Texas bills increasing youth camp safety face long odds, even after Hill Country floods

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Although not specifically named in Gov. Greg Abbott’s list of directives for the current special legislative session, state lawmakers have filed several bills to shore up the safety of youth camps in the wake of the devastating Hill Country floods.

So far, nine bills have been proposed that would address everything from emergency plans and camper disaster drills, to better communication systems and life jackets inside every cabin. They are all in response to the July 4 floods that killed 137 people, including 27 campers and counselors at storied Camp Mystic. The camp’s longtime owner Dick Eastland was also among the victims.

“My hope is that these common sense reforms would help prevent confusion during floods and ensure every camper has the tools and information needed to act quickly when every second matters,” said state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, who has filed three of eight camp safety bills.

Realistically, it’s tough to see how any camp safety proposal will pass by Aug. 19, when the special session ends, when so much is vying for the Texas Legislature’s attention. Many flood-related proposals that will likely take priority over camps are aimed at fast-tracking disaster funding to businesses and improving emergency disaster response.

And there’s no guarantee that all camps will be on board with the proposed safety regulations.

While some camp industry representatives have told The Texas Tribune they welcome regulation as they grieve alongside their impacted peers, these businesses, particularly more profitable camps, have influenced legislation or circumvented certain mandates in the past. Two weeks after the flooding, the Associated Press reported that Camp Mystic had in recent years successfully appealed to FEMA to have several of its buildings removed from federal flood zone maps, which could have lowered Mystic’s insurance cost and made expansion of the camp easier to do.

“The youth camps don’t like regulation,” state Rep. Vikki Goodwin told The Texas Tribune when asked about concessions she had to make to certain camps on a 2023 safety bill.

Whether the camp safety bills make it, are re-filed in another special session or resurface in the 2027 regular legislative session, one thing is certain: The small but politically astute camp industry is expected to face a lot more questions from lawmakers and specifically, Texas parents, about how it keeps campers safe, particularly the large contingent of sleepaway camps along the state’s lakes and rivers.

“Whatever is coming out, especially from the Legislature or state law, we’re going to gladly take it and run with it,” said Dan Neal, the chair of the state’s camp advisory committee and whose family owns Georgetown-based Camp Doublecreek. “And the camps that I know that I work closely with are going to be happy to take what that is, and really, I would say, make it even better than what is just gonna be probably the base regulation.”

Camp safety bills

The Hill Country flooding largely exposed the lack of preparation by youth camps when confronted with disastrous weather events.

Although they may not have mitigated the devastation that caught residents and community leaders off guard in the early hours of July 4, recently filed legislation aim to prevent another catastrophic death toll at children’s camps.

Among them include:

• Senate Bill 35 and House Bill 223 requiring camps along a river to have flood safety equipment in each cabin, including life jackets and a cabin-to-cabin communication system.
• SB 49 requiring safety drills for campers.
• HB 124 requiring the state to establish better rules about building a camp within a floodplain.
• HB 211 and HB 239 requiring all camp emergency management plans to be filed with the Texas Division of Emergency Management.

The last bill addresses a loophole in Texas law that allows camp’s emergency plans to avoid the public’s scrutiny.

Currently, camps are governed under the state’s health and safety code which contains very general rules about how camps will be inspected by the Texas Department of State Health Services. For example, camps must have an emergency plan, including ways to evacuate in case of a disaster, but those plans are merely verified — not evaluated — by state licensing workers and copies of them are not maintained by the state.

During a joint legislative hearing Thursday on the disaster, Kerr County Emergency Management Director William “Dub” Thomas revealed the county had never had a county-wide evacuation drill and wasn’t able to access six of the 19 youth camps in the area. One Houston mom who traveled to Kerrville to attend the hearing pleaded with lawmakers to make youth camps post their emergency plans on their websites.

“After hearing about the camp emergency plans or lack thereof, please address that,” said Keli Rabon, whose sons Braeden and Brock survived their flooded cabins at La Junta camp on July 4. “That should be mandatory and published on every camp website for the public to view, not in an office somewhere.”

HB 211 is more prescriptive than current law on what must be included in emergency plans. It would require TDEM to obtain the plans, which would presumably allow the public to request them. The state’s disaster response agency would also be required to set emergency procedures for camps and provide feedback to camps about their plans.

“We remain committed to working with lawmakers and the state to ensure any legislation is approached thoughtfully, with room for collaboration and reflection following the tragic July 4th floods,” said Tommy Ferguson, a retired camp director and spokesperson for Camp Association for Mutual Progress, the trade association for the state’s major overnight camps, including Camp Mystic. “Camper safety is always C.A.M.P’s top priority.”

The camp industry’s influence

The youth camp industry is hardly different from other industries in Texas, a pro-business state famously allergic to strict regulation. Youth camps, like most private enterprises and even counties and cities, hire lobbyists to protect their interests via a trade association during legislative sessions.

