This is the first time families will appear publicly before the legislature since the July 4 flooding.
Blake and Caitlin Bonner speak about their nine-year-old daughter, Lila, who died during the July 4 Camp Mystic floods. AUSTIN, Texas - A big and likely emotional day at the Capitol in Austin as parents — who lost their daughters in the flood at Camp Mystic — will testify and urge lawmakers to adopt stronger safety standards.
This is the first time families will appear publicly before the legislature since the July 4 flooding."I was not there to protect her, but I do hope that this legislation can help protect other daughters and sons in Texas," said Hollis. "The care and safety of our children should be the highest priority." When Mike McCown sat before lawmakers at the Texas Capitol, his voice carried the weight of a father still grappling with unimaginable loss. His eight-year-old daughter, Linnie, was among the 27 children and counselors who died when flash floods swept through Camp Mystic on July 4. For the first time publicly, McCown recounted the devastating hours that followed as he and his wife, Callie, searched for answers. On July 4, while driving to Kerrville to pick up my daughter, I received an email from Camp Mystic stating, If you have not been personally contacted, then your daughter is accounted for,” McCown told the committee. “I felt a wave of relief, which was quickly shattered when my wife called, incredibly distraught, to say that Linnie is missing. Over the next two days, McCown was called to a funeral home to identify two bodies, one of which he believed was his daughter. He later returned to Kerrville to provide a DNA sample, a grim confirmation of what he already knew. McCown painted a vivid picture of who Linnie was — the middle child between her brothers, Bates, 11, and George, 3. To Bates, she was the pesky but beloved little sister; to George, a gentle, playful caregiver who poured his morning cereal so their parents could rest. To everyone else, she was a joyful child with an infectious giggle. “She hugged her teachers, was a friend to everybody, and spread joy everywhere she went,” McCown said. But that joy, he argued, was cut short because the camp failed in its responsibility to protect the children in its care. McCown detailed how flash flood warnings began on July 3 and escalated in number and severity throughout the morning of July 4. Despite those alerts, he said, Camp Mystic had no clear emergency plan. 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 cost 25 campers and two young counselors their lives. No one had to die that day.When I was in school, we had fire drills. Teachers didn’t need to be told to line up the kids and head for the exit. No fire drill I’ve ever heard of evacuates only one part of a building while leaving others behind. It didn’t even cross my mind that a camp wouldn’t have a detailed emergency procedure in place.We did not send Linnie to a war zone,” McCown said. “We sent her to camp. We trusted she would be safe. McCown emphasized that his family doesn’t harbor ill will toward the tradition of summer camp. He himself attended camp as a child and believes in its value. But he insisted the infrastructure and safety protocols must match the risks. Being disconnected from electronics is healthy for kids, but that disconnection should be superficial. Behind the scenes, the back office and the foundation of summer camp must be fully up to date. Safety measures should already be the baseline — keeping cabins out of floodplains, requiring real emergency plans, mandating weather radios and alert systems. The testimony closed with a plea to lawmakers to act on Senate Bill 1, which would impose stricter safety requirements on youth camps across Texas. “SB 1 cannot bring Linnie back, but it can save other children,” McCown said. “Please pass this bill, protect our kids, and do not let their deaths be in vain.”The parents of Cile Steward, who remains missing after the July 4 Camp Mystic floods, spoke before the Texas Senate hearing about their daughter. “We are the parents of Cile Steward, the only camper from Camp Mystic still missing, and one of two known victims who remain unaccounted for after the flood,” she said. They testified for two reasons: to support SB 1, aimed at improving camp safety, and to share their grief. “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,” she said. Cile was attending Camp Mystic for the first time, continuing a family tradition spanning three generations. For Cile, camp meant adventure, memories, friendships and lessons to carry for a lifetime. For me, it meant watching my child grow and learn, but always under the assurance that she would be safe. Joy and growth cannot exist without safety,” she said. But that safety, she said, was tragically betrayed. “Obvious, common sense, safety measures were absent. Protocols that should have been in place were ignored. As a result, my daughter was stolen from us. Cile's life ended, not because of an unavoidable act of nature, but because of preventable failures.”And yet my daughter, Cile Steward, is still missing, 48 days later. Cile remains somewhere in the devastation of the Guadalupe River. We wait, trapped in agony, until she is brought home. Our family lives in a torture chamber of uncertainty; the agony is unrelenting. We cannot begin to grieve or honor the fullness of her short, beautiful life until she is recovered and laid safely to rest.We ask you, please pass SB 1 so no parent sends their child to camp believing they are safe, only to face this nightmare. And just as urgently, please do not stop the search for Cile Steward. Please do not give up on our girl.Blake and Caitlin Bonner spoke about their nine-year-old daughter, Lila, who died during the July 4 Camp Mystic floods. “My