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Parents who lost daughters at Camp Mystic: Their deaths were ‘100% preventable’
From The Center Square
Parents who lost their daughters from flood waters at Camp Mystic said their deaths were “100% preventable” and asked the legislature to implement mandatory safety protocols for camps statewide.
Camp Mystic, an elite Hill Country multi-million-dollar enterprise, repeatedly appealed to FEMA to remove it from a 100-year flood plain designation; the appeals were granted, according to federal records. Located in “Flash Flood Alley,” the Guadeloupe River tore through part of the camp, taking the lives of 27 campers and counselors and one of the camp’s owners.
The camp charges roughly $8,800 for four weeks and roughly $15,000 for the summer, with an additional $2,000 for horseback riding, a relative who lost a camper told The Center Square. The camp had no alarms, no cell phone tower or communication capabilities, including radios, or evacuation system in place, parents said. Campers were told to stay in their cabins.
A Houston area mother, Lindsey McLeod McCrory, who attended the camp, told news outlets the policy she and others followed during a 1987 flood event was to stay in their cabins. Thirty-eight years later, her daughter, Blakely, died from flood waters that killed the youngest children bunked just feet from the river.
At a Texas Senate committee hearing on Wednesday, Michael McCown, who lost his daughter, Linnie, 8, said, “We trusted Camp Mystic with her precious life, but that trust was broken in the most devastating way. The camp had a heightened duty of care, and they failed to perform. That failure costs 25 campers and two young counselors their lives. No one had to die that day.”
“We did not send Linnie to a war zone. We sent her to camp. We trusted that she would be safe. There was never a question in my mind that a camp would not be prepared.”
The camp’s no cell phone policy should not apply to staff, he said, adding that all camps should have “fully up-to-date” communication systems and “safety measures must not lag behind.” He expressed support for SB 1, which includes “keeping cabins out of floodplains, requiring real emergency plans, mandating weather radios and alert systems,” which he said “should already be the baseline for every summer camp.”
Cici Williams Steward told the committee, “My daughter was stolen from us. Cile’s life ended. Not because of an unavoidable act of nature. But because of preventable failures.”
Her daughter, Cile Steward, 8, is the only Camp Mystic camper still missing. She is one of two known victims who remain unaccounted for.
“Texas summer camps must be properly equipped, trained, and held accountable so that future generations of children can experience the joy of camp without being placed in preventable danger,” Steward said. “Cile’s chance to experience camp only existed because I was ensured that her safety and the safety of all the young girls was paramount. I ask you, what could have been more important than that? But that assurance was betrayed. Obvious common sense safety measures were absent. Protocols that should have been in place were ignored.”
Clark Baker, who lost his daughter, Mary Grace, said, “My daughter should still be here. Her death was 100% preventable. Complacency, among other things, led to the deaths of 27 amazing, innocent, beautiful girls. We can’t let complacency claim the life of another child. We simply ask for mandatory, common sense, state regulated safety protocols for camps.”
“Camps, especially those in areas prone to flash floods, should have adequate warning systems and not build cabins in dangerous floodplains,” he said. “Surely don’t put 8- and 9-year-olds in them. Have a legitimate evacuation plan. Know the plan. Practice the plan. Train workers and counselors to implement the plan.” He said camps “should be held to a standard similar to other institutions that oversee our children.”
Baker, who lives in Beaumont, said, “Hurricane Harvey hit us hard. The very next year we were blasted by Hurricane Imelda. These disasters were both considered 500-year-floods.” Another flood or natural disaster “will happen again,” he said, which is why safety measures must be put in place for 1,100 camps in Texas.
Blake Bonner, who lost his daughter, Lila, said, “Knowing what we know now about that night makes one thing painfully clear. … This was an act of pure complacency. A common tragic theme you will find amongst the 27 angels we lost is that they … followed the rules. They did exactly what they were told to do that morning: stay in their cabins.
“Our daughters paid the ultimate price for their obedience to a plan that was destined to fail. This risk is obviously not theoretical.”
He said what happened was “Preventable failure. It was a failure of planning, prevention, detection and response. Which leads us to the questions that will forever haunt us: Why were our children sleeping in a known high risk flood zone? Why was the stated evacuation plan to stay in place? Why were there no adequate warning systems in the cabins, despite a similar tragedy on the very river as recently as 1987? Why were summer camps entrusted with the care of our most precious gifts, exempt from the basic safety standards required of every daycare and school in Texas?
“These are the questions that demand answers … in the form of meaningful legislative action. To delay action is to tell every parent in Texas that their child’s safety is not a priority. It is to accept a risk that has already been paid by the lives of our daughters.”
Every parent who testified expressed support for SB 1, which includes a series of reforms for camp safety in Texas. The committee advanced the bill, which is expected to pass the legislature and be signed into law.
Business
Call for Federal Inquiry as Pressure Mounts for Release of Buried Report on Buddhist Land Transactions in PEI
The Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society
The authors of a new book, Canada Under Siege, allege that a religious group linked to the Chinese Communist Party has been involved in a pattern of suspicious land transactions across Prince Edward Island — Canada’s smallest province, which they say is increasingly a flashpoint for questions about national security, land control, and transparency.
The authors — former RCMP superintendent Garry Clement and publisher Dean Baxendale — are pressing for the release of an investigative report they believe was suppressed, and for a new provincial probe commissioned this year to show concrete progress.
