Camp Mystic, a long-established private Christian summer camp for girls, plans to reopen next year following a tragic incident where 27 campers and counselors lost their lives due to flooding in Texas on Independence Day.
The reopening coincides with the camp’s centennial celebration and comes a year after the devastating flash floods that affected the site along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County during the summer.
The camp informed families enrolled for the 2025 season about its reopening plans in an email sent on Monday. In the aftermath of the tragedy, some families have criticized the camp’s safety protocols and emergency preparedness.
The announcement has elicited mixed reactions: while some family members of the deceased are firmly against the reopening, alumni and the Eastland family, who owns the camp, have shown their support.
Cici Steward, whose 8-year-old daughter, Cile, remains missing, said, “The truth is, Camp Mystic failed our daughters.”
“These months have felt endless for my family. For the camp, it appears to be nothing more than a short pause before returning to normal,” a grieving mother expressed in a statement to The New York Times on Tuesday. “Camp Mystic is going forward with reopening, even if it means inviting girls to swim in the same river that might still conceal my daughter’s remains.”
Other parents reported a lack of communication from the camp following the flooding incident, only to be abruptly informed via email about the camp’s plans to reopen.
Blake Bonner, whose 9-year-old daughter, Lila, died in the flooding, told the Times that the families were not consulted about, and did not approve, the memorial the camp announced.
Rescue crews patrol the Guadalupe River near the heavily damaged Camp Mystic campus in Kerr County, Texas. The river rose more than 15 feet in an hour. (REUTERS/Sergio Flores)
The campers and counselors were killed when the fast-rising floodwaters roared through a low-lying area of the summer camp before dawn on July 4, 2025.
The destructive flooding killed at least 136 people in the region, prompting widespread criticism of local preparedness.
County leaders were asleep or out of town, the AP reported. The head of Camp Mystic had been tracking the weather beforehand, but it’s unclear whether he saw an urgent warning from the National Weather Service that had triggered an emergency alert to phones in the area, a spokesperson for the camp’s operators said in the immediate aftermath.
The camp, established in 1926, did not evacuate and was hit hard when the river rose from 14 feet to 29.5 feet within 60 minutes.