name is Caitlin Bonner, and my husband, Blake, and I are here today on behalf of our oldest daughter, Lila Bonner, who lost her life during the flood of July 4,” Caitlin said. Lila had just turned nine days before camp. Her younger sisters, Win, 2, and Scarlet, 6, now face a world without her. “As her mother, I am haunted by the events that took place on July 4, and wish with every fiber of my being that I was here under different circumstances,” Caitlin said. Caitlin described the letters she had written to Lila over the years, capturing milestones and memories. I never imagined I would be the one reading them to her at her funeral, and most certainly not because she lost her life at Camp Mystic,” she said. She remembered Lila as kind and gentle. “She was the most gentle little girl who fiercely loved her little sisters and all of her friends a friend who preferred to shine her light on the people around her.” Caitlin also noted how carefully she had prepared Lila for camp, yet a piece of her purple trunk was recovered 11.1 miles from camp, and her body 5.6 miles away. Blake Bonner added: “Our daughters paid the ultimate price for their obedience to a plan that was destined to fail This wasn’t an act of God. This was an act of pure complacency.” He called for lawmakers to act immediately: Delay in action is to tell every parent in Texas that their child’s safety is not a priority. We urge you pass meaningful camp safety standards this session.The Hunt family shared the heart-wrenching story of their nine-year-old daughter, Janie Hunt, who died during the July 4 floods at Camp Mystic. Janie was the heartbeat of our family. She made me a mom. She always cared for others. In a nutshell, that’s who she was. She left for camp full of excitement and joy. She came home in a plywood box,” she said, describing the unimaginable grief of identifying her daughter’s tiny, muddy body. “It’s so hard to face each day without her.For I know the plans I have for you, plans not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. We thought she was promised a bright future. She would be protected. But now I realize today, these are the plans — this vote, giving meaning to these deaths, shining a light on her trait of caring for others by making the summer camp industry safe for other children.If these 27 little voices could be heard today, they would say, please vote in favor of SB 1 — safer camps — so that no other parent would experience this darkness again. We can’t bring our daughter back, but you can make her memory a shield for every child who will step onto a camp bus next summer. You have the power to make sure camps are places of joy and not danger. Janie’s father, Daven Hunt, described the profound loss and his sense of failure. “It was a sacred duty as her father to protect my daughter at all costs. And I was not there. I failed that sacred duty at the end of her life. I was not there for her, and she was terrified. It is abundantly clear to me, and should be to everyone around, that Camp Mystic was completely unprepared for the flooding that cost my daughter her life.”Every morning we wake up and hope this is some kind of sick dream, and that is if we even slept. Sometimes the dreams can be peaceful, memories of times that we would give anything to relive. Sometimes the dreams are this mad rush, pit of your stomach growling, trying to find your daughter from some nefarious force that’s grabbed her. The worst dreams, by far, are the ones where I imagine what it was like for her — petrified, screaming, and alone. I prefer not to sleep rather than have those dreams. Daven invoked Theodore Roosevelt’s words after his own personal loss: “On that day, Teddy Roosevelt lost his mother and his wife within a few hours of her. In his diary, he wrote eight simple words: ‘The light has gone out of my life.’ I stand here before you today to tell you that is how I feel. That’s how we feel. Janie was our light. She was our everything.” He concluded with a plea to lawmakers: “These reforms are common sense. They are really basic safety measures that should have been in place already, but by placing them as law, they will restore confidence in our camps. We send our kids to camp with a presumption of safety. We believe they will be safe, and it’s up to you to help us, because they must be safe. Without SB 1, we are just biding our time until there’s another catastrophe. I urge you, I beg of you, I beseech you, please do the right things by our children. Please continue fighting and pass SB 1.”Please remember there’s one more angel still out there. Please keep looking for Cile, and I thank you for your time.The Hanna family shared a harrowing account before the Texas Senate about the deadly July 4 flood at Camp Mystic, which claimed their nine-year-old daughter, Hadley Hanna, along with 26 other children and counselors. “For 14 years, I spent my summers on the magical banks of the Guadalupe River at Camp Mystic," said Carrie Hanna. "I couldn’t wait to have a daughter so she could go to Mystic and experience what I did.” Hadley, Carrie explained, was the middle sister between Harper, 10, who survived, and Hunter Mae, 6. “She was the glue. Hadley was the best, happiest baby from the start, and as she grew, her love and her smile grew too. To know her was to love her, because she loved everyone. She loved to give hugs, sometimes the sneak attack variety, kisses and pets. She was the nicest, sweetest, happiest person, always exuding joy.”Five days after starting, the camp of my dreams turned into a living nightmare. Hadley was pulled out of a window of her twin’s cabin after it had filled with water. Less than 10 feet away were stairs to higher ground that could have saved her life and the five girls in her cabin who also passed away.” She described Hadley’s