Families of girls who died in a devasting flood at a summer camp along the banks of a river in Texas have filed three lawsuits alleging negligence and wrongful death.
On July 4, 27 campers and counsellors lost their lives at Camp Mystic in Kerr County, when the Guadalupe River burst its banks amid heavy rain.
Lawsuits filed today in Travis County seeking over $1 million in damages under Texas’ Wrongful Death Act claim management knew about the flooding dangers but did not inform parents or take action to mitigate the risk.
They claim the deaths of the 25 campers and two counsellors could have been prevented, the Austin American-Statesman reports.
A petition launched by the family of Eloise ‘Lulu’ Peck, aged eight, called it a ‘self-created disaster’ and said: ‘There is no greater trust than when a parent entrusts the care of their child to another.
Bottom row: Lila Bonner, 9, and Eloise Peck, 8. Blair Harber, 13 and her sister Brooke, 11, were not attending the camp, but died after being swept away while with their grandparents
‘Camp Mystic’s shocking betrayal of that trust caused the horrific, tragic and needless deaths of 27 innocent young girls, including Eloise ‘Lulu’ Peck.
‘This case seeks accountability for that betrayal and to send a message to other camps – protect the kids in your care.’
Camp owners Dick, who died in the flood, and Wiletta ‘Tweety’ Eastland, who survived, were named as defendants, as well as Camp Mystic itself. Dick’s son Britt Eastland is also named as a family representative.
Another petition filed on behalf of six campers, Virginia ‘Wynne’ Naylor, Hadley Hanna, Virginia Hollis, Jane ‘Janie’ Hunt, Lucy Dillon, and Kellyanne Lytal, tells how they ‘lost their young lives in the most horrific, brutal, and terrifying way imaginable,’ the Kerr County Lead reports.
It says: ‘Their parents are left to live every single day for the rest of their lives with the intense grief and the thoughts of what their babies endured that fateful night. They can never change the permanent devastation that has happened to their families.
‘But they can and will seek justice for their daughters.
‘They can and will do everything in their power to affect change so that summer camps are safer; so that no other child dies from the negligence, gross negligence, lack of preparedness, and recklessness that resulted in their daughters’ deaths at Camp Mystic.’
The lawsuit claims that defendants knew the river had ‘a well-documented history of dangerous flooding and is known as “Flood Alley” due to the frequency and severity of flood events.’
It alleges that no flood evacuation plans were in place, and that the girls were left in their cabins despite safer areas being close by, and there being advanced warning of dangerous weather.
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‘Defendants initially focused first on saving their tools and equipment rather than evacuating eight and nine-year-old girls,’ the petition claims. ‘Further, Tweety Eastland and Mary Liz Eastland prioritized their own safety and survived.
‘To instruct children to stay in a cabin with rising flood waters was ultimately a death sentence.’
A further lawsuit from the familiies of campers Anna Margaret Bellows, Lila Bonner,Molly Dewitt, Lainey Landry and Blakely McCrory, and counsellorsKatherine Feruzzo and Chloe Childress, also names Edward and Mary Liz Eastland who were directors of the camp as defendants.
Mikal Watts has announced he will defend Camp Mystic pro bono, saying ‘the facts here demonstrate that this is one of those occasions where no one is to blame.’
He says the tragedy resulted from failures in warning systems rather than negligence from the camp, saying the management suffered tragedy themselves with the loss of ‘patriarch’ Dick Eastland, who drowned trying to take children to safety in a vehicle.
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