Camp Mystic's leader got a 'life threatening' flood alert. They evacuated an hour later.
Camp Mystic Executive Director Richard “Dick” Eastland did not begin to evacuate the young campers asleep in cabins near the rapidly rising Guadalupe River for more than an hour after he received a severe flood warning on his phone from the National Weather Service at 1:14 a.m. on July 4, the family said through a spokesman.
Eastland — who had run the beloved Christian-centered all-girls camp in Hunt, Texas, with his wife since the 1980s — rallied family members, some of whom lived and worked at the camp, on walkie-talkies to “assess the situation” soon after the alert went out, said Jeff Carr, the family’s spokesman. At 2:30 a.m., when rain was falling hard and fast, Eastland decided to begin evacuating campers, Carr said.
Richard Eastland Jr., Dick Eastland’s son, said in a brief interview with The Washington Post last week that “the warning came fast.” The camp had previously been under a flood watch that leadership was aware of, Eastland Jr. said. The National Weather Service’s more urgent alert at 1:14 a.m. had warned of “life threatening flash flooding” in Kerr County, where Camp Mystic is in a flood zone. The alert did not include an evacuation order.
The statements from the family are the first indications that leaders at Camp Mystic — which has spotty cell service and a policy that limits the use of cellphones — received a warning about the flood before it devastated its 725-acre campus, killing 27 counselors and campers.
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