As scrutiny from the authors and from media including CBC and The Bureau has increased this year, the long-sought 2018 land-investigation report at the centre of the controversy — prepared by the Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission (IRAC) — may finally surface, after a legislative standing committee issued a subpoena for the document. The report, which examined land holdings on Prince Edward Island, including those of several Buddhist-affiliated entities, was never released publicly by the regulatory body.
The authors, along with a group of concerned PEI citizens were joined in Ottawa yesterday by Wayne Easter, a retired nine-term Liberal MP and former chair of the House Finance Committee. Easter requested a judicial inquiry into suspected corruption tied to land transactions, saying he is among many Prince Edward Islanders alarmed by suspicious dealings involving the Buddhist groups. (The author of this story also spoke at the press conference on PEI investigations and foreign interference.)
Easter stressed that critics do not believe the Buddhist followers who have come to live and work in the communities established by the China-linked organization are engaged in wrongdoing. Rather, he warned that clandestine actors may have infiltrated and exploited the group’s land holdings for undisclosed purposes.
“You need a federal public inquiry that can subpoena witnesses, trace bank accounts,” Easter said.
In response to a CBC report linking the religious group to Chinese Communist Party entities, representatives of the organizations involved strongly denied the allegation, stating that their activities have no political connection to the CCP.
Clement and Baxendale called for a federal inquiry into what they described as land dealings consistent with money laundering, routed through shell companies and religious non-profits.
Adding to those calls, Jan Matejcek, a PEI-based lawyer who has conducted his own investigations with a group of concerned Island residents, says the provincial government’s apparent reluctance to release a prior report into the land dealings of the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society, conducted from 2015 to 2018, “raises some doubt about this government’s commitment to transparency.”
Documents reviewed by The Bureau show that the decade-old investigation, authorized under section 15 of PEI’s Lands Protection Act, examined land holdings of several Buddhist-affiliated corporations — including the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society, Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute Inc., Moonlight International Foundation, and related companies — before being declared concluded in January 2018. No findings were ever made public.
A November 2024 letter from Housing Minister Steven Myers, obtained by The Bureau, and addressed to IRAC CEO Doug Clow, is titled “Re: Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute Inc. and Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society.”
In the letter, Myers wrote:
“I am writing to request that the Commission provide an update on the 2018 land investigation file relating to the above-noted organizations. Given the public interest and recent inquiries from legislators, I ask that the Commission provide a summary of its findings and the status of any recommendations or follow-up actions.”
That earlier investigation is now under renewed scrutiny following a February 2025 directive from Myers ordering IRAC to reopen the case under new powers added to the Lands Protection Act in 2022. The minister cited “public interest” and the need to examine potential direct or indirect control of the corporations’ land holdings, requesting a full report on whether the organizations had contravened the Act or its regulations.
This scrutiny follows mounting concern among residents and lawmakers that PEI’s land protections — designed to prevent excessive concentration of farmland — have been undermined by complex corporate structures and opaque beneficial-ownership chains.
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From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Hailey Gomez
President Donald Trump said Wednesday on Fox News’ “Hannity” that the hostages, both dead and alive, held by Hamas since Oct. 7, 2023, are expected to be released by Monday.
Trump announced earlier Wednesday evening on Truth Social that Israel and Hamas had formally agreed to the first phase of a U.S.-backed peace plan. Fox’s Sean Hannity asked the president to expand on what could come in the next stages for Israel and Hamas, noting the ongoing aggression and destruction in Gaza.
“I think you’re going to see all of that disappear. I think you’re going to see people getting along, and you’ll see Gaza being rebuilt. We’re forming a council, the Council of Peace, we think it’s going to be called, and it’s going to be very powerful. I think to a large extent it’s going to have a lot to do with the whole Gaza situation,” Trump said. “People are going to be taken care of. It’s going to be a different world. I think really the Middle East came together. Amazingly, they came together.”
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“They have some countries with extraordinary wealth, and just spending a small portion of that wealth can do so much for that area. We’ll be involved in it, but the big thing is hostages are going to be released. It’s probably our time — [which] would be probably Monday. They’re terribly —[it’s] a terrible situation,” Trump added. “They’re deep in the earth, and they’re being gotten, and a lot of things are happening right now. As we speak, so much is happening to get the hostages freed, and we think they’ll all be coming back on Monday.”
Prior to the second anniversary of the Israel-Hamas war, Hamas announced Friday that it would tentatively agree to release all remaining hostages and relinquish power under Trump’s proposed ceasefire agreement.
While hostages have slowly been released since Trump returned to office, reports indicate that 48 remain in Gaza, with 26 publicly confirmed dead, according to ABC News.
Trump stated that the release will include the bodies of the deceased, noting that he has spoken to many of the victims’ parents. Trump added that the parents of the deceased are “equally intent” as the parents of the living to get their children back.
“I’ve talked to so many of them, but the parents are more, almost more intent, but equally intent as getting their, in just about all cases, their son’s body back than they are, as though the young man was alive. It’s just the same intensity. They want their baby’s body back. That’s what one woman said,” Trump said.
“‘I want my baby’s body back,’ and, you know, the son is 25, 26 years old. So that’s a very big part of it, getting all of the — it’s about 28. The number is 28. We’ll be coming back, but, unfortunately, dead,” Trump added.
The deal is expected to go before Israel’s cabinet for approval on Thursday, according to CBS News. If approved, the Israeli military will withdraw to an agreed-upon line in the Gaza Strip, a process expected to take less than 24 hours. Hamas would then have 72 hours to release the hostages, the outlet reported.
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