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Posted
Just now, chainsaw said:

The camp was private right? not sure how deep those pockets are, probably not deep enough, but everything I've seen screams big fat lawsuit

The owners are dead. 

Posted

For some of these families, $100K a kid is a rounding error and they're going to have no qualms in doing whatever they can to exert non-monitary revenge.

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Posted
1 hour ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

I don't mingle with any of you riffraff in real life.  Besides, I don't remember going through a selection process, acceptance ceremony or any of that other weird shit to participate here.

That latter part is weird.  That wasn't the case in the 80s and as I may have mentioned above, those camps were above my pay grade when my kids were that age.  

 

But the Surly acceptance ceremony is quite nice.  @immamac has it catered.  Everyone chants, "Muledick!"  South Austin's mom has a raffle of sorts.  There's a stripper pole and a sex tent.  Sorry you didn't get one.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Willfully Horn said:

Disagree. When your business is hosting other people’s children, and you are housing them on the banks of a Texas river in flash flood alley, you don’t get to play the “no one could see it coming” card. It is a Texas river. In flash flood alley. It was only a matter of time before it happened. And it is only a matter of time before it happens again. That’s a fact.

In establishing legal negligence, past experiences with floods will be highly relevant.  But, you're right that a jury could well bang the camps pretty hard on just an in loco parentis notion.

HOWEVER, the camp owners are well-known and fairly beloved in Kerr County.  In the 2011 lawsuit between the local family and some "auslanders" in the family that live in Houston now, the jury decided in favor of the locals the first time around and legally screwed the pooch bad enough that a new trial was granted.

It's going to be interesting and will go on for a good while.

Posted (edited)
49 minutes ago, Goredho said:

Those camps are definitely like the greek system tailored to kids’ moms

More accurate…

Edited by Fudge Nuggets
punctuation how do it work?
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Posted (edited)
5 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

Probably won't stop the lawsuits.

 

4 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

The estate is not. 

Yeah, according to the TM article on the 2011 lawsuit, the land is owned by one corporation and the camp operated by another that rents from the landowner corporation.

That probably got even a bit more complex subsequent to that lawsuit, but there are some fairly wealthy entities that are going to be on the wrong end of this.  At minimum, that land is hugely valuable.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Posted
1 minute ago, chainsaw said:

Probably won't stop the lawsuits.

 

1 minute ago, Pato del Muerto said:

The estate is not. 

As a practical matter it's over. They died trying to save the girls. 

If you wanna be all big bad internet tough guys and say they are gonna sue them millions of times over its just a waste of time and money, but sure they can and who gives a fuck. There's no accountability to be had beyond what's already happened. 

The people responsible for the fuckup are dead, just like the children and just like the 70+ other people.

 

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Posted (edited)
19 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

They'll hire good attorneys and not just on a contingent fee.  There will be political pressure to change things.  These will be things that not every group of random victims can do.

The aggy bonfire victims are probably a pretty good analogy.  Not necessarily of the wealth or connectedness of these folks (a couple were though), and they beat the bushes pretty hard for money and accountability.

Took them about 10 years, but looks like the settled as a group (deceased and injured) for $2.1mm total to share.  After attorney fees/contingency, not a lot.

Edited by Texas Fight
Posted this after seeing that government may have limits on liability
Posted

I agree with you, partially. I don't think that the two owners (RIP) alone were to blame. It will come out that there were survivors, or even folks who don't live on the campsite or who were out of town for the holiday weekend, that played a role in the camp's lax approach to severe weather. Whoever wants "accountability" will find living people to throw the book at.

And Twice said that there are companies, corporations, or whatever, that could have the deep pockets, or the "estates" of the owners that are now dead.

Posted
1 minute ago, immamac said:

 

As a practical matter it's over. They died trying to save the girls. 

If you wanna be all big bad internet tough guys and say they are gonna sue them millions of times over its just a waste of time and money, but sure they can and who gives a fuck. There's no accountability to be had beyond what's already happened. 

The people responsible for the fuckup are dead, just like the children and just like the 70+ other people.

 

Also, regarding Mystic, just Dick Eastland died.  I believe his wife survives and various of their children and other family members have varying degrees of responsibility at the camp.

And, as noted, there is a network of corporate entities involved and the land.  The land.  Lee Bass was offering $5-10k/acre 15 years ago.

Posted
19 minutes ago, Texas Fight said:

I believe each of the Uvalde families took $2,000,000 each.  You thinking of something like that?  

I have no idea what price might be sufficient to get them to back off pursuit of actual change.  That sounds low but as I alluded to earlier, I'm not sure what's possible given the laws in Texas.

Posted
2 minutes ago, Texas Fight said:

Took them about 10 years, but looks like the settled as a group (deceased and injured) for $2.1mm total to share.  After attorney fees/contingency, not a lot.

