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“Should one of the standards be that you just don’t have overnight accommodations in the flood plain?,” asked Rep. Cody Vasut, R-Angleton, during a morning meeting of the House Culture, Recreation and Tourism Committee meeting.
“That is certainly one way, if there’s no bunk houses in the flood plain, that you’ve mitigated that particular risk,” responded Dr. Timothy Stevenson with the Texas Department of State Health Services, which has oversight over camps. “In a very firm way.”
Steve Baskin, who owns a camp in Marble Falls and is board chair of the American Camp Association, pushed back.
“There are ways to build cabins in flood zones safely,” he told KXAN. “And there are ways I would not build cabins — particularly in flash flood areas. Again, it’s very specific to different sites.”
Baskin cited the cooling factor of being located near lakes, rivers and creeks during Texas summers.
“A flash flood’s different than a flood,” he said. “I’ve been there for 30 years and our worst flood ever was fixed with a Shop-Vac.”
There could be other industry push back. Camp Mystic was able to get the Federal Emergency Management Agency to remove dozens of its buildings from the 100-year flood map, potentially lowering its insurance costs and making expansion easier, according to an Associated Press report.
‘Firm foundation of safety’
For Baskin, the search for solutions is deeply personal.
His 68-year-old cousin was the director at Camp Heart O’ the Hills in Hunt, located two miles from Camp Mystic. She had been involved with the camp for four decades and died at her home during last month’s flooding, according to Baskin.
“A week before this happened, if you went to anyone in the industry and say, ‘Who is the kindest camp director in America?,'” he told KXAN, tearfully. “They would have said Jane Ragsdale.”
Testifying before lawmakers, he said Ragsdale wanted to “positively impact children” but knew it “can only be done on a firm foundation of safety and health.”
To reinforce that foundation, lawmakers heard testimony from camp industry representatives and the state body that oversees camps.
“This is some heavy stuff and I really appreciate y’all being part of the solution,” Baskin told lawmakers.
He “strongly” recommended camps have National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather radios “partly because they work even when the power is out.” Under the Texas Administrative Code, weather radios are not required at camps but emergency phones are, a KXAN investigation previously found.
Meg Clark, who owns Camp Waldemar, an all-girls site about 11 miles from Camp Mystic in Kerr County, said what works for them is regularly updating their emergency and evacuation plans and reviewing them with first responders in person.
“Safety is just not a box that we check,” Clark told lawmakers. “It’s actually a culture that we are cultivating in everything we do, in all of our training, in the way we’re laid out, and everything that we speak. It is truly in the forefront of our mind at all times.”
Clark and Baskin both gently pushed back against warning sirens — one potential solution that is frequently discussed.
“I have mixed emotions,” said Clark. “It would depend on the sound — I mean to get right down to it — how it sounds. If it’s so alarming to children, that worries me, to traumatize children. I would want to be very cautious.”
“It would also have to do with the frequency it would be used,” said Baskin. “If this is something that triggers only when the water reaches a certain level, I want that thing loud, I want everyone’s attention, I want them scared. But if we’re going to test it weekly during the summer to make sure everything’s OK, that’s not a great idea.”
ACA standards wouldn’t have ‘made a difference’
At a Tuesday hearing of the House Committee on Disaster Preparedness and Flooding, Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, said it was apparent “some of our camps were not just wholly unprepared for this catastrophic event, they were wholly unprepared for any flooding event.”
“Being ill equipped to handle a flood as a private citizen is one thing,” Darby added. “But, as a camp ground in charge of the lives of children — many of whom know nothing about the rivers or their dangers — is malpractice.”
That committee heard five bills, which were left pending, related to the flood. One would require camps to submit annual disaster flood plans to the Texas Division of Emergency Management. Under the proposal, TDEM must approve them, and any corrections made within 90 days, in order to avoid fines.
In Kerr County, at least 117 people were killed during the flooding including 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic. At a hearing in Kerrville last week, local officials told lawmakers the storm came too quick, without warning and the destruction was largely unavoidable.
Camp Mystic passed a state inspection on July 2, two days before the deadly flood, a KXAN investigation previously found. Dr. Timothy Stevenson with the Texas Department of State Health Services, which has oversight of camps, testified that around 95 percent of camps are inspected each year, on average, while they are in operation.
The agency does not maintain copies of camp emergency plans, but camps are required to post them clearly in every building.
In addition to inspecting camps, under a new law, Stevenson said his staff are now responsible for also inspecting 12,000 food trucks and mobile vendors.
“These same retail inspectors will be splitting their time with those as well,” said Stevenson. “So, it is a little bit of a juggling act looking at the resources for our inspectors.”
As KXAN previously found, unlike eight other camps in Kerr County, Camp Mystic was not nationally accredited by the ACA, which recommends voluntary compliance with up to 266 health and safety standards.
On Tuesday, Rep. Terry Wilson, R-Georgetown, asked if any of the state should “reflect on” and “examine” the ACA’s accreditation standards “to see if there’s something that should be added to the licensure process.”
Baskin said lawmakers should look at “anything that can help make camps safer.” However, he isn’t sure his organization’s standards would have made a difference in Camp Mystic’s case given the flood’s ferocity.
“Do you think that played any role, or could have made a difference in how the response was handled?,” KXAN investigative reporter Matt Grant asked.
“My understanding is, the nature of the flood, I don’t believe so,” Baskin responded.
“No,” he added after pausing. “I don’t think that would have a made a difference.”
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