and more, and your heart is breaking
11:22at every instant.
11:25Everyone assembled at Wreck Hall, where Edward's wife was leading a headcount.
11:29And so one by one, each cabin is called to the front of Wreck Hall, where Mary Liz has a
11:35roster sheet and is going each girl one by one, calling their name out, laying eyes on them, making sure
11:43that they're there.
11:44Sixteen campers and counselors from twins' cabins were present, but when Edward's wife called the names of Blakely and ten
11:52other cabin mates, there was no response.
11:55And that was the first realization of, there are girls missing.
12:00We're the fourth cabin in that line of the youngest girls, and we're just watching them in complete and utter
12:06disbelief and shock.
12:08Then they called Ellen's cabin, Bubble Lynn.
12:12I don't think I'll ever forget the moment when the headcount was done, and Bubble Lynn was called, and they
12:18weren't there.
12:19Not a single girl was there.
12:41In the early morning hours of July 4th, emergency services up and down the Guadalupe River in Kerr County were
12:49overwhelmed with calls for help.
12:51I need help because I can't swim, and it's getting dangerous, and I can't get out.
12:56Overnight, the river rose a record 37 feet.
13:00Experts would call it a one-in-a-thousand-year flood.
13:04It was 7.22 a.m. when one of the Eastlands called 911 for the first time.
13:10We're here at Camp Mystic and Hunt Textures. We need search and rescue.
13:13Okay, what's going on?
13:14We're missing as many as 20 to 40 people.
13:17Wynne Kennedy, who is Lucy's mom, lives about 10 miles from Camp Mystic.
13:22On July 4th, she woke up to text messages from panicked parents asking about their daughters.
13:28Since I'm local, they were texting me about the flood, and my response was that I'm not even worried about
13:34them.
13:35They're in the safest place they can be, and I didn't know how bad it was or how severe it
13:40was.
13:41Fortunately, Lucy was okay.
13:44I was able to get through to certain people because I know a lot of people in the community, so
13:49I know I was able to find out Lucy was safe.
13:52Hundreds of miles away in Houston, there was no sign of the storm.
13:56The Gittons planned to celebrate the holiday with a nice dinner and fireworks.
14:00They were caught off guard when a camp representative called them.
14:04Ellen was missing.
14:06Jenny texted one of the camp directors.
14:08I said, where's Ellen?
14:10She said, I don't know.
14:12I said, what do you mean you don't know?
14:14And she said that the entire cabin is missing, and they were with one of the other heads of leadership.
14:21That was Dick Eastland, a man they trusted.
14:24We were told that Dick was with them, so we thought he was just in a place.
14:27We didn't have cell service.
14:29We packed an overnight bag and got in the car thinking that we were going to pick up our girls.
14:34You know, death didn't even cross my mind.
14:36That changed when they arrived at a local elementary school where rescuers brought campers to be reunited with their families.
14:44I heard one of the other dads say, we've got some bad news here.
14:48And at that same time, I was hearing about human bodies in the river, and then it was kind of
14:52like a literally being shot in the chest.
14:55I was like, what?
14:56Another parent told them that their daughter, Gwen, was safe.
14:59They soon spotted her, traumatized and terrified about her sister.
15:03She was hysterical, and she dropped to her knees and screamed, I don't want to be an only child.
15:10And what did you say as a parent?
15:12We said, calm down.
15:13She's fine.
15:14She's strong.
15:15She's a strong swimmer.
15:17You know, they're going to find her.
15:20By nightfall, all the campers and counselors from Bubble Inn were still unaccounted for.
15:26So were 11 from twins' cabins, one and two, and one from another cabin, 27 girls in all.
15:33Their families were brought to a nearby church and told to wait for news.
15:38The parents would sit together in rows, and we would hold hands together.
15:42When you started hearing the parents getting the news to go to the morgue, and you heard their screams, that's
15:49something you can't unhear.
15:51You'd hear their wailing, and then us, we as parents, would start to just erupt with uninhibited emotion, just fear.
16:02Later that night, they heard that rescuers had located Dick Eastland's truck in a grove by the river near the
16:08camp.
16:09Inside, the bodies of Dick and three Bubble Inn girls, but not Ellen.
16:15We cried on our knees and prayed to God that she was out there and clinging on and holding on.
16:22Blakely's mom, Lindsay, had been on vacation overseas when she heard Blakely was missing.