That was just the University.  They sued a shit ton of people, including fellow students, crane and equipment rental companies.  It probably wasn't a ton of money, overall, but anyone that had any kind of responsibility paid one way or another.

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

The estate is not. 

That Texas Monthly article made it sound like there might still be multiple family members involved.  Actually looks like the Stacy family is no longer involved... https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/camp-mystic-survives-six-year-family-feud-4113020.php

They're going to go after someone and the land will most likely get sold to cover what happens.   

https://www.campmystic.com/directors-staff/

I see direct family members part of leadership other than Dick and Tweety.  I'm not clear but did Tweety pass, as well?  The whole thing is a mess.  Despite all the finger pointing, Dick died trying to save those girls.  

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Posted
58 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I can't speak for anyone else here, but the locals hosting visitors (owners of the camps, the RV park owners, the city, and the county) are primarily to blame. They live there. They know the history of flooding. They chose not to have a flood monitoring system. They chose not to have a warning system. They chose not to have adequate evacuation plans. On top of that, I blame the state for not adequately funding a regional system, as well as this regime for stripping resources from the NWS.

27 minutes ago, Texas Fight said:

The buildings and the owners are there 24/7/365.  This should be known to them. 

I agree with these posts 100% that the camp is greatly to blame. The county bears plenty responsibility, but when your business is entrusted with the lives of hundreds of children and teens, you have better have a fucking good system in place to anticipate danger and protect lives. The Hill Country is well know to have a high level of flash floods. They should have been monitoring all the news and the 1PM Thursday weather warning should have been enough for them to take action. Perhaps they could have had their OWN audio warning system and escape procedures in place. And if, as people are claiming, they didn't get any warnings due to the bad cell service, that is 100% on them. Like I wrote about last summer, my friend's daughter's camp was evacuated a day in advance of a storm.   

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Posted
35 minutes ago, Goredho said:

A 9 year old from the Hunt family died in this.  It isn't going to just be swept under the rug.

40 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

I think the broad expectation is that these families will have a price.  It will be high, but they'll have a price.

 

if i were one of the parents my price would be "all heads roll or we turn the state blue"

podium barbie had to look down while trashing the nws - the regime is concerned

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Posted (edited)

That’s another thing- between the cost of camp there and the means of the campers’ families (not to mention the grown camp alumni), they probably could have privately funded their own system for their stretch of riverfront. 
 

maybe they can’t do anything upstream for a real early warning, but were there no height sensors along the bank on their property to notify of rising water?

I wonder what the camp’s hold harmless waiver looks like and how well it could hold up. 

Edited by Pato del Muerto
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Posted
1 minute ago, Hagbard Celine said:

 

if i were one of the parents my price would be "all heads roll or we turn the state blue"

podium barbie had to look down while trashing the nws - the regime is concerned

Exactly.  This is fundamentally different than Uvalde.  Kids from the wealthiest & most powerful families in Texas were in grave danger and some died.  It shouldn't matter, but it does.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, South Austin said:

Side note:  It was marketing genius that Viagra rhymes with Niagara.  

Side note to your side note- the companies don’t get to name their own drugs. 

Posted
1 minute ago, Goredho said:

Exactly.  This is fundamentally different than Uvalde.  Kids from the wealthiest & most powerful families in Texas were in grave danger and some died.  It shouldn't matter, but it does.

It'll matter in that a group of wealthy families of deceased campers will lobby the legislature for some reform, and the legislature will pass some performative bill that won't do shit.  

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Posted
10 minutes ago, TreatyOak said:

I agree with these posts 100% that the camp is greatly to blame. The county bears plenty responsibility, but when your business is entrusted with the lives of hundreds of children and teens, you have better have a fucking good system in place to anticipate danger and protect lives. The Hill Country is well know to have a high level of flash floods. They should have been monitoring all the news and the 1PM Thursday weather warning should have been enough for them to take action. Perhaps they could have had their OWN audio warning system and escape procedures in place. And if, as people are claiming, they didn't get any warnings due to the bad cell service, that is 100% on them. Like I wrote about last summer, my friend's daughter's camp was evacuated a day in advance of a storm.   

Exactly... how do you run a camp with small children housed in cabins in the regulatory floodway without having all kinds of warning systems?  I mean, WTF are there cabins there anyway?  Source: https://msc.fema.gov/portal/search?AddressQuery=camp mystic way%2C hunt%2C tx

image.thumb.png.125ebfbbc4a73ee3994dc5442ecb23a4.png

 

image.thumb.png.5860d0309077ae283a88383c6590f954.png

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Posted
Just now, South Austin said:

It'll matter in that a group of wealthy families of deceased campers will lobby the legislature for some reform, and the legislature will pass some performative bill that won't do shit.  

