Camp Mystic leader waited an hour to evacuate campers after receiving alert about Central Texas flooding

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Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain, Unknown Author

Flood waters from the Guadalupe River surround homes near Kerrville on July 4, 2025.

The director of Camp Mystic, the all-girls Christian camp where 27 died during last weekend’s Central Texas flooding, waited more than an hour after receiving the first weather alert to evacuate, despite the site being in a high-risk flood zone, the Washington Post reports.

Camp Mystic Executive Director Richard “Dick” Eastland, 70, received a “life-threatening” flood alert from the National Weather Service (NWS) at 1:14 a.m. July 4, according to the Post. Even though Camp Mystic is located in a known flood plain along the banks of the Guadalupe River, he didn’t evacuate the camp until 2:30 a.m., Eastland family members told the newspaper.

By that time, the Guadalupe River had already risen to a historic 37.5-foot crest, according top the Post.

Eastland died in the flooding, which has so far taken the lives of more than 130 people. Nearly 100 remain missing.

Serena Aldrich, an attorney and parent of two campers who survived, told the Washing Post the camp should have been evacuated immediately.

“They should have been paying attention to those warnings and evacuated the camp,” Aldrich said. “The flooding is not a new thing. I don’t know if it’s ever been to epic proportions like that, but ignoring the warnings doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”

The NWS doesn’t have the authority to order mandatory evacuations. That lies with Kerr County officials. However, Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said this week that he had his emergency weather alerts turned off the day the flood waters rose.

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