Camp Mystic families sue Texas officials after deadly 2025 flood
USA TODAY
The lawsuit, filed on Monday, Feb. 23, accuses Texas Department of State Health Services officials of deliberately failing to follow state law.
Families of nine campers and counselors at Camp Mystic who died after destructive flooding swept across Central Texas in 2025 are suing health officials, claiming they failed to enforce an evacuation plan required by state law.
The lawsuit, filed on Monday, Feb. 23, in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, accuses Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) officials of deliberately failing to follow state law and depriving the victims of their "constitutional rights to life and bodily integrity." The families are seeking general and compensatory damages and “all other relief that is equitable."
The suit was filed against six DSHS officials, including Commissioner Jennifer Shuford, Timothy H. Stevenson, Jeffrey Adam Buuck, Annabelle Dillard, Lindsey Eudey, and Maricela Torres Zamarripa. The officials were involved in the oversight and inspection of Texas youth camps.
The lawsuit alleges that DSHS had licensed Camp Mystic, a Christian girls' camp at the edge of the Guadalupe River, despite the camp not having an evacuation plan as required by the state and camp safety rules. According to the suit, youth camps are mandated to have written emergency plans posted in each cabin.
But the suit states that 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic died on July 4, 2025, because "the camp had no plan to evacuate the riverside cabins where the girls slept." The camp's emergency policy had instructed campers not to evacuate during a flood, which "delayed moving girls to safety until it was too late," according to the lawsuit.
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