A Texas household whose 8-year-old daughter was one in every of 27 killed within the horrific Camp Mystic floods continues to be residing a nightmare six months later — her stays haven’t but been recovered.
Eight-year-old Cecilia “Cile” Steward was among the many 25 campers and two counselors who died after being swept away within the flood waters that ripped via the all-girls Christian sleepaway camp in Kerr County, Texas, final July.
Regardless of preserving a detailed eye on native regulation enforcement’s ongoing investigation, Cile’s dad and mom are dropping hope that they’ll ever be capable to carry their daughter’s stays residence.
“I’ve this sinking feeling of there’s no manner they’re ever gonna discover her,” Cile’s father Will Steward advised “TODAY” present host and close-family good friend Jenna Bush Hager this week alongside his spouse, CiCi.
Of the 135 individuals killed on July 4, 2025, from the extreme flash flooding, two victims’ stays have but to be discovered — Cile and a 63-year-old grownup male, in keeping with the Texas Normal in December.
The Stewards filed a lawsuit in opposition to the Eastland household final week, who’ve operated the sleepaway camp for many years.
The Guadalupe River camp — which has skilled quite a few bouts of flooding prior to now as a result of being located on a flood plain — had a weak emergency evacuation plan and repeatedly ignored the Nationwide Climate Service flooding alerts, the Stewards said within the lawsuit.
“They had been utterly unprepared,” the Steward household’s lawyer, Brad Beckworth stated, slamming the Eastland household.
The couple claims within the lawsuit that Richard “Dick” Eastland and his son, Edward Eastland, waited over an hour to evacuate everybody from the campsite — by which it was already too late for lots of the women and employees.
“It’s simply absolute chaos,” Beckworth advised Bush Hager. “Whenever you speak to the advisors, they will hear the screams. No person is aware of what to do. They don’t know the place to go.”
The Eastland patriarch died within the floodwaters making an attempt to save lots of his campers, his household stated.
Regardless of their unrelenting criticisms of the Eastland household, the Stewards — who’re searching for in extra of $1 million in precise and punitive damages — insisted to Bush Hager that the camp counselors and first responders deserve immense reward for saving a lot of the 750 younger campers who had been on web site when the flooding started.
“There are heroes at Camp Mystic and none of them are named Eastland,” CiCi Steward stated.
The Eastlands’ lawyer, Mikal Watts, stated in response to the lawsuit that they “intend to show and show that this sudden surge of floodwaters far exceeded any earlier flood within the space by a number of magnitudes, that it was surprising and unforeseeable, and that no ample early warning flood techniques existed within the space.”
Camp Mystic introduced in December that it’ll open for the Summer time 2026 season, working from their close by property in Cypress Lake that was not impacted by the floods.
“We acknowledge that returning to Camp Mystic carries each hope and heartache,” Camp Mystic’s house owners wrote in a letter to households in January.
“For a lot of of your daughters, this return just isn’t easy, however it’s a brave step of their therapeutic journey,” the letter stated.
The variety of return campers are unclear, however a spokesperson for the camp stated in January that there was “sturdy curiosity,” The Put up beforehand reported.
The Cypress Lake campsite is situated lower than a mile away from the ravaged Guadalupe location — and the Stewards are livid that the Eastland household goes again into enterprise whereas their daughter stays lacking.
“It’s an lively crime scene,” CiCi Steward stated. “I don’t know anybody of their proper thoughts that may willingly ship their little one to an lively crime scene.”
“With the identical management,” Will Steward stated, following on from his spouse’s ideas.
“We’re not against kids going to camp. We’re against the Eastlands, the audacity of sending out deposit slips when our little one, one in every of their campers, who they’ve professed to like on this neighborhood, continues to be lacking,” Cile’s father stated.
The Steward’s lawyer agreed with the couple’s sentiments and thought that the re-opening course of was “rushed” with out understanding what precisely occurred on that fateful day.
“And, I imply, I can inform you as a dad or mum, my kids would by no means return to a camp operated by this household,” Beckworth scathingly stated.
