Camp Mystic withdraws Texas summer 2026 license, Eastland family backs down after legislative scrutiny

Camp Mystic, the century-old private Christian girls’ summer camp in Hunt, Texas, where 28 people died in the July 4, 2025 Guadalupe River flood, has notified the Texas Department of State Health Services that it is withdrawing its application for a summer 2026 camp license. The decision, announced on April 30, 2026, ends the Eastland family’s months-long push to reopen the camp’s Cypress Lake site this summer and arrives two days after a marathon joint legislative hearing in Austin laid bare the absence of an evacuation plan, the lack of staff training, and what investigators described as a preventable loss of life.

In a statement issued through camp representatives, the Eastland family said no administrative process or summer season should move forward while families continue to grieve, while investigations continue, and while Texans still carry the pain of last July’s tragedy. The camp said the withdrawal was intended to remove any doubt that it had heard the concerns expressed by grieving families, members of the Texas House and Senate investigating committees, and citizens across the state. The statement added that respect for those voices required Camp Mystic to step back now.

The camp said it would continue to cooperate with all ongoing investigations, comply with every lawful requirement, and support recovery and healing efforts. It chose to withdraw, the statement said, rather than risk defending its rights under Texas law in a manner that may unintentionally cause further harm. The camp also acknowledged that more than 800 girls had registered to return to its Cypress Lake site and said its bond with Camp Mystic families would not change or end with the announcement.

What did the Texas legislative committee investigation reveal about Camp Mystic’s preparedness on July 4, 2025?

The withdrawal followed two days of testimony before the joint General Investigating Committee on the July 2025 Flooding Events, a Senate-House panel created during the second special session of the 89th Texas Legislature and chaired by Senator Pete Flores. Houston attorney Casey Garrett and former Texas Court of Appeals Justice Michael Massengale, the same outside investigators who served the Texas House’s 2022 Uvalde school shooting inquiry, presented findings drawn from approximately 140 to 150 witness interviews and multiple site visits to Camp Mystic.

Casey Garrett told lawmakers that Camp Mystic counselors had received no emergency training and that no drills of any kind had been conducted before camp began. The investigation found that cabins lacked radios, life jackets, ladders, and tool kits, and that no written evacuation plan existed despite a state-law requirement to post one. Cabins that filled with water were staffed by two first-year counselors, known internally as Ettes, rather than the protocol of three counselors per cabin. Garrett described the resulting evacuation effort as madness and mayhem.

Investigators reconstructed a minute-by-minute, cabin-by-cabin timeline using cellphone data and eyewitness video. The National Weather Service issued a flood watch the prior afternoon and escalated to a flood warning at 1:14 a.m., more than three hours before the first flooding reports came in from low-water crossings. Camp executive director Richard Eastland did not radio the first cabin evacuation order until approximately 3 a.m. and did not mobilize the groundskeepers, nurses, and other adult staff already on site. Senator Charles Perry told the hearing that the fate of those girls was set before any first drop of rain ever fell.

How did the Eastland family respond to the Texas Senate and House committees during the April 2026 hearings?

Camp director Edward Eastland, a son of Richard Eastland, offered a tearful public apology to the families of the victims during the April 28 hearing. Edward Eastland told lawmakers that he understood completely when people pointed out the things the camp could have done that morning and that he thought about those decisions every day. Mary Liz Eastland, his wife and a fellow camp director, added that the family was sorry every minute of every day, marking the first official apology from the Eastland family since the tragedy.

Camp Mystic had previously announced it would reopen its Cypress Lake site, the secondary campus that did not flood, on May 30, 2026. Cypress Lake camp director Britt Eastland told the committee the family was installing generators, placing walkie-talkies in every cabin, requiring counselors to arrive early for emergency training, and running evacuation drills with all campers and staff. Lawmakers, however, focused on the broader legal and ethical question of whether the same family that operated the camp during the July 4 disaster should retain a state license, with one committee member stating bluntly that the Eastlands were not ready to handle children.

The Texas Department of State Health Services notified Camp Mystic last week of nearly two dozen deficiencies in the emergency plan submitted with its license application. The agency said all camps that had submitted plans received deficiency letters following statutory changes enacted after the flood. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick had publicly called on the agency to deny renewal, and the Texas Rangers, working with the department, opened a criminal investigation of Camp Mystic.

