Camp Mystic's leader got a 'life threatening' flood alert. They evacuated an hour later.

[Zorro]

Camp Mystic Executive Director Richard “Dick” Eastland did not begin to evacuate the young campers asleep in cabins near the rapidly rising Guadalupe River for more than an hour after he received a severe flood warning on his phone from the National Weather Service at 1:14 a.m. on July 4, the family said through a spokesman.

Eastland — who had run the beloved Christian-centered all-girls camp in Hunt, Texas, with his wife since the 1980s — rallied family members, some of whom lived and worked at the camp, on walkie-talkies to “assess the situation” soon after the alert went out, said Jeff Carr, the family’s spokesman. At 2:30 a.m., when rain was falling hard and fast, Eastland decided to begin evacuating campers, Carr said.

Richard Eastland Jr., Dick Eastland’s son, said in a brief interview with The Washington Post last week that “the warning came fast.” The camp had previously been under a flood watch that leadership was aware of, Eastland Jr. said. The National Weather Service’s more urgent alert at 1:14 a.m. had warned of “life threatening flash flooding” in Kerr County, where Camp Mystic is in a flood zone. The alert did not include an evacuation order.

The statements from the family are the first indications that leaders at Camp Mystic — which has spotty cell service and a policy that limits the use of cellphones — received a warning about the flood before it devastated its 725-acre campus, killing 27 counselors and campers.

https://wapo.st/44N1cNI

[Srkdqltr]

1. Life threatening flash flooding and you wait for an evacuation order? With all those kids, you wait?

[Girard442]

2. Eastland probably was fixated on keeping Mystic's reputation as a safe place for kids intact.

A middle-of-the night emergency evac would undermine that. Tempting to do nothing and hope for the best.

On edit:
Maybe they should rename the Gaudalupe River to De Nial.

[hatrack]

3. Yes, doing nothing and hoping - a choice that generally works out well . . .

.

[malaise]

8. It least he went down with the proverbial ship

Effer

[yardwork]

4. Huge lawsuits.

[niyad]

5. Hmmm. . .so between the lies on the FEMA maps about where some

of the cabins were located, in which he must have been involved, and his insane decision to delay evacuating for over an hour. .the man is not the hero he was being portrayed as last week.

I wonder what else we are going to discover about this paragon and this camp. .none of it good, would be my guess.

[yardwork]

6. Looking at that map....

The cabins were built right where the rivers converge, right in the river bottom. I hadn't realized just how incredibly unsafe that camp was until I saw that map!

[niyad]

7. Sickening!!!

[Girard442]

9. I'm sure it was a lovely place to be...until it wasn't.

[leftyladyfrommo]

10. Around here (KCMO) we get weather alerts

all the time and we have gotten really complacent because most the bad storms miss us.

But we do pay attention the minute the sirens go off. Everyone goes on high alert.

That's why sirens are important.

[KentuckyWoman]

11. Why were they allowed

To build a children's camp in a known high risk flood zone?

[niyad]

12. People got paid off.

[KentuckyWoman]

13. Likely

And if they are still among us should be held accountable. There does not seem to be much of that going on anywhere these days though.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

14. They interviewed a camp counselor who said they were having them "goofy" things

With no explanation - like gathering up clothes and doing other things pretending they were games. This counselor was an adult and should have been told and the other counselors . I’d be pissed if I were a counselor there. What a total lack of respect to them. And they made them all turn in their phones - rather disrespectful.