A Texas summer camp where 25 young girls were killed in a catastrophic flood has sought bankruptcy protection.
Camp Mystic directors Mary Liz Eastland and her husband, Edward Eastland, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Wednesday, according to court documents reviewed by the Daily Mail.
The tragedy unfolded on July 4 last year, when a powerful flood tore through the riverside camp, killing 25 campers, two staff members and one executive.
In the filing, the camp’s directors listed the company’s liabilities at more than $10 million, while estimating its assets at between $1 million and $10 million.
A sharply critical investigative report later concluded that the camp had not been properly prepared for the flood and lacked sufficient emergency response plans.
Mary Liz Eastland subsequently lost her nursing license after the Texas Board of Nursing determined that she had abandoned campers as floodwaters began rising at the site.
According to the board, she moved “herself and her children to higher ground without providing any assistance or direction to all of the other campers and staff.”
The order also criticized Eastland for not creating and maintaining adequate emergency plans and staff training procedures ahead of the deadly flooding, as well as for failing to ensure proper shelter and evacuation protocols were in place.
Camp Mystic directors Mary Liz and Edward Eastland have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
Twenty-five campers, two staff members and an executive died after a devastating flood wiped out the riverside camp on July 4 last year
A scathing report by investigators found the camp was unprepared for the flood and did not have appropriate emergency plans
The Eastland family said the summer camp’s debt exceeded $10 million, while their assets were between $1 million and $10 million
Edward had previously admitted that more campers likely would have survived if he and his father, camp co-owner Richard Eastland, as well as the camp safety director, made quicker decisions to evacuate, the Texas Tribune reports.
Instead, Edward said he slept through a CodeRED text alert sent out on July 3 warning about the dangerous flash floods that were expected to last several hours.
He finally woke up when his father called him on his walkie-talkie shortly before 2am to tell him rain was falling hard and they needed to move the canoes and water equipment off the waterfront.
Yet they still opted not to evacuate the cabins at that point.
‘It was not reasonable to do that at the time,’ Edward said. ‘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 soon, the surging water raised the river from 14 feet to 29.5 feet in just an hour.
The Texas Department of State Health Services told the Eastland family in April that its emergency plan – submitted under an application for a license renewal – was insufficient under new rules for a youth camp.
In the aftermath, Camp Mystic announced that it had canceled its bid for an operating license to reopen portions of the camp for Summer 2026.
Lila Bonner was one of the campers who died in the flood
‘No administrative process or summer season should move forward while families continue to grieve, while investigations continue and while so many Texans still carry the pain of last July’s tragedy,’ the camp said in a statement to the Texas Tribune.
Lila Bonner’s parents, Blake and Caitlin, were outraged at the possibility of Camp Mystic partially reopening to a reported 850 campers.
‘I cannot fathom inviting hundreds of children to play in or around an active crime scene where 27 girls died just a year before,’ Blake told the Daily Mail in April.
‘You say that out loud and it’s crazy.’
More than 20 families of the lost girls – poignantly dubbed Heaven’s 27 – are suing the Eastlands, accusing them of gross negligence.
‘This tragedy, clear as day, it is complacency, the failure to act and the failure to plan,’ Bonner said. ‘That management team was directly responsible for those children, and they lost 27 lives.
‘It’s unfathomable to me that they would be entrusted with more children.’
A memorial collage shows the faces and names of the 27 girls who were killed last summer at Camp Mystic
The disaster returned to the spotlight in April after a three-day hearing linked to a lawsuit filed by Will and CiCi Steward, the parents of eight-year-old camper Cile, whose body is yet to be found.
During the hearings, camp bosses made a string of astounding admissions, including that they missed official flood warnings, did not have a detailed written evacuation plan, and that lives could have been saved had staff acted sooner.
The explosive hearings in Austin heard those who survived only did so because teenage counselors ignored the camp’s directive to stay inside cabins.
Bonner said despite the pain of the revelations, camp directors’ accounts confirmed what families have known for some time.
‘And that is, the camp failed the youngest, most vulnerable campers and the only girls that survived that night basically didn’t follow the stay in place order.
‘I hate the fact that I – and I think the other parents would say the same – am now subject matter experts on camp safety and what was required of the law.’
The emotional hearings ended with a judge siding with the Stewards and renewing an injunction blocking the Eastlands from touching the site where the little girls lost their lives.
The Eastlands appealed.
The all-girls Christian summer camp has welcomed the daughters of Texas’ most influential and wealthy families for almost 100 years, teaching them skills such as fishing and canoeing.
Its elite clientele has included future first lady Laura Bush, who served as a Mystic counselor before she married George W Bush, and the daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters of President Lyndon Johnson.