16:27We went to the airport, got on the flight.
16:30I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep.
16:32Still hopeful, she arrived at the church two days after the flood, but then a Texas ranger asked for her
16:39DNA.
16:40That's when I realized that she might not have made it out alive from this flood.
16:48Searchers found Blakely's body the next day.
16:51She was still wearing a necklace her mother bought her.
16:54I gave her this necklace before camp that says Mystic, and it's in the colors of the camp, green and
17:02white.
17:03It meant a lot to both of you.
17:05It did.
17:06Lindsay had lost so much that year.
17:08Her husband, her brother, and now her precious eight-year-old daughter gone in the spot she hoped would be
17:16a refuge.
17:16It was going to be a place of healing for her, but it actually became a place of death for
17:23her, too.
17:24As Lindsay was coming to grips with the worst of news, Houston firefighter Tyler Graff and his rescue dog, Truckee,
17:32arrived in town to join the search efforts.
17:36The aftermath was pretty awe-inspiring, shocking, smells of disaster, smells of decomposition, canoes in the trees.
17:44When you come down into the basin, it's like entering a whole other realm.
17:50It's somber, and it's full of sadness.
17:54By the time you got here, were you on a search and rescue mission or just a search mission?
17:59Search and recovery.
18:00By the time that we were searching, we weren't looking for live victims.
18:05About a week after the flood, on a muddy bank across the river, Tyler found a single crock, charms still
18:12attached, flowers, a cupcake, a name tag, Ellen Gettin.
18:17We found it right here on this point, on this other side here.
18:21It was a very somber moment, and we knew that this crock had some sort of story to it.
18:29The story of a nine-year-old girl whose family was desperately waiting to hear what happened to her.
18:48The days immediately after the flood were a blur for Jenny and Doug Gettin, as they waited for word about
18:55Ellen, knowing but not knowing.
18:58We waited a week, and that whole week, Gwen, was so hopeful that there was some way that she had
19:05made it through, and the reality is there was no hope.
19:09They got the call on July 12th.
19:13A Texas ranger called us and said, we have her body, we have Ellen's body.
19:17We weren't allowed to see her because she had been in the water for so long, and that haunts me
19:23every single day.
19:26None of the 27 missing Camp Mystic campers and counselors survived.
19:31They're known as Heaven's 27.
19:3538 kids lost their sisters.
19:3851 parents lost daughters that day.
19:42The funerals went on for days.
19:45When Ellen was laid to rest, 11-year-old Gwen eulogized her.
19:51It does not matter if you have known Ellen for nine years or nine days,
19:56because just by looking at her beautiful face, you can tell how kind and sweet and amazing she is.
20:05One of the things I love about Ellen is her funny laugh.
20:09She was always so creative in the most hilarious ways.
20:14Gwen spoke and did an incredible job to honor her sister, and it was awful.
20:21I mean, you talk about nightmare.
20:23We're in this massive church that probably holds 1,600 people, and how are we here?
20:31Afterwards, the Gettons struggled to go on.
20:34It's like an amputation.
20:36You're walking around without part of you, and you have to learn somehow to continue with life, missing a whole
20:44piece of it.
20:46In their Houston home, the Gettons surrounded themselves with reminders of Ellen and held on to the letters she wrote
20:52before she died.
20:55When we got home on July 6th, we had some letters waiting for us.
20:58They're still sealed. We can't bring ourselves to open them up. We're not ready to do that yet.
21:06I think opening them seems like more of a permanence, and I'm not there yet.
21:12Blakely's mom knew she had to keep the memory of her 8-year-old daughter alive somehow.
21:17She vowed to talk about Blakely whenever she could.
21:22She just was a ton of fun.
21:25She would always play practical jokes on us.
21:29One time she put her pet box turtle in my purse.
21:33She was a young girl that had an old soul.
21:38She even asked me at one point before camp if I would date again because she wanted to have a
21:46stepfather.
21:46She just had such a big heart.
21:49The Mystic community was also mourning its patriarch, Dick Eastland.
21:54When we found out about all of the deaths, and then we found out about Dick's passing,
22:03it was a little piece of the camp dying.
22:08And Mystic is such a special place to me, so that was such a hard pill to swallow.
22:14Her nightmares are never ending.
22:16So is her guilt.
22:19Finding out that girls did not make it, and that I had, is a survivor's guilt that I can't even
22:31explain in words.
