As we approach the one year anniversary of the Central Texas floods that claimed the lives of at least 139 people, Dateline’s Lester Holt spoke with eight mothers who lost their daughters at Camp Mystic for an exclusive special titled “After the Flood.” Airing Friday, June 26 at 9 p.m. CT, the special examines how the mothers are grappling with their grief in the aftermath of this unthinkable tragedy.
Patricia Bellows, whose daughter Margaret died during the July 4 flood, explained to Holt that the families “never received a debrief” from the Eastlands, who own the camp. Jennie Getten lost her daughter Ellen and said the pain has been compounded by the fact that the Eastlands “never called us.” Trying to comprehend their losses is an insurmountable task made even more complicated by the fact that the mothers still have so many questions about what happened that day. Nearly one year later, they aren’t any closer to receiving answers.
Dateline’s hourlong special seeks to, at the very least, bring these inquiries into focus. In addition to interviewing the mothers, Holt sat down with Mikal Watts, the Eastland family’s attorney, to discuss what could have been done differently to prevent deaths the mothers say were “100%” avoidable. Watts argues it isn’t that simple, saying that it was impossible to prepare for such a catastrophic situation.
“After the Flood” also highlights recent developments, like Camp Mystic’s bankruptcy filing, and features additional interviews with flood survivors, including a camp counselor and a 10-year-old camper. Lindsey McCrory, whose 8-year-old daughter Blakely died in the flood, speaks about her experience as well.
Parents have been leaning on each other in the aftermath of this tragedy
The Houston mothers who lost their daughters during the July 4 flood at Camp Mystic spoke with Dateline’s Lester Holt about how they’ve found comfort and community with one another as they struggle to make sense of what happened. Jennie Getten said, “These people are really the only ones who truly understand what I went through.” Ellen Sheedy added, “I don’t think anyone can relate to what we’ve experienced except for the other 26 families. I have trouble relating to my best friends prior to July 4th, hearing about their busy lives, their carpools. That — that’s not my life anymore.”
Wendie Childress said their lives have been bisected into “before” and “after,” to which Patricia Bellows added, “Because the person you were before is gone, that person is dead.” It’s a heartbreakingly honest glimpse into what it’s like to reckon with unrelenting grief. Childress said she’s unable to let go of a haunting string of questions that have been on her mind since she found out her daughter, Chloe, was missing after the flash flood. “As a mother or a parent there’s a desperate need to know, ‘what did you go through? Were you alone? Were you with someone? Were you afraid? Was it fast?’”
The pain is deepened by the fact that the Eastlands have reportedly had very little to say to the families over the last year. Bellows and Getten said the Eastlands never got everyone together as a group to discuss what happened. Childress added that they get “a personal condolence note here, a text with the Bible verse there,” and nothing else. She said that’s “not what we’re looking for, not the answers that we need.”
General consensus among the group is that the Eastlands had enough time to get everyone to safety and prevent this tragic loss of life. Natalie Landry, mother of Lainey, told Holt, “Our girls should be here with the timeframe, there was time for them all, the whole camp to evacuate safely.”
The Eastland’s attorney, Mikal Watts, also spoke with Holt
Mikal Watts, the Eastland’s attorney, told Lester Holt that the family was complying with the specific flood policy they had in place for Camp Mystic when the Guadalupe River began flooding last July 4. Watts said, “We get flash flood warnings in Kerr County repetitively. Every time it rains—there’s a risk of flash floods. But that’s not the same thing as what happened here. This was a 1,000-year flood that nobody’s ever seen before.” He added, “We have a specific flood policy. You stay in the cabins until help can come and help you. Hundreds of girls’ lives were saved by that policy.”
Holt pressed him on this, asking, “So you’re making an argument for keeping them inside the cabins during this kind of rain event?” To which Watts replied, “It’s called shelter in place.” The attorney went on to say that the younger campers would have been at an even greater risk if they had attempted to wade through rushing waters. Holt asked, “Would that have happened had they [the Eastlands] responded immediately to that warning at 1:14 a.m.?”
Watts said, “The warning at 1:14 is a text that certain people didn’t get. But the problem is it wasn’t delivered. There was no siren — What you need is things upstream that say, ‘We got a wall of water coming,’ and immediately activate a siren that’s gonna wake up everybody here. That would’ve given ’em the time. That would’ve saved lives. And it would’ve saved all the lives downriver.”
The bipartisan Mystic Alerts Act is seeking to remedy Texas’s emergency alert system to ensure every alert is sent out via satellite moving forward so they can be received even during times where cellular networks are down due to natural disasters. For the mothers of Camp Mystic, it’s a small semblance of solace to know that other families will hopefully be spared the same pain they’re enduring in the future.
This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Related: State investigators issue final Camp Mystic report detailing cascading failures during July 4 flood
