When floodwaters rushed through a girl's summer camp nestled in the Texas Hill Country, Michael McCown's 8-year-old daughter was among 27 campers and counselors swept to their deaths.
On Wednesday, McCown joined other Camp Mystic parents, some wearing buttons memorializing “Heaven's 27,” in demanding that Texas lawmakers pass a bill that would boost camp safety, including generally keeping cabins out of flood plains, instituting new requirements for emergency plans and mandating weather radios.
“It will hurt my family forever that, for reasons I still do not know, these protections were not in place nor thought out thoroughly for my daughter and the rest of the girls here,” he said. "Please pass this bill, protect our kids and do not let their deaths be in vain.”
McCown's middle child, Linnie, was sandwiched between two brothers. She was sometimes a pest to her 11-year-old brother. But to the youngest, just 3, she was mother figure, making him cereal on weekends so her parents could catch a few minutes of sleep.
“To everyone else she was a joy," her father told lawmakers. "She hugged her teachers, was a friend to everybody and spread an infectious giggle everywhere she went.”
Then came the floods.
Just before daybreak on the Fourth of July, destructive, fast-moving waters rose 26 feet (8 meters) on the Guadalupe River, washing away homes and vehicles. All told, at least 136 people died, raising questions about how things went so terribly wrong.
County leaders were asleep or out of town. The head of Camp Mystic had been tracking the weather beforehand, but it's now unclear whether he saw an urgent warning from the National Weather Service that had triggered an emergency alert to phones in the area, a spokesperson for camp’s operators said in the immediate aftermath.
Some of the camp’s buildings — which flooded — were in what the Federal Emergency Management Agency considered a 100-year flood plain. But in response to an appeal, FEMA in 2013 amended the county’s flood map to remove 15 of the camp’s buildings from the hazard area.
Upon learning of the flooding, McCown rushed to the town of Kerrville to pick up Linnie, receiving an email en route that if parents hadn't been personally contacted, then their daughters are accounted for.
“I felt a wave of relief, which was quickly shattered about 30 minutes later when my wife called incredibly distraught to say that Linnie is missing,” he recalled.
He joined the search downstream from the camp and found the body of a deceased girl. He also made two trips to a funeral home to identify bodies. One was not Linnie; the other, he believed, was. He later provided authorities with a DNA swab.
He's haunted by questions.
“How," he asked, "could these girls vanish into the night without anyone having eyes on them while cabins literally just 20 yards away had no casualties? So what went wrong?”
Cici Williams Steward said assurances that her daughter, Cile Steward, would be safe were betrayed and protocols that should have been in place were ignored. Today, the body of the 8-year-old “remains somewhere in the devastation of the Guadalupe River,” the only Camp Mystic camper still missing.
“We are suspended in endless anguish, unable to move forward, unable to find peace," a tearful Steward said. "We ask you, please pass SB1 so no parent sends their child to camp believing they are safe only to face this nightmare. And just as urgently, please do not stop the search for Cile Steward. Please do not give up on our girl.”
Texas State Sen. Charles Perry described the proposed legislation as a “legacy to the loss” and an answer to what has been learned during hours of public testimony. He said it's dubbed the “Heaven’s 27 Camp Safety Act.”
“It’s only appropriate," Perry said, "to memorialize the 27 little girls that lost their lives at Camp Mystic in this way.”
Heather Hollingsworth, The Associated Press
