Texas Guadalupe River
“Anna Moon, Tonk, Camp Mystic, ‘87” reads the back of a long-lost watercolor I recently found while cleaning out closets (a new pastime now that my kids are in college). Seeing my picture again, I felt a jolt of happiness remembering summertime at the serene Christian camp in the Texas Hill Country. From the friendly rivalry between our tribes, the Tonkawas and the Kiowas, to arts, crafts, and swimming in the Guadalupe River, happy memories flooded back—until the loss of 27 Mystic campers in the Fourth of July flood hit me all over again.
Suddenly, I was plunged back into the state of disbelief I experienced during that rainy weekend I spent obsessively monitoring the news for signs of life. In total, the flood tragically claimed 135 lives, but new findings show that “Heaven’s 27” did not have to be among them. As court proceedings revealed last week, their deaths were as much a function of recklessness as they were of floodwater. Issues ran the gamut from lack of preparedness to a command-and-control leadership style that demanded obedience—faults that one could argue, as families successfully did in court, are inexcusable in 2026.
How could such a devastating and unnecessary loss happen after a long history of flooding? This picture I unearthed from my closet held a clue. The date written on the back was 1987—the year another Guadalupe River flood took 10 lives. Somehow in spite of this, I still attended Camp Mystic that summer only weeks later. Looking back, I don’t recall detecting any danger, not from my parents nor the camp. I suppose the thinking was “floods happen” and are not worth scaring kids over or changing plans—and apparently state and local government officials felt the same way.
This is not to say that nothing was done. My sister was at Mystic during that flood in ‘87 and recalls being moved to higher ground where all campers that year were kept safe. However, speaking as a lifelong Texan, I now recognize that many of us have been less inquisitive and informed than we should have been—whether due to blind faith or identification with our (in)famous independent streak. Sadly, those who should have been looking out for the public’s interest also kept quiet over the years for fear of getting on the unpopular side of a politicized issue.
Fast forward to today, and ignorance, ambivalence and foolish pride are no longer justified. Virtually every American has, at our fingertips, access to the world’s knowledge if only we would stay as open to it as we are to TikTok. And, thanks to the bravery of the victims’ families who pushed for justice, we also have evidence revealing the camp owners’ poor decision-making, greed in pursuit of profits over safety, and negligence in its lack of compliance and preparedness.
As much as some point to the power of this particular flood as an excuse, it was not an accident that eight of Camp Mystic’s buildings, including four cabins dedicated to younger campers, were located inside a designated floodway, the most dangerous area of the floodplain where water is expected to move rapidly during a storm. As Laura Sullivan of NPR reported, the camp requested that FEMA, the agency responsible for creating maps that help warn Americans where water might rise, remove more than a dozen buildings from what FEMA designates a floodplain multiple times in 2013, 2019 and 2020. That last request coincided with a major expansion that included building a number of new structures without taking down cabins from dangerous flood areas.
Clearly, Camp Mystic leadership prioritized its commercial interests above those of campers, the victims and their families. With the camp once again in national headlines, finding this memento, with its message of Christian faith, was particularly poignant. The message on my giraffe picture reads, in the beautiful penmanship of my camp counselor, “All Creatures Great and Small, the Lord God Created Them All.” Reading it today, I’m sickened that the giraffe is now among many of God’s creatures endangered by human-driven habitat loss, with populations declining by nearly 30 percent to approximately 117,000 in the wild. Meanwhile, human-induced climate change has led major floods to more than double in the past 20 years, a fact unknown by many, including those who make life-or-death decisions in flood-prone regions.
My watercolor from Camp Mystic in 1987
While people of faith are increasingly awakening to the damage we humans are inflicting on the earth, the general media perception is that Christians are clueless and disengaged when it comes to environmental stewardship. I cannot let this moment pass without clarifying that we don’t all deny or look the other way from the dangers or causes of climate change, pollution and extinction. But the fact remains, too many people, Christians included, choose not to involve themselves in issues of social and environmental justice. I will admit that I’ve done my share of avoidance as well because sharing unpopular ideas is uncomfortable. It feels impolite—and that’s the problem. When too many of us prioritize social niceties over truth, a crisis is bound to follow.
There is rarely a simple explanation for any large-scale disaster and what happened at Camp Mystic last summer is no exception, with blame likely ranging from state and local government failing to implement adequate warning systems down to the camp’s leadership,”
writes Texas Monthly’s Peter Holley. “But after this week’s testimony, it’s become increasingly difficult for many observers to look at Dick Eastland’s leadership style and not see the seeds of Mystic’s inadequate response.”
Knowing how complex systems can be, I have chosen to withhold my judgment about Camp Mystic owners’ role in the tragedy until evidence emerged. After all, many of us over the years believed their status (social, if not safety) qualified them to run it. Sadly for all who love this camp, what is coming to light is that 27 girls did not have to die so soon. Had rules, mindsets and leadership changed with the times, those children might have lived. This is a lesson not only for the Eastlands, but for us all.