The top request of that organization, C.A.M.P., is to end the ever-changing start of Texas public schools, which forces camps to readjust their summer schedule and impacts their bottom line. While the state has not sided with it on that issue, C.A.M.P. can and has pushed back successfully behind the scenes on blanket regulations.

Camps also have a little-known state committee that advises DSHS, the very same state agency that licenses them, on requirements and policies. The Youth Camp Advisory Committee and similar advisory groups point to their necessity in a state without a full-time Legislature. Instead of waiting on state lawmakers to meet as scheduled every two years to pass laws, youth camps, which make up six of the nine members on the advisory group, meet semiannually to request rule changes to the state agency and the Legislature when it convenes.

“I mean, it is purely advisory,” said Neal, who chairs the committee. “We have really no say in creating a rule. In other words, we’re not legislators.”

But they can influence how much a rule impacts them.

The youth camp committee’s March meeting provides a glimpse into the give-and-take nature of its operation. For example, while the state rejected the advisory group’s request to exclude staff from wearing protective helmets during horseback riding, the state sided with camps on tweaking a rule to allow them to have a physician assistant or nurse practitioner on call instead of a doctor, which are harder to come by in rural areas.

The camp advisory group also tries to protect camps from blanket regulations.

“I’m all about improving camps but sometimes I’m a little hesitant to make another requirement on a camp that is maybe not needed,” said Camp Mystic Cypress Lake director Britt Eastland during the March meeting as members discussed training policies on handling camper behavior.

Neal says one of the primary concerns of both C.A.M.P. and the state committee is to protect families from unregulated camps.

“We also want to not have people out there that use the name camp and are not committed to the same regulations as we are,” Neal told The Texas Tribune this week. “Safety has always been at the forefront of every single [camp] director and owner and you know, it’s something that keeps us up at night.”

While the state and the committee have beefed up background checks and staff training to screen out sex offenders, a check of the committee’s meeting minutes posted online since 2007 reveal that there’s been no discussion of disaster planning, camp emergency evacuation or procedures in case of any natural disaster or threat.

Neal, who has served on the committee for three years, said camps know their emergency preparation will be highly scrutinized by the state and by the public moving forward.

“Whatever is in the past is in the past,” he said about the committee’s history with disaster planning. “We’re ready to get down to work, whatever that looks like, to make sure we can keep this a top priority, camper safety.“

One grieving family’s legislative experience

Seven years ago, Jonestown resident Kori DelaPeña dropped off her daughter Cati to the High Hopes Summer Camp with strict instructions to staff that the 6-year-old could not swim and if she were taken near water, she must wear a life jacket. DelaPeña even spelled out the instructions in writing to the day camp’s staff who assured her that precautions would be taken.

Cati drowned in a local pool during the camp’s second day. The little girl was found without a life jacket. An investigation would later reveal that life jackets were available and the number of campers exceeded the pool’s own capacity rules.

The DelaPeñas contacted their state Rep. Vikki Goodwin to discuss creating a law that would force all Texas’ youth camps to comply with stricter water safety rules. Until then, Goodwin recalls, she had no idea that there were different rules for different youth camps.

“I didn’t understand that there’s different regulations for the camps like Camp Mystic versus just a day camp, child care center type of thing,” Goodwin said.

Goodwin’s bill ended up exempting the 375 camps licensed by DSHS to avoid pushback from C.A.M.P. Texas private schools, some of which have water features like ponds or pools and operate camps on their campuses, had concerns about the overly broad language in the original bill text. Language was tweaked but private schools as well as public schools are required to adhere to the new law.

Tommy Ferguson, a retired camp director, speaking for C.A.M.P. said that exemption of DSHS-licensed youth camps had nothing to do with undue influence. He said their inclusion wasn’t necessary because existing state law requires camps to test campers’ swimming ability and to keep children “confined to the limits of swimming skills for which they have been classified.”

“Youth camps … already had state-mandated waterfront safety standards,” he said in a statement.

Initially, DelaPeña was disappointed. “My job will always be [about] what we lived, these other families don’t live it,” she said. But she came to understand that “in legislation, you have to pick your battles.”

Today, the DelaPeñas are satisfied with the resulting law they campaigned so hard for. Day camps operated by child care centers and other organizations using pools for water activities must now get a parent’s signature on a form attesting to their child’s swimming ability if that child is younger than 12. If that child cannot swim, they must wear a U.S. Coast Guard-approved life jacket before entering a pool. Additionally, the couple’s non-profit, Live Like Cati, offers water safety training and raises money to provide life jackets to organizations.

The DelaPeñas understand better than anyone else the grief, the demands for accountability and the questions that will go unanswered that face the families who lost children during the July 4 disaster. They encourage them to stay strong and for decisionmakers to enact changes for summer camps, particularly those near open water.

“Be persistent, don’t give up,” DelaPeña said. “Try and do not let your anger or grief take over your mission. Do it for the love of your child and God will guide you and open the doors you need to walk through.”

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