strength, but the rushing waters were unstoppable: “She and two other little girls were knocked out of a tree and died. In total, five of the 12 girls from her cabin also died.On July 4, I woke up to my wife frantically texting other moms We got official word Hadley was missing. I worked my way to the front of a line of worried parents, and finally saw Harper with my own eyes. I gave her a giant hug and told her, Hadley is missing.” He described the heartbreak of explaining to Harper what had happened and the trauma she continues to endure: “Since attending the Band Together Texas concert here in Austin, Harper has wanted to talk about the night of the flood. She’s having flashbacks and hasn’t been able to sleep without one of us by her side. Both parents emphasized the preventable nature of the tragedy. Carrie said, “Our precious, hilarious, kind, caring, silly, loving little girl died because there was no plan, because there was no backup system or sirens, because the 18- and 19-year-old counselors did not have the training they needed. Instead, they were told to stay in place, a rule that proved fatal.” Doug added, We want to make camp safe. We want to make sure no families sending their kids to camp in 2026 share this nightmare. When you send your kid to camp, you expect to pick them up. You don’t expect them to be swept away in the middle of the night by rushing floodwaters. The Hanna’s testimony called on lawmakers to pass SB 1, a bill aimed at ensuring that summer camps in Texas have proper safety measures and emergency protocols. I didn’t know what love was until our first daughter was born, and I didn’t know what sorrow was until we lost Hadley,” Doug said.The life of Lucy Dillon, an eight-year-old from Houston, Texas, was tragically cut short in the July 4th floods at Camp Mystic. Brant Dillon shared before the committee that Lucy “was only eight years old when her life was needlessly taken” and described the devastation left in the wake of a tragedy he called “100% preventable.” Every plan and dream that included her “has been destroyed by unsafe facilities, inadequate preparation, failed planning and poor execution.” He described Lucy as a brilliant, compassionate child whose life was tragically cut short by preventable failures. Every plan for our future, every dream that included her, has been destroyed by unsafe facilities, inadequate preparation, failed planning and poor execution,” he said. Lucy was an exceptional student and athlete. Dillon noted that she “excelled in school, was in gifted and talented classes, and even skipped a math grade,” and that she was set to begin the Spring Branch Independent School District spiral program. On the athletic front, Lucy was “recently helping her softball and basketball teams win their league championships,” and Dillon described coaching her and her friends since she was four, emphasizing that “while she loved to win, the joy of her victories was often balanced by the compassion she felt for the losing team.” Lucy’s father remembered her as kind, determined, and full of life. She “was kind, she was a leader. She was gritty, and she always gave 100% effort.” Dillon reflected on the countless hours they spent together, putting her to bed nearly every night and sharing simple family moments from “1000s of pages of books to her countless hands of UNO would go fish.” He said she “was my best friend, our greatest contribution to society.”The horror of Lucy’s death struck hardest when she left for camp for the first time. We entrusted her care to the camp operators, and never, for a moment did we believe she would be returned to us in a casket. He added that he would “never forget that emotionless call that she was simply unaccounted for,” emphasizing the critical need for safety reforms: “We must make sure that when parents entrust their children to camps, that they can have the confidence that facilities are safe, operators are prepared, and emergency plans are sufficient and executable, and I'll add enforced as well.”Many things could have been done differently to save our children's lives. I know this because, like a broken record, I replay every scenario in my mind every day and every night, always asking, Why do. What were they thinking? Why didn't they do this or that?” He concluded his testimony by urging lawmakers to adopt SB One without dilution, stating, “I humbly ask you to support these common sense, non partisan camp safety reforms do not water them down so that no other parent has to endure what we and others have endured. It's the worst kind of pain and emptiness one could ever feel. Closing on a note of accountability, Dillon shared a passage from the Bible that had resonated with him: “Ezekiel, chapter 33, verse six, the story of the watchman. It says, but if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people, and the sword comes and takes someone's life, that person's life will be taken because of their sin, but I will hold the watchmen accountable for their blood.” A spokesperson for the parents says they are committed to turning their pain into meaningful and urgent change for all children... on behalf of whom they refer to as "Heaven's 27."They hope that their testimony will encourage lawmakers to implement changes that will prevent other families from experiencing similar heartbreak.Senator Lois Kolkhorst on the Senate Select Committee on Disaster Preparedness and Flooding assured Camp Mystic parents in an emotional response that "I want you to know you're being heard. You're impacting lives...This tragedy is going to impact future lives." She recounted the unforgettable stories told by families the committee met with and stressed the importance of being prepared, vowing to make changes. My Chief of Staff said to me the other night, "I can't unhear