The mourning parents of a young girl that died at Camp Mystic shared a devastating message before the anniversary of the Texas flood that killed 25 campers and two teen counsellors.
“On this Fourth of July, it will be one year since our eight-year-old daughter, Cile, was killed in the floodwaters at Camp Mystic,” Will and Cici Steward said in a message shared with KVUE Austin.
Cile’s body is still missing a year after floodwaters from the Guadalupe River in Kerr County swept through cabins where dozens of young girls slept at the now-bankrupted camp in Kerr County.
“We still do not know how we will face that morning. But we know we will not face it alone,” the parents said.
The message did not mention the Eastland family, which owns Camp Mystic, but the Stewards and other parents of campers are suing them for allegedly being unprepared for the disaster and, in some cases, leaving kids who attend the camp to their fate.
Camp director Edward Eastland sobbed in a Travis County courtroom in April before a judge blocked the family from rebuilding the camp for a summer opening — despite around 900 prospective campers having signed up.
Head nurse Liz Eastland lost her state nursing license after admitting in court that she abandoned kids during the horror.
Meanwhile, the Texas health board refused to grant the camp an operating permit, pushing the Eastlands to abandon their plans to reopen and instead file for bankruptcy.
But it isn’t enough for the parents whose kids died there.
“A couple of nights ago, my wife asked me how I think this is all going to end. I just paused and said, ‘I hope this never ends,’” Matthew Childress, whose daughter Chloe, 18, died while working as a counselor at Camp Mystic, told CBS on Thursday.
Childress is a board member for the Safe Summers Foundation, which was founded after the disaster to advocate for camp safety reforms.
Texas, Oklahoma and Alabama have also passed state laws demanding stricter disaster preparation and staff training.
Alabama’s law was named for Sarah Marsh, 8, from the Birmingham area, who had been sleeping in a cabin that housed the youngest campers — where 13 girls and two counselors died.
“I had to identify her body lying in a black bag on the floor of Grimes Funeral Home on July 4th. … It was the worst moment of the worst day of my life,” Marsh’s dad Patrick told WVMT Alabama.
As for the Stewards, they vowed to look to the future and keep pushing for justice and reform.
“On this Fourth of July, you are living proof of what our country stands for, and of what it means to be a Texan,” the grieving couple wrote.
“Our gratitude and admiration is as deep, and as constant, as our love for Cile.”
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