Families who lost daughters in the July 4 flood at Camp Mystic testified before a Senate committee in favor of SB 1 to require more safety measures at camps.
HOUSTON — Legislators heard powerful and emotional testimony on Wednesday from parents of Camp Mystic girls who were killed in the catastrophic July Fourth floods.
The families shared stories of unimaginable grief and heartache as they pleaded with committee members to pass SB 1, which would make youth camps in Texas safer and better-equipped to respond to emergencies, including flash floods.
The Texas House and Senate Select Committees on Disaster Preparedness and Flooding are considering the bipartisan bill.
Ben Landry, whose daughter Lainey died at Camp Mystic, said the emergency plans should have already been in place.
“This is an event that was preventable and was caused by years of neglect, ego, and complacency,” Ben Landry, the father of camper Lainey Landry, said. “These children were put to sleep in a flood plain with no plan for a flood.”
The mother of 8-year-old Virginia Hollis, a cowgirl in Bellville who loved her horse and wanted to be a saddle bronc rider like her grandpa, wants “meaningful safeguards” to protect tens of thousands of children who attend summer camps in Texas.
“Hopefully no other parent will ever experience the excruciating, excruciating and unimaginable pain and torture I am trapped in, or the never-ending nightmare that is my life now, and I have to fight, not to drown in it every second of every day,” Lacey Hollis told committee members.
Cici Williams Steward’s 8-year-old daughter, Cile, is the only camper still missing after the Hill Country floods that claimed at least 138 lives. Steward said her family is navigating a “torture chamber of uncertainty” as they wait for the little girl’s remains to be recovered.
“Cile’s chance to experience camp only existed because I was ensured that her safety and the safety of all the young girls was paramount … But that assurance was betrayed,” Steward said. “Obvious common-sense safety measures were absent, protocols that should have been in place were ignored. As a result, my daughter was stolen from us.”
Steward said three generations of her family went to Camp Mystic, but they were unaware of the potential dangers.
“This year, it was finally Cile’s turn. She was 8 years old, going for the very first time, her heart full of excitement to join the tradition of her mother, her aunt and her grandmother, her great aunt and five cousins,” Steward told the panel.
The father of 8-year-old Linnie McCown, of Austin, said they too took it for granted that their daughter would be safe at camp.
“We trusted Camp Mystic with her precious life, but that trust was broken,” Michael McCown testified. “It didn’t even cross my mind that a camp like Mystic wouldn’t have a detailed emergency procedure in place.”
If SB 1 is approved, updated emergency plans must be in place by January 26, including the following safety measures:
- Cabins could no longer be constructed in floodplains
- Cabins would have safety roof-top ladders
- Each cabin must have operable radios with real-time National Weather Service alerts.
- Camps must have an emergency warning system with a public address system that works without internet.
- Cabins must have at least two separate internet connections.
- Evacuation routes must be posted in cabins and remain lit at night.
- Campers must receive safety orientation (boundaries, hazards, emergency behavior expectations, response training)
- All staff and volunteers must receive emergency plan copies and training.
- Parents/guardians must be given access to the current emergency plan.
- Parents/guardians must be notified if camp facilities are in a floodplain.
The last parent to testify was Matthew Childress from Houston. His 18-year-old daughter, Chloe, was a counselor who died a hero while trying to save the little girls in her care. The grieving father said Chloe, who would have been a freshman at UT Austin, had always been a hero in his eyes.
“For all that she had accomplished, I was so proud of the independent woman she had become and all that she had to come in the future,” Childress said. “She was fun, she was spontaneous, she was a troublemaker. She made all of her friends laugh. But she was also smart and studious and driven.”
Childress urged lawmakers to think about his daughter and the other 26 victims from Camp Mystic when they vote on SB 1.
“We need you to remember them. We need you to be tortured by them because we are every single day,” Childress said. “We’re here for the long haul. We have to live with all this for the rest of our lives. I plan to make it my second job so that no other parent has to go through this type of pain.
“There’s nothing we can do to bring our daughters back, but we can honor them by ensuring their deaths lead to meaningful change … For my hero, Chloe Madeleine Childress, the rest of Heaven’s 27, and for the millions of campers and parents in the future. So this does not happen again.”
Remembering ‘Heaven’s 27’ from Camp Mystic
These are the names of the 25 girls and two counselors who perished in the July Fourth flood at Camp Mystic:
Mary Grace Baker, Anna “Margaret” Bellows, Lila Bonner, Chloe Childress, Molly DeWitt, Lucy Dillon, Katherine Ferruzzo, Ellen Getten, Hadley Hanna, Virginia Hollis, Janie Hunt, Mary Kate Jacobe, Lainey Landry, Hanna Lawrence, Rebecca Lawrence, Kellyanne Lytal, Sarah Marsh, Linnie McCown, Blakely McCrory, Wynne Naylor, Eloise Peck, Abby Pohl, Margaret Sheedy, Renee Smajstrla, Mary Stevens, Cile Steward, and Greta Toranzo.