🤷‍♂️ We'll see.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, texasdago said:

Exactly... how do you run a camp with small children housed in cabins in the regulatory floodway without having all kinds of warning systems?  I mean, WTF are there cabins there anyway?  Source: https://msc.fema.gov/portal/search?AddressQuery=camp mystic way%2C hunt%2C tx

 

Maybe we'll eventually find out if the camp even had a plan and if so how comprehensive it was. Does the county have a plan? Does the county have a plan for the camps? Does the county know if the camp had an emergency plan? Did they review it with the camp? Did any of them follow a plan? Were they all negligent? I won't hold my breath waiting for answers. 

I understand why nobody wants to blame the parents but if there's nobody else checking what the camp was up to, it was incumbent on them. 

 

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Posted
14 minutes ago, texasdago said:

Exactly... how do you run a camp with small children housed in cabins in the regulatory floodway without having all kinds of warning systems?  I mean, WTF are there cabins there anyway?  Source: https://msc.fema.gov/portal/search?AddressQuery=camp mystic way%2C hunt%2C tx

image.thumb.png.125ebfbbc4a73ee3994dc5442ecb23a4.png

 

image.thumb.png.5860d0309077ae283a88383c6590f954.png

This right here.  Re-posting the pic that I found from the north bank of the Guadalupe:

0705%20Hill%20Country%20Flood%20BB%20TT%

It just seems crazy to me that this hasn't been an issue a number of times before for those lowest cabins.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, Chopper said:

Maybe we'll eventually find out if the camp even had a plan and if so how comprehensive it was. Does the county have a plan? Does the county have a plan for the camps? Does the county know if the camp had an emergency plan? Did they review it with the camp? Did any of them follow a plan? Were they all negligent? I won't hold my breath waiting for answers. 

I understand why nobody wants to blame the parents but if there's nobody else checking what the camp was up to, it was incumbent on them. 

 

Someone, maybe Troph (not sure), mentioned multiple times that overnight camps are required to be certified/inspected by the State of Texas in some manner. I have no knowledge beyond that statement, if true.

But, it would undoubtedly be good to know what that certification process entails, how rigorous it is, and to what degree and how frequently inspections occur. Absolutely no idea (but doubtful) that the county requires any sort of inspection since the State doesn't allow for many regulations of properties outside of ETJs, except in limited circumstances.

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Posted (edited)
On 7/6/2025 at 12:55 PM, SubliminalHorn said:

ben affleck jesus GIF

Am I the only one who sees Dwayne Johnson every time they see that gif? WWtRD?

459362-et-0717-johnson-mwy-0081.JPG

Edited by wood
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Posted
10 minutes ago, Chopper said:

Maybe we'll eventually find out if the camp even had a plan and if so how comprehensive it was. Does the county have a plan? Does the county have a plan for the camps? Does the county know if the camp had an emergency plan? Did they review it with the camp? Did any of them follow a plan? Were they all negligent? I won't hold my breath waiting for answers. 

I understand why nobody wants to blame the parents but if there's nobody else checking what the camp was up to, it was incumbent on them. 

 

I poked around some of the web pages (not just Mystic but HOH, Waldemar, Stevens, Mo-Ranch) and couldn't really find any stated policies on emergency procedures.  I will say, some of those camps are in really beautiful locations.

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Posted
22 minutes ago, wood said:

nsiap. I can't catch up. 

image.png.365afc44a4257e70af5d43771c6e0876.png

Umm ... this is ridiculous.  Will all of these rivers flood at some point?  Sure.  For 80% of them, you'll have lots of lead time.  The siren idea is only really necessary for the Hill Country and other areas where there is extreme flash flooding.  Trying to make this out as a problem that requires a $300m solution is a bit insane.

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Posted
14 minutes ago, texasdago said:

Exactly... how do you run a camp with small children housed in cabins in the regulatory floodway without having all kinds of warning systems?  I mean, WTF are there cabins there anyway?  Source: https://msc.fema.gov/portal/search?AddressQuery=camp mystic way%2C hunt%2C tx

image.thumb.png.125ebfbbc4a73ee3994dc5442ecb23a4.png

 

image.thumb.png.5860d0309077ae283a88383c6590f954.png

The missing girls cabins look to be at the bottom of a cliff that I would assume did not flood. With the paths and road, that might be a 5 minute walk even for a young person. You would want a building up there, assuming they own the land. Or if the camp to the south was untouched, march the campers over there. I can appreciate that marching kids through a heavy downpour at night would not be an ideal option but its better than the alternative. 

 

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Posted
Just now, Gap03 said:

Umm ... this is ridiculous.  Will all of these rivers flood at some point?  Sure.  For 80% of them, you'll have lots of lead time.  The siren idea is only really necessary for the Hill Country and other areas where there is extreme flash flooding.  Trying to make this out as a problem that requires a $300m solution is a bit insane.