22:33Because why am I here, and others are not?
22:38Ainsley says the kindness of others helped her get through the bad days.
22:43I know you wanted me.
22:46Kindness helped Blakely's mom, too, along with videos of her daughter that she watched on repeat.
22:52Pink pony club.
22:53I'm going to keep on doing it.
22:55Have you been able to go into her room?
22:59Yes, I've gone in her room.
23:01I've even slept in her bed.
23:04It's a way for me to hold on to those memories.
23:08When we used to read in her bed, she was doing little projects in her room, playing.
23:17I definitely don't shut the door to her room, and I'm not putting my heart on a shelf, per se.
23:25After their lives were shattered came the questions.
23:28We brought these mothers together to ask what they learned when they went digging.
23:34Could this tragedy have been averted?
23:36Yes.
23:37100%.
23:50I'm Natalie Landry, and my daughter is Lainey.
23:54I'm Wendy Childress, and my daughter is Chloe.
23:59I'm Patricia Bellows, and my daughter is Margaret.
24:03I'm Ellen Sheedy, and my daughter is Margaret Sheedy.
24:07I'm Sam Jacoby, and my daughter is Mary-Kate Jacoby.
24:12I'm Andrea Ferruzzo, and my daughter is Catherine Ferruzzo.
24:16I'm Ellen Tronzo, and my daughter is Greta Tronzo.
24:22These Houston moms all lost daughters at Camp Mystic.
24:26They've leaned on each other ever since.
24:28Ellen's mom, Jenny Gitton, gathered them at her house.
24:32These people are really the only ones who truly understand
24:35what I went through.
24:37I don't think anyone can relate to what we've experienced except for the other 26 families.
24:43I have trouble relating to my best friends prior to July 4th.
24:47Hearing about their busy lives, their carpools, that's not my life anymore.
24:52Nothing is the same after.
24:54There's the before, and then there's the after.
24:56Because the person you were before is gone.
24:58That person is dead.
25:00They're haunted by questions about that night.
25:04There's a desperate need to know.
25:08What did you go through?
25:09Were you alone?
25:11Were you with someone?
25:12Were you afraid?
25:13Was it fast?
25:14And they say the Eastlands, the family they trusted to keep their girls safe,
25:19remained virtually silent after the flood.
25:22We've never received a debrief, if you will.
25:24We've never gathered you together as a group.
25:27No.
25:28They've never called us.
25:30A personal condolence note here, a text with a Bible verse there.
25:36Lovely, but not what you're looking for.
25:38Not what we're looking for, not the answers that we need.
25:41In the absence of those answers, these parents decided to dig for the facts on their own,
25:47talking to as many people as they could.
25:49And what they found only deepened their anguish.
25:52Could this tragedy have been averted?
25:55100%.
25:55100%.
25:56Our girls should be here.
25:59With the time frame, there's time for them all, the whole camp, to evacuate safely.
26:03They compiled a timeline that raised troubling questions about what the Eastlands did
26:08and didn't do that night.
26:10A little bit after 1 a.m., there was a flash flood warning issued that, you know,
26:16flooding, possible, you know, casualties as a result of flooding.
26:21That warning came at 1.14 a.m.
26:24The National Weather Service saying a life-threatening flash flood was imminent or already underway.
26:31They never made an announcement on the loudspeaker, and two counselors had to go argue with leadership
26:37because water was coming in their cabins.
26:39To the best of our knowledge, they didn't start moving girls until after 3 o'clock in the morning, so
26:48they waited roughly two hours.
26:50Not only was there a two-hour delay, they say the camp was unprepared for what was coming.
26:56I'd like to know why didn't they have an evacuation plan for flooding, which was their most logical natural disaster.
27:06But you're saying there was no protocol?
27:09The protocol was, correct, the protocol was a stay in the cabin.
27:12Even though the two-story rack hall and safety was only a short walk from their cabins.
27:18It was extremely poor decision-making that we believe led to our children's deaths.
27:24When they read the emergency instructions in the counselor's manual that Andrea Ferruzzo found in her daughter's belongings, they were
27:32flabbergasted.
27:33It said, stay in your cabins, an announcement will be made on the loudspeaker, and if the loudspeaker is not
27:40working, we'll use walkie-talkies.
27:42And I talked to other counselors who said there were no walkie-talkies, and then the final sentence in this
27:47flood evacuation plan says all cabins are on high, safe locations, and we all just were reeling.
