• Dick Eastland, longtime director of Camp Mystic, spent decades warning of the Guadalupe River’s danger. After dying while rescuing campers during catastrophic floods, questions have emerged over whether government and camp officials did enough to mitigate long-known risks. A history of system failures and missed opportunities deepens scrutiny after the deadly July disaster.

KERRVILLE, TX (TDR) — Dick Eastland’s life was shaped by the Guadalupe River. For decades, he ran Camp Mystic, a cherished summer refuge for generations of girls, nestled along the scenic, yet dangerous, waterway. He lobbied for flood warning systems, served on the local river authority board, and repeatedly sounded alarms after watching floods tear through the area.

But on July 4, Eastland lost his life in the very river he had spent a lifetime warning others about—swept away while trying to save the campers he had long protected. Twenty-six others at Camp Mystic also died, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in Texas since Hurricane Harvey.

Now, scrutiny is mounting over whether enough was done—by Camp Mystic, local officials, or state agencies—to heed Eastland’s own warnings and act before tragedy struck again.

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A History of Ignored Warnings

The Guadalupe River has a long and lethal history. Floods devastated Camp Mystic as far back as 1932, when cabins were swept away and campers had to evacuate by canoe. In 1978, the Kerrville Mountain Sun reported that Mystic was the “most severely damaged” camp during a regional flood. In 1985, floodwaters forced the airlift evacuation of Eastland’s pregnant wife.

Following the 1987 deaths of 10 children at another area camp, Eastland pushed for the installation of a river gauge flood warning system while serving on the Upper Guadalupe River Authority. Though implemented, the system deteriorated and was ultimately shut down in 1999 due to reliability issues and liability concerns, according to the Kerrville Daily Times.

Despite recurring calls to upgrade flood monitoring and emergency warning systems, progress remained slow and fragmented. Local grant applications for modern warning infrastructure were rejected by the state in 2016 and 2017. A 2022 effort to launch a new centralized dashboard was finally approved, but development had not begun when disaster struck.

Camp Expansion Over Relocation

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Camp Mystic itself has expanded significantly in recent years, adding over a dozen new cabins farther from the Guadalupe River and closer to Cypress Creek. However, some of the original cabins—those hit hardest during the flooding—remained in what FEMA designates as “regulatory floodways,” the most hazardous flood zones.

While building new cabins required special permits due to their lower-risk flood designation, no measures were taken to relocate or repurpose the older, higher-risk structures. Experts say this was a missed opportunity.

“When they did the construction of the recent buildings, they should have seen the FEMA maps,” said Anna Serra-Llobet, a UC Berkeley flood expert. “It was a window of opportunity.”

Serra-Llobet added that existing structures like those at Mystic are especially difficult to regulate, but that doesn’t mean owners and local officials should ignore the risk.

Budget Constraints, Bureaucratic Failures

Multiple stakeholders bear responsibility for the lack of mitigation. Kerr County officials, the Upper Guadalupe River Authority, and even state agencies were aware of the risks and the outdated infrastructure. But budget constraints, local opposition to new sirens or high-tech alerts, and insufficient state support left efforts stalled.

In April 1998, the contractor responsible for maintaining the early warning system abruptly went out of business. By early 1999, the entire system was offline. Although a few river gauges remain active today, the absence of a robust warning system left camps like Mystic vulnerable.

A planned relaunch of a regional monitoring dashboard—championed by Eastland himself—was scheduled to begin this month. That project is now postponed due to the flooding.

A Legacy Cut Short

Eastland’s final act of heroism has been widely praised. His grandson, George Eastland, wrote on Instagram, “If he wasn’t going to die of natural causes, this was the only other way—saving the girls he so loved.”

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