Texas’ Camp Mystic Permitted by Judge to Partially Reopen (1)

Camp Mystic, the Texas youth camp where 25 girls and two counselors died in a major flood over the July 4th weekend last year, can partially re-open this summer, a Texas judge ruled Wednesday.

The camp in the Texas Hill Country must use only the high-ground area of the property that didn’t take in water during the flood, Judge Maya Guerra Gamble of the 459th district court in Travis County said.

The area about three-quarters of a mile away where campers were swept from their cabins will be off limits, Guerra Gamble said, allowing for families and their lawyers to pursue evidence in those locations in multiple lawsuits against the camp.

“The short version is I am granting a temporary injunction that will stop the defendants from altering demolishing, repairing, remodeling or removing any structure or cabins” where the campers stayed, Guerra Gamble said from the bench.

Camp Mystic also is barred from modifying several buildings “to make sure existing waterlines remain in their current state,” Guerra Gamble said at the end of a daylong hearing in Austin, about 120 miles west of the camp near Kerrville.

She directed lawyers for both sides to come back with specific language in the order for her to formally sign off on.

First Hearing on Keeping Camp Closed

The order rejects a bid from parents Will and CiCi Steward to close all areas of the camp — not just where their daughter was staying — while the case plays out. Their daughter, Cecilia, who goes by Cile, attended the camp during the historic floods and was never found in an extensive search up and down the river.

Their February lawsuit followed four others that families brought against the camp in November and is the first to get a hearing on the question of whether Camp Mystic should remain closed for the summer.

Last week, another lawsuit was filed in connection to the flood, but unlike the others it named the state as a defendant. It asserted Camp Mystic lacked a required evacuation plan to get a state-issued operating license.

In court Wednesday, the Stewards’ lawyer, Brad Beckworth of Nix Patterson, argued in favor of an injunction preventing the camp’s owners, the Eastland family, from repairing water damage to their on-site homes and other facilities. As the storm picked up, members of the Eastland family evacuated their homes, “while their daughters were told to stay in their cabins and die,” Beckworth said, gesturing to the gallery.

“We’re going to have to look at that house,” Beckworth said, calling it “a very critical part of the evidence.”

Dick Eastland, camp director, died in the flood.

His son, Edward Eastland, testified as the lone witness called at the hearing. He said that if permitted to re-open, Camp Mystic would only put campers in a high-land area that remained above water during the flood. He acknowledged that before the flood the camp had an evacuation plan in the event of a fire but said he didn’t know if it had one for flooding.

The packed courtroom swelled to the point that a couple dozen spectators moved to an overflow room. Parents and supporters wore buttons with the faces of deceased campers.

Camp Mystic’s attorney, Mikal Watts, defended the camp’s handling of the storm that he said dropped rainfall in the Guadalupe River matching “twice the daily flow of the Niagara Falls.”

Counselors wisely kept the children in their cabins during the storm because “you do not ask 9-year-old girls to go out in a lighting storm,” he said, emphasizing that they would’ve drowned traveling on roads covered in water had counselors driven them away in buses on the normal evacuation route.

The hearing came days after Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick urged the state health commissioner not to renew the license for Camp Mystic pending an investigation into the flood and the implementation of changes to avoid another deadly event this summer.

“Camp Mystic should have decided on their own to suspend operations this coming summer, but it appears they are planning for camp in 2026 and will likely be seeking your approval to operate with a renewed license,” Patrick wrote to Department of State Health Services Commissioner Jennifer Shuford on Feb. 23.

The Stewards are also represented by the Townsend Law Firm LLC.

The case is Steward v. Camp Mystic, Tex. Dist. Ct., No. D-1-GN-26-000758, 3/4/26.