27:57Ainsley confirms she never saw walkie-talkies in the cabins, and had no emergency training in case of a flood.
28:04It didn't feel like there was a big pressure to be this guardian and all of these things.
28:10I was just a counselor for these girls, and we were going to have a great term and have fun
28:14together.
28:15In late September, less than three months after the tragedy, Camp Mystic announced it would reopen for the 2026 summer
28:22season.
28:23Although the cabins where the victims had been staying would remain closed.
28:28Did it shock you?
28:29Completely.
28:31You can't put your child in the same care of the Eastland family when we don't even know what happened
28:37yet and everything that went wrong.
28:39It's unthinkable that they would open a camp so soon after 27 people died on their watch.
28:51You know, there's still one camper missing, Seal Steward.
28:57She's not been recovered yet.
29:01This isn't over.
29:03Right.
29:05The parents were so outraged, they demanded the state deny Mystic a license for the 2026 season.
29:12What is the rush?
29:14It shows that they want profit over camp safety for right now.
29:17Mystic has said that it is their Christian ministry to provide an environment for girls to grow spiritually and make
29:26lifelong friendships.
29:27And that is wonderful.
29:28But that does no good if your child doesn't come home alive.
29:35In October, Texas lawmakers opened an investigation into what happened at Camp Mystic.
29:41Weeks later, most of the victims' families, including many here and Blankley's mom, filed lawsuits against the camp and the
29:50Eastlands.
29:51What do you want the lawsuit to accomplish?
29:53I want the lawsuit to, you know, show transparency, what would happen, all the events leading up to this tragedy,
30:05as well as accountability.
30:09What is it that you allege?
30:10We allege that there was gross negligence.
30:13Their lawsuits point to something else, too.
30:15The Eastlands successfully appealed to FEMA to have cabins in a flood hazard area reclassified.
30:23And then the lawsuits say the Eastlands failed to share that information with parents.
30:28There was a known flooding risk that was very well known to the Eastland family who runs the camp.
30:33There was no disclosure or communication to us.
30:37What would the Eastlands have to say about that night?
30:41It was absolute chaos.
30:43It was not absolute chaos.
30:45You had no plan.
30:46That's not true.
31:00The bereaved families waited eight months to hear an explanation about the tragedy from the Eastlands.
31:07Finally, in the spring, Eastland family members testified at pre-trial hearings.
31:12Edward Eastland, who was responsible for the cabins near the river, spent hours answering questions, like this one, about that
31:20early morning warning.
31:21You got a 114 code red that you slept through, right?
31:25Correct.
31:26And this.
31:27You did not get on the loudspeaker and tell anybody what to do, correct?
31:30No, we did.
31:31The attorney, who was representing the family of Seal Stewart, the camper whose body has still not been recovered, was
31:38scathing about the Eastlands' actions that night.
31:41It was absolute chaos.
31:42It was not absolute chaos.
31:44You had no plan.
31:45That's not true.
31:47You had no plan.
31:48Your dad was making it up in the moment.
31:50He was not.
31:51Who had the plan?
31:53He did.
31:54Who knew the plan?
31:56I did.
31:56That there was no plan that anyone was trained in.
32:00He didn't have it written out, but he has that plan.
32:03Days later, at a Texas legislative hearing, Edward apologized for the deaths of the 27 girls.
32:10The world was a better place with them in it.
32:13And the anger at us for not being able to keep them safe feels completely reasonable.
32:18When I first saw Edward Eastland, I started sobbing because I realized that he was the one who was in
32:25charge of my children's safety, and he failed them.
32:28It was my first time to hear from him at all.
32:31The Eastlands are challenging the narrative of what led to the girls' deaths here at Camp Mistit.
32:36They say it wasn't the rising river, or allegations that they waited too long to act.
32:41The river did not kill these young ladies.
32:43The family declined our interview request.
32:47Instead, we got their attorney, Michael Watts.
32:50The problem was, is that where this particular weather system stalled, led to flood coming behind, not from the river,
32:58but from the other direction.
32:59Watts told us the video shot from the second floor of the commissary supports their case.
33:05He says it shows water from the hillside inundating the cabins.
33:09And you can see in the video that the water's coming this way, but the river's in the opposite direction.
33:16It's real easy to reach the conclusion that what's been alleged, that somehow the water rose from the river, just
33:21truthfully did not happen.