their stories, I can't unhear their stories," and that's a good thing, because these lives of these precious children— we will never unhear their stories and we will make changes.Camp owners and operators also provided their testimony before the Senate committee, largely speaking in favor of the legislation, highlighting the importance of camps as an institution, and wanting to ensure their safety. "But camp is important for kids. They need to get out into nature. They need to see God's creation, and we need to make sure they're safe," said Paul Biles. "This morning, before heading out, it'll still be dark out. I took my two little ones outside because right now, several planets are aligning with the moon, and you can see them all at the same time. My little son said, Man, this is the best day ever. And those are the type of moments you see and you hear about at camps." However, the operators have voiced their concerns surrounding the privacy of campers and their families, with concerns stemming from campers' identification information being recorded and logged with first responders. "My concern was, again, back to those camps on the lakes and so forth, but also some wording in regards to providing lists of campers and staff and volunteers on site at the beginning of every session, and just whether that information would be kept private to the Emergency Management Office, or is that going to be public information," said Paul Biles, Executive Director at Tejas Camp and Retreat. Experts in flood safety have also spoken out against any exemptions from FEMA or any other organization allowing for youth camps to be built within a certain distance of the flood plain. "The key provisions that we support is the prohibit prohibition on buildings in the floodplains at youth camps," said Kenneth Flippin with the US Green Building Council. "That's so important, and also the FEMA exemption part, we offered some suggestions. I think your approach is even better to say it doesn't matter if you got the FEMA exemptions, we're going to apply this. " Communication with law enforcement and emergency management personnel has also been made a paramount concern, with camp organizers begging for improved communication with disaster relief personnel, in addition to better access to alerts, and improved warning systems. "I am here to voice a strong support of Senate Bill, one, the camp reform bill, to urge you to strengthen it with one critical missing element, emergency notification and communication," said Joe Alarcon, CEO of Cedar Canyon Camps. "You asked a really great question earlier as to, what are we missing at the end of the day, it's really, really simple. It's going to be clear direction, notification, and implementation. Those are the three things that have been missing, and we're working towards that. My biggest concern is that when it comes to notification at the end of the day where I am at I, too, like many, am not getting proper communication and good information in order for me to make a good decision the nearest weather. Station is miles away, and whenever those warnings do go off, they are inaccurate." Some of these officials have been affected by the loss of a camper themselves, highlighting their determination to keep youth campers safe at all costs. "Since the mystic camp incident in my heart grease for those families, because I know what it's like to have a camp failure," said Joe Alarcon. "My son was a victim of Kennecott, and as a result, I have lost a son as well. So I know what it's like to have a camp failure. And so this testimony is personal to me, and my ultimate goal is to keep campers safe." Members of various camping organizations offered their condolences to the families who lost their children and commended their willingness to speak out to prevent any further loss of life, even in the wake of their grief. "I want to thank the families for coming as the father of three children, many of who are involved in all were involved in Boy Scouts. Girl Scouts. Went to lots of camps," said Cyrus Reed with the Lone Star Chapter of The Sierra Club. "You did lobby. You came here. You had the governor put this on the special call for the second session, and you have a much better bill because of what you told these folks in front of you. So I thank you, but I also thank them, and my heart goes out to them."
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Two people still missing after Texas flood, including girl from Camp MysticTwo people remain missing following the deadly July 4 flooding in Central Texas, including a girl and an adult male from Camp Mystic, Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday.
Read more »
Colorado Task Force 1 searching grounds of Camp Mystic following Texas floodingA Colorado-based team is still helping with search efforts in Texas after the deadly flash flooding earlier this month.
Read more »
Texas agencies review flood response after deadly July 4 incident at Camp MysticIn the wake of the devastating flash floods on July 4 that claimed the lives of 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic, Texas state agencies are reassessing t
Read more »
Parents of Camp Mystic victims to testify on youth camp safety billAUSTIN, Texas — Parents of children who died at Camp Mystic are set to speak publicly for the first time tomorrow.They will testify before the Disaster Prepare
Read more »
Grieving Camp Mystic parents call for camp reforms in TexasSenate Bill 1, which would require more oversight of emergency plans and evacuation procedures at summer camps, was advanced after the emotional hearing Wednesday.
Read more »
'My daughter was stolen from us': Camp Mystic parents who lost children in flooding speak at hearingThe flash flooding on July 4 killed 27 people at Camp Mystic.
Read more »