Camp Mystic Owner Killed By Horrific Floods Was Warning Officials About the River For Decades

The owner of Texas Christian summer camp Camp Mystic died during the state’s horrific floods last week, despite repeatedly warning officials about the volatility of the nearby Guadalupe River.

Camp owner Dick Eastland ran the youth camp for decades, advocating for a new flood warning system in the area following a flooding incident in 1987 that killed 10 children who had been attending another camp nearby.

“The river is beautiful,” Eastland told the Austin American-Statesman in 1990. “But you have to respect it.”

However, the system Eastland had fought for was shut down in 1999, a decade after being installed, due to antiquated technology, reported CNN.

Last week, during the disastrous downpour in Texas, the Guadalupe River overflowed and flooded Camp Mystic, leading to the deaths of 27 people at the camp. Eastland was one of the victims, as he was swept away while attempting to rescue campers.

Eastland had made attempts to support the implementation of a more modern flood warning system, which would include sirens to warn nearby campers of incoming floods. However, a lack of funding, some local opposition and the absence of adequate state support prevented these measures from coming to fruition.

Many of the cabins worst-affected by the flooding last week sat in areas identified by the federal government as most likely to be severely inundated by an overflow from the Guadalupe River.

“Camp officials might have not been aware of flood risk when they first built the cabins,” before the county even had flood maps, said Anna Serra-Llobet, a University of California-Berkeley researcher who studies flood risk. She further added that officials should have understood that the cabins were in “severe hazard” areas due to recent additional construction.

Eastland, who was a figure beloved by his community, has been praised as a hero following his death.

“If he wasn’t going to die of natural causes, this was the only other way, saving the girls that he so loved and cared for. That’s the man my grandfather was. A husband, father, grandfather, and mentor to thousands of young women, he no longer walks this earth, but his impact will never leave the lives he touched,” his grandson George Eastland wrote in an Instagram tribute.