Why are bereaved Camp Mystic families and their attorneys still pursuing legal accountability after the license withdrawal?

The reaction from victims’ families was sharply divided from the camp’s framing of the decision. Cici and Will Steward, whose daughter Cile Steward remains the only camper whose remains have not been recovered, said in a statement that what the Eastlands offered was not accountability and not respect for grieving families. The Stewards described the withdrawal as a calculated exit from a license the Eastland family was about to lose, arguing that the family pulled the application before the state could revoke it.

Sam Taylor, an attorney representing six families of girls who died in the floods, told reporters that until there is full accountability for what happened on July 4 and until there are real, enforceable safeguards for every child sent to a Texas summer camp, the legal work continues. The families’ goal, attorneys said, remains a full investigation, greater transparency, accountability, and the prevention of a similar tragedy. The license withdrawal does not affect ongoing civil litigation, in which a Texas judge in March 2026 ordered the camp to preserve damaged areas of its grounds as evidence.

Governor Greg Abbott, in a statement following the announcement, said the Texas Department of State Health Services and the Texas Rangers continued to work together on the Camp Mystic investigation and that results would be released as soon as possible. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick called the withdrawal the correct decision to protect Texas campers and to allow time for all investigations to be completed.

How has the Texas Hill Country flood reshaped state law on summer camp safety and floodplain construction?

The Camp Mystic disaster was the deadliest single-location loss of life in the broader July 4, 2025 Hill Country flood, which killed at least 137 people across Texas, including at least 119 in Kerr County. The Guadalupe River rose approximately 26 feet in 45 minutes near Hunt, surging an estimated 29 feet in some stretches, after a stalled mesoscale convective vortex dropped roughly four months of rain across Central Texas in a few hours. Among the dead at Camp Mystic were 25 campers, two counselors, and Richard Eastland, the camp’s executive director and patriarch of the family that has run the property since 1974.

Federal Emergency Management Agency records show Camp Mystic had at least eight buildings, including multiple cabins, sited within a designated floodway. The agency placed the camp in a special flood hazard area in 2011, but successive map appeals between 2011 and 2020 removed roughly 30 buildings from the official hazard zone, allowing the camp to expand on flood-prone land. A state inspector who visited Camp Mystic on July 2, 2025, two days before the flood, certified that the camp had an emergency plan in place. Investigators told lawmakers the inspector primarily evaluated food safety and was not equipped to assess the effectiveness of the disaster plan.

In response to the disaster, the Texas Legislature during last summer’s special session passed and Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 1 and House Bill 1, which withhold state licensing for any youth camp with cabins located within a 100-year floodplain. Additional measures require automatic evacuation of flood-prone camps once a flash flood warning is issued, mandatory outdoor warning sirens in counties affected by the July 4 flood, written evacuation plans, and counselor training requirements. The Texas Division of Emergency Management was given an expanded role in reviewing camp emergency plans, an authority previously held only by the Department of State Health Services.

The committee’s final written report, expected in May 2026, is likely to recommend a further round of legislative reforms, including stricter inspection authority and explicit standards for staff training and emergency communications equipment. For the wider Hill Country camp industry, which serves tens of thousands of children every summer along Flash Flood Alley, the Camp Mystic license withdrawal sets a precedent that operational continuity cannot be assumed while criminal and civil proceedings are unresolved.

What are the key takeaways from the Camp Mystic Texas summer 2026 license withdrawal announcement?

• Camp Mystic withdrew its application for a Texas Department of State Health Services summer 2026 camp license on April 30, 2026, ending plans to reopen its Cypress Lake site on May 30, 2026.
• The withdrawal followed two days of joint Texas Senate and House committee hearings that documented the absence of a written evacuation plan, no emergency drills, and untrained first-year counselors at the camp during the July 4, 2025 flood.
• Twenty-eight people died at Camp Mystic, including 25 campers, two counselors, and executive director Richard Eastland, in a flood that killed at least 137 across Texas and at least 119 in Kerr County.
• The Texas Rangers have opened a criminal investigation, the Department of State Health Services issued a deficiency letter on the camp’s emergency plan, and multiple civil lawsuits filed by victims’ families are proceeding.
• Families of the victims, including the parents of Cile Steward, characterised the withdrawal as a calculated move to avoid license revocation rather than a gesture of accountability, and said legal action will continue.