Written by Heath Hollingworth
Michael McCown’s 8-year-old daughter was one among 27 students and counselors who perished as floodwaters raced through a girl’s summer camp in the Texas Hill Country.
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McCown joined other Camp Mystic parents, some of whom were wearing buttons honoring Heaven’s 27, on Wednesday in calling on Texas lawmakers to enact legislation that would improve camp safety. This legislation would require weather radios, establish new emergency plan requirements, and generally keep cabins out of flood plains.
The fact that these safeguards were not put in place or carefully considered for my daughter and the other girls here, for reasons I do not yet understand, will cause my family eternal pain, he said. Please enact this legislation, safeguard our children, and ensure that their deaths are not in vain.
Linnie, McCown’s middle kid, was positioned between two brothers. She occasionally annoyed her brother, who is eleven years old. However, she was a mother figure to her 3-year-old son, preparing his porridge on the weekends to give her parents a little respite.
Her father told lawmakers that she was a delight to everyone else. She gave hugs to her teachers, made friends with everyone, and made everyone laugh.
The floods followed.
Homes and cars were washed away by catastrophic, swift-moving waves that rose 26 feet on the Guadalupe River just before daybreak on July 4. At least 136 people perished overall, which begs the issue of how things went so horribly wrong.
Leaders of the county were either asleep or out of town.A representative for the camp’s operators stated in the immediate aftermath that although the head of Camp Mystic had been monitoring the weather in advance, it is now unknown if he saw an urgent warning from the National Weather Service that caused an emergency alert to be sent to nearby phones.
According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a 100-year flood plain included some of the camp’s submerged buildings. However, FEMA changed the county’s flood map in 2013 to remove 15 of the camp’s buildings from the hazard area after receiving an appeal.
As McCown hurried to the town of Kerrville to pick up Linnie after hearing about the flooding, he received an email informing him that their girls were safe if the parents hadn’t been notified directly.
About 30 minutes later, my wife called me in great distress to inform me that Linnie was missing, shattering my wave of comfort, he remembered.
He discovered the body of a dead girl after joining the search downstream from the camp. In order to identify bodies, he also visited a funeral home twice. He thought one was Linnie and the other wasn’t. He later gave a DNA swab to the authorities.
Questions plague him.
He questioned how these females could disappear into the night without anyone noticing them, yet cottages only 20 yards distant showed no signs of damage. What went wrong, then?
Cici Williams Steward claimed that procedures that ought to have been followed were disregarded and that her daughter Cile Steward’s safety guarantees were broken. Today, the only Camp Mystic camper still missing is an 8-year-old whose body is still somewhere in the Guadalupe River’s destruction.
A weeping Steward remarked, “We are stuck in a never-ending state of agony, unable to go forward, unable to find peace.” To ensure that no parent sends their child to camp thinking they are safe only to encounter this nightmare, we kindly urge that SB1 be passed. Additionally, it is as important that you continue looking for Cile Steward. Don’t give up on our girl, please.
The new legislation, according to Texas State Senator Charles Perry, is both a response to the lessons acquired from hours of public testimony and a legacy to the tragedy. It’s called the Heaven’s 27 Camp Safety Act, he said.
According to Perry, this is the only fitting way to honor the 27 young ladies who perished at Camp Mystic.
