The Houston family of 9-year-old Ellen Getten, who died when floodwaters overwhelmed Camp Mystic on July 4, is suing the private Christian girls’ summer camp, saying it and its operators are guilty of “gross negligence.”
Their lawsuit, filed Monday in Travis County, joins at least three others filed by grieving families, who are pushing to hold the camp and its leaders accountable for ignored warnings and inadequate safety plans. Ellen was among 27 campers and counselors who died at Camp Mystic.
“We filed the lawsuit because we don’t want any other family to go through this again,” said Ellen’s mother, Jennifer Getten. “We want transparency. We want accountability of what happened.”
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The lawsuit detailed Camp Mystic’s cabins are in or near the 100-year floodplain and the camp has faced floods as far back as 1932. The camp flooded in 1978 when more than 100 campers had to be relocated during the night, and in 1984 flooding blocked roads, and one of the camp’s owners had to be lifted out via helicopter for medical care.
The plaintiffs alleged that instead of relocating cabins — some of them known to be in the river’s floodway — Camp Mystic expanded six years ago in a flood-risk area with a $5 million construction project. The camp allegedly sought to “hide this risk” by appealing to the federal government to have the “‘100-year floodplain’ designation removed from dozens of buildings.” That designation required the camp to have flood insurance and navigate tighter regulations on future construction, according to the filing.
“So, not only would the removal of this designation allow the Defendants to promulgate the falsity that the facilities were ‘safe’ from a known flood risk, but the de-designation would also allow Camp Mystic to either avoid flood insurance requirements, lower its insurance premiums, or not be faced with more stringent regulations on future construction,” the lawsuit says. “Said another way, the Defendants decided to put money and profits over the lives of children and transparency to parents and the public.”
Attorney Mikal Watts, representing Camp Mystic, alleged that the federal maps were “outdated” and that “cabins were not in the floodplain.” He alleged that maps were updated in 2013, and cabins were taken off the map.
See here for the background. The Chron story that post is based on, which only listed two lawsuits at the time I wrote the post, now names four: The Peck family lawsuit, the Getten family lawsuit, and two multi-family lawsuits; the Peck family lawsuit and one of the multi-family lawsuits were in the original version of the story. That’s still a gift link, so go read it or read it again if you’re catching up.