33:22Your data says it didn't happen.
33:23It's not just my data.
33:25It is what the digital evidence shows.
33:28Weather experts we consulted, including the National Weather Service, disputed that explanation.
33:33They say the flood was caused by the rising river, and that's what created the eddies and swirls in the
33:39video.
33:40And about those appeals to FEMA to remove buildings from the flood hazard area.
33:45You knew that the cabins that were on a floodplain.
33:48No, they're not.
33:49That's not true.
33:50Watts says updated digital maps showed the buildings were not, in fact, in the floodplain.
33:55And FEMA agreed.
33:56The bottom line is that's in the press, and somehow Dick Eastland had this unusual political ability to tell FEMA
34:05what to do.
34:05That's not the way it works.
34:06After the tragedy, FEMA said its maps are snapshots in time and not predictions of where floods will happen.
34:14Watts says nothing could have prepared the Eastlands for what was coming, not even that early morning warning.
34:20We get flash flood warnings in Kirk County repetitively.
34:23Every time it rains, there's a risk of flash floods, but that's not the same thing as what happened here.
34:29This was a thousand-year flood that nobody's ever seen before.
34:32But why not a specific flood policy?
34:34We do.
34:34We have a specific flood policy.
34:36You stay in the cabins until help can come and help you.
34:40Hundreds of girls' lives were saved by that policy.
34:43So you're making an argument for keeping them inside the cabins during this kind of rain event?
34:47It's called shelter in place.
34:50Watts argues it wouldn't have made sense for the youngest campers to walk through the raging waters, because they would
34:56have been washed away.
34:57Would that have happened had they responded immediately to that warning at 1.14 a.m.?
35:03So the warning at 1.14 is a text that certain people didn't get.
35:07But the problem is it wasn't delivered.
35:09There was no siren.
35:10The Eastlands blamed the state for that, because almost a decade ago, lawmakers refused to fund a flood detection system
35:17with sirens.
35:19What you need is you need things upstream that says, we've got a wall of water coming.
35:25And immediately activate a siren that's going to wake up everybody here.
35:29That would have given them the time.
35:31That would have saved the lives.
35:33And it would have saved all the lives downriver.
35:35All told, more than 130 people died along the Guadalupe that night.
35:41Ainsley, who led her campers to safety, has struggled with the question of blame.
35:47It's easy to look and point a finger to ease your mind.
35:52I don't think there's one finger that we can point.
35:56I don't think that's fair.
35:59Lucy's mom, Wynn, agrees with Ainsley.
36:03It's just, it's just not black and white.
36:05I do personally know how this camping community works.
36:10You know, their lives were this camp, and they did everything, you know, they could.
36:14And yes, there have been floods in the past, but nothing ever tore any of those cabins, ever.
36:20Wynn, along with hundreds of other parents, was planning to send Lucy back to Mystic.
36:25Some kids might think it's scary going back, you know, after the flood.
36:29Do you worry at all?
36:29Um, I just feel like that's not going to happen again, and it wasn't their fault that it happened.
36:36But in late April, the Eastlands abruptly decided not to reopen the camp.
36:41Welcome, everyone.
36:42Today we will hear from the investigators.
36:44Last week, investigators from the state legislative committee reported back after an eight-month probe.
36:50Their findings confirmed what many of the victim's parents had come to believe.
36:54Camp Mystic did not have written emergency plans that complied with state requirements,
36:59did not adequately prepare, and did not timely evacuate despite ample opportunity to do so.
37:06The distances were very short, and especially with the timeline that we've documented about how much time there was to
37:15evacuate,
37:16these girls could have gotten there.
37:19Days after that report came out, Camp Mystic filed for bankruptcy.
37:25As the 4th of July approaches, the first anniversary of the tragedy,
37:30these parents take comfort from a new Camp Safety Act they helped push through the state legislature.
37:36But otherwise, comfort is elusive for the Heaven's 27 families.
37:41It's the permanence that's shattering, and it just doesn't stop.
37:50We have gone through hell and back, and we're still going through it.
37:56Every day, you know, we have to make a choice to go on.
38:02I heard that there's a special place.
38:06Their questions remain, their lawsuits are pending,
38:10and there's a huge hole in their lives that their girls used to fill.
38:21That's all for now.
38:22I'm Lester Holt.
38:24Thanks for joining us.
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