The director of Camp Mystic sobbed during testimony at a Monday court hearing, telling a judge he does not know what happened to eight-year-old Cecilia "Cile" Steward, the only camper still missing after flash floods killed 27 children and counselors at the Kerr County, Texas, camp last July 4th. Edward Eastland's emotional admission came as his family simultaneously pushes to reopen the all-girls camp on higher ground in less than two months, with nearly 900 girls already registered to attend.
The hearing stems from a lawsuit filed by Cile's parents. They asked Judge Maya Guerra Gamble to preserve the flood-damaged Guadalupe River campus so evidence would not be destroyed. The judge granted that request last month, ordering a halt to any construction and requiring the camp to keep the damaged cabins and other parts of the site intact.
Camp lawyers called the order "deeply flawed" and are seeking to appeal. But what emerged from Eastland's testimony paints a picture of a camp that had no detailed written flood evacuation plan, a director who slept through a severe-weather alert, and a family now asking Texas to trust them with hundreds of children again.
Eastland recounted the early morning hours of July 4, 2025, when the Guadalupe River surged from 14 feet to 29.5 feet in a single hour. Most of the girls who died had been sleeping in two riverside cabins built less than 250 feet from the water.
The warning signs came early. On July 3, a CodeRED text alert went out warning of dangerous flash floods expected to last several hours. Eastland admitted under cross-examination that he slept through it. He said he woke shortly before 2 a.m. only after his father, camp co-owner Richard Eastland, called him on a walkie-talkie to say rain was falling hard and they needed to move canoes and water equipment off the waterfront.
Even then, Edward Eastland did not evacuate the cabins. Asked whether that decision was reasonable, he told the court:
"It was not reasonable to do that at the time. The water wasn't out of the Guadalupe River. It was pouring down rain and lightning, and the cabins were safe at the time."
But the cabins were not safe for long. When the river overtook them, Eastland described rushing in to pull campers out. His account was halting and grief-stricken:
"There were girls going out of the front door. I grabbed two girls and there was a third one I didn't grab."
Someone, he said, "jumped on my back, I don't know who it was, before we got washed out." The water rose over his head quickly. He described the churning current and said that part of the night "has been a big blur for me."
Eastland acknowledged during cross-examination that more campers would have survived if he, his father, and the camp's safety director had made quicker decisions to evacuate. Richard Eastland did not survive the flood. The Texas Rangers continue searching for Cile Steward.
The absence of a detailed written flood evacuation plan is perhaps the most damning fact to surface from the hearing. Camp Mystic sits along one of the most flood-prone rivers in Texas. The Guadalupe is famous for sudden, violent rises. Yet Eastland admitted the camp had no formal written procedure for getting children out of riverside cabins when water began to rise.
That gap matters enormously in a case like this. Missing-person cases often hinge on the earliest hours, what decisions were made, what warnings were heeded, what protocols existed. Here, the record shows a CodeRED alert went out hours before the river crested, and the camp director slept through it.
When he finally woke, the response was to move canoes, not children.
Eastland was asked directly whether Cile Steward was the girl who jumped on his back before the floodwaters swept him away. He said he did not know. His wife, Mary Liz Eastland, and his mother, Tweedy Eastland, were seen comforting him after his testimony.
Even as the lawsuit proceeds and the search for Cile continues, the Eastland family has announced plans to reopen Camp Mystic at its Cypress Lake campus for the 2026 summer season. That campus did not sustain flood damage. Britt Eastland, who runs the Cypress Lake site, framed the decision in terms of community and faith:
"It's not been an easy decision for our family at all, but we've been praying about it and we've heard from hundreds of Mystic families and Mystic alumni that it would be healing."
Britt Eastland added that the family chose a campus without flood damage and would "try to make a very positive and healthy experience and safe experience for what looks to be as many as 825 enrolled families."
The camp has added a new flood warning system, including sensors and sirens installed near campgrounds. The Department of State Health Services will review the camp's license renewal application, emergency plan, and conduct a pre-licensure inspection, a process expected to take several weeks.
But the Steward family's attorney, Brad Beckworth, raised a pointed objection. He told the court that camp officials filed their state licensing application saying they would use all of the camp's property, including Guadalupe-side activities such as children snorkeling in the river. Beckworth called this a "complete disregard" for the judge's injunction halting activity on the Guadalupe River campus.
Cile's mother, Cici Steward, spoke to reporters after the hearing. Her words were direct and unsparing:
"It's so clear they are incapable of keeping children safe."
It is a statement that will be difficult for the camp to answer with anything other than results, and the results from last July speak for themselves. Long-term missing-person cases sometimes end with answers, but often only after years of searching and legal pressure.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick added significant political weight to the opposition. Back in February, Patrick sent a letter to the Department of State Health Services urging the agency not to renew Camp Mystic's license until all legislative investigations are complete:
"Please do not renew a 2026 license for Camp Mystic until all legislative investigations are complete and any necessary corrective actions are taken."
Patrick's letter went further, invoking the full scale of the disaster. He wrote: "Twenty-eight lives were taken, and until these deaths are investigated and any necessary corrective actions are taken to ensure this never happens again, a camp license should not be issued to Camp Mystic." The discrepancy between Patrick's figure of 28 and the reported death toll of 27 children and counselors is not explained in available reporting, though it may account for Richard Eastland's death.
Patrick's intervention is notable. This is not a progressive politician looking for a regulatory scalp. This is the Republican lieutenant governor of Texas telling a state agency to hold the line until the facts are in. When elected officials from both sides of the aisle agree that a camp should not reopen until investigations are finished, the camp's eagerness to get back in business looks less like healing and more like haste.
Several facts remain unresolved. The identity of the camp safety director referenced in Eastland's testimony has not been publicly reported. The exact scope of the Texas Rangers' ongoing search for Cile Steward is unclear. The relationship between the "nearly 900 girls" registered and the "825 enrolled families" cited by Britt Eastland has not been explained. Court proceedings of this magnitude often surface new details over weeks and months.
What is clear is the timeline. A severe-weather alert went out on July 3. The camp director slept through it. His father woke him before 2 a.m. to move canoes. No one moved the children. Within hours, the river rose fifteen and a half feet in sixty minutes, and 27 people, most of them girls asleep in cabins 250 feet from the water, were dead.
Now the camp wants to reopen. Its lawyers call the preservation order "deeply flawed." Its licensing application reportedly includes plans for river activities on the very campus a judge ordered them not to touch. And the director, under oath, admitted he had no written plan for the one disaster most likely to strike a camp on the Guadalupe River.
The Steward family is still waiting for answers about their daughter. Official records and legal proceedings sometimes deliver those answers, but only when institutions are forced to account for what happened before they are allowed to move on.
Parents send their children to summer camp trusting that the adults in charge have a plan for the worst night, not just the best day. Camp Mystic had no such plan. Until someone can explain why, reopening is not healing, it is presumption.