I don't think it requires that much either. The bigger point imho is how little it would cost to cover even a much larger area than necessary.

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Posted
2 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Someone, maybe Troph (not sure), mentioned multiple times that overnight camps are required to be certified/inspected by the State of Texas in some manner. I have no knowledge beyond that statement, if true.

But, it would undoubtedly be good to know what that certification process entails, how rigorous it is, and to what degree and how frequently inspections occur. Absolutely no idea (but doubtful) that the county requires any sort of inspection since the State doesn't allow for many regulations of properties outside of ETJs, except in limited circumstances.

State has a good track record of certifications... https://www.texastribune.org/2022/03/11/texas-foster-care-shelter-abuse/

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Posted (edited)
43 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

their own system for their stretch of riverfront. 

I recently learned there's a town in Oklahoma that recently bought and maintains its own doppler radar, Durant OK, since its located on the periphery of the two or so nearest NWS radars and they felt they needed better data for emergency preparedness.

Whoops, turns out Durant used federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, which was introduced by a demonRat and signed into law by Brandon

https://www.kxii.com/2023/03/08/city-durant-installs-new-weather-radar/

Edited by chainsaw
correction
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Posted
5 minutes ago, TreatyOak said:

Thinking back to all the camps my daughters attended, I didn't really check any of them for safety precautions. I just assumed they were safe, cause all our friends had been having their kids attend them for years.  

Same here.  My kids have attended Camp Champions for years, which is on Lake LBJ.  They've stayed in cabins that are right at the shore's edge, and I've never before thought that anything bad might happen.  And I know that lake is a lot different than the Guadalupe or Llano Rivers, but I'm guessing from now on Camp Champions will publish to any current and prospective parents a detailed disaster response plan, even if the odds of a catastrophic event like this are miniscule.  All waterfront camps are going to develop a "we will not let that happen to your child" type of marketing plan.  Too many parents won't view what happened at Camp Mystic as a lightening strike.

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Posted (edited)

Mittens posted a statement from the Austin Firefighters Association- interesting timeline - state of Texas started mobilizing on July 2, 2025, a full 1.5-2 days before the flood for those that were assured there would be no math. 

How were local counties and municipalities not in comms with our state leadership?

these mother fuckers are covering up repeated negligence in broad daylight blaming the NWS which did its job, local meteorologists who did their job, and engaging in performative cosplay bullshit.

Failures at every level, private, local and state.

our state government priorities are so fucking out of whack, and more kids died. Again.

Edited by troph
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Posted
9 minutes ago, South Austin said:

Same here.  My kids have attended Camp Champions for years, which is on Lake LBJ.  They've stayed in cabins that are right at the shore's edge, and I've never before thought that anything bad might happen.  And I know that lake is a lot different than the Guadalupe or Llano Rivers, but I'm guessing from now on Camp Champions will publish to any current and prospective parents a detailed disaster response plan, even if the odds of a catastrophic event like this are miniscule.  All waterfront camps are going to develop a "we will not let that happen to your child" type of marketing plan.  Too many parents won't view what happened at Camp Mystic as a lightening strike.

Perhaps. But there were campers killed in a 1987 flash flood along the Guadalupe that killed campers closer to Comfort and yet here we are. Complacency can be a killer.

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Posted
2 hours ago, Willfully Horn said:

Ok. Not exclusively white, but overwhelmingly white.

All I saw was green. It gets that green out there?

Posted
2 minutes ago, Blotto said:

Perhaps. But there were campers killed in a 1987 flash flood along the Guadalupe that killed campers closer to Comfort and yet here we are. Complacency can be a killer.

Yeah, good point.  I didn't move to Texas until 1994 and don't recall hearing about the 1987 flash flood before this weekend.  I guess it's a combination of complacency, faded memories, and a "that was a freak weather event" rationale.  

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Posted
28 minutes ago, TreatyOak said:

If I am a parent who lost a child and I am greeted by the camp representatives with a verbal onslaught of "God's Will" and, "calling his angels to him" there would be bloodshed. 

Thinking back to all the camps my daughters attended, I didn't really check any of them for safety precautions. I just assumed they were safe, cause all our friends had been having their kids attend them for years.  

So, you didn’t really care that much? Your reaction on what you would do otherwise doesn’t seem to match your desire for any due diligence. You can’t have it both ways. I mean, you knew this camp was in a flood plain, no? You can’t see where the cabins are, no? Any moron can see this coming 100 miles away, no?

Posted
1 minute ago, Texas Fight said:

Any moron can see this coming 100 miles away, no?

Apparently there were a shitload of people of varying intelligence levels that didn't see this coming at all.

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