When is it ok for the community to move on? Is there a certain time frame that you feel would suffice?

Stonegateag85 said:

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Great post, thank you for sharing your thoughts.

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Agree. I wish Mystic would have responded with a response like that.

Stonegateag85 said:

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When is it ok for the community to move on? Is there a certain time frame that you feel would suffice?

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I would say two years. It is not only about the timing. It is the approach Mystic has taken post flood. And I understand legal proceedings. But what they did this week was appalling in my opinion. As I posted, they are either bad people that are completely tone deaf or they are getting terrible advice.
Good legal advice should allow them to not jeopardize legal proceedings outcomes while still exhibiting a much more contrite attitude.
I have friends who were neutral until Mystic's actions this week. And they got pissed.

Alta said:

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I made a similar post in a different thread but I'll post my thoughts on that here.

It's certainly a tricky thread to post in as I think everybody cares about the families who lost children. Personally, no natural disaster has hit closer to home for our family and kids. And at the same time people still want to have an honest conversation about what transpired and how to best prevent it in the future. For example, I had a family member who died while evacuating from a flood when I was a child. If we just stayed put then he would have lived. That heavily shapes my viewpoint of what I think a reasonable course of action would be in a flood. Doesn't mean my view point is right but it is my viewpoint which I'm and others are allowed to have. Reasonable people can disagree there and on a message board some posts will come across as offensive.

I'm probably considered a "Mystic Defender" which I guess isn't completely inaccurate but doesn't capture what I'm defending. I think I'm a defender of trying to figure out how to best prevent these tragedies from occurring although we will never be successful in doing so as nature will always find a way to do something extreme. Because even with the risks involved I want my kids to experience them and experience people like the Eastlands. In my opinion, when it turns to people only wanted revenge against a family then these places/experiences disappear. Because with hindsight nothing is ever good enough and it's easy to pinpoint well if they just did X.

We need really good people to create great places in this world for children to grow and flourish. More now than ever in the society we are living in. And I unfortunately think that is disappearing as I think a lot of really good people know that no matter how hard they try they can't predict/prevent everything and get turned away from trying.

We unfortunately attended the funerals of 5 of the Mystic girls. And one thing that sticks in my head everyday from the eulogies is that these little girls life's were cut far too short but they were lucky enough to have families who provided them incredible love and experiences. And those all carried heightened risk. Tomorrow is not guaranteed even for our youngest kids and I want to give them the most incredible love and experiences that I'm able to do so.

Long post and I'm not trying to offend anybody. We pray for the Mystic girls and their families everyday, we pray for the Eastlands everyday and yes I pray that places for kids to be kids continue to exist as well. And what that last sentence means can be very different for different people and that should be ok too.

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I do not want "revenge". I want justice and for this to never happen again. This is exactly the attitude that has to change to move forward.
And please do not lecture me or others on what the conversation should be moving forward which you did in another post.
I will converse about what ever I want unless mods tell me to stop.
Go re read your posts and think about how that comes across to folks who lost girls.
And you are free to post whatever you want also. They reveal a lot about what the real problem is.
And I am free to respond and post my feelings.
Thanks.

dermdoc said:

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Why is it so hard to say Mystic was negligent?

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You keep saying this, and I don't want to enter the argument about it, but it's not that simple from a legal standpoint. We can sit here and say they were negligent all day long in the sense of the word and what it means. But the legal standard for negligence goes by the "reasonable person standard." Would their actions satisfy that? I don't know. But I do know it is not as cut and dried as you are making it out to be, even if you do have more insight than anyone else here. I think many of us on here are probably reasonable people and there are obviously viewpoints on both ends of the spectrum in this thread. I'm sorry for what all of the families have gone through and I do understand the anger. I don't have a dog in the fight as my children have never been campers. But I can see why things are being done the way they are on the camp side of things. I think you, and others who are angered by everything, will come to see that in time.

Benny the Jet Rodriguez said:

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dermdoc said:

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Why is it so hard to say Mystic was negligent?

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You keep saying this, and I don't want to enter the argument about it, but it's not that simple from a legal standpoint. We can sit here and say they were negligent all day long in the sense of the word and what it means. But the legal standard for negligence goes by the "reasonable person standard." Would their actions satisfy that? I don't know. But I do know it is not as cut and dried as you are making it out to be, even if you do have more insight than anyone else here. I think many of us on here are probably reasonable people and there are obviously viewpoints on both ends of the spectrum in this thread. I'm sorry for what all of the families have gone through and I do understand the anger. I don't have a dog in the fight as my children have never been campers. But I can see why things are being done the way they are on the camp side of things. I think you, and others who are angered by everything, will come to see that in time.

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So you agree with Mystic's actions this week?
And I would consider myself negligent if I ran a camp with over 700 girls next to a river with flooding history and have no plan except stay in place and do what the 3 adults for over 700 girls tell you to do.
I would consider myself negligent if I was responsible for over 700 girls and had no communication system in place for any kind of emergency.
I would consider myself negligent if I was responsible for over 700 girls and had not scouted out where they should go like to the hill in case of a flood.
And I consider myself a reasonable person.
Guess we define negligence differently.

I do not have enough information on Mystic's negligence or not from a legal standpoint (and my viewpoint regarding their negligence is completely irrelevant). I feel no need to judge others with incomplete information and will not do so. One thing I've learned is that actual facts get very distorted and small details really matter. I'll say this - I was very comfortable with where Mystic's cabins were located and the plan to stay in those cabins in a flood. I researched that considerably due to previously experiences with evacuations during floods and how dangerous I believe forced evacuations are. And as somebody who has spent a lot of time in outdoor environments, I would not want to be evacuating into the conditions that occurred in the Hill Country that night. I've been in some heavy rain/thunderstorms outside but nothing approaching what reportedly occurred in that region that night. I'm sure what ended up transpiring that night was very complicated, very stressful, with no easy decisions to be made and I believe the people involved were trying their hardest to keep everybody in that Camp safe.

Mystic has no (or very little) control over how they communicate post flood. Once litigation or the thread of it begins then they don't have a lot of control over what they can and cannot say. And quite frankly if anybody wants to sue them you should hope they listen to the advice of their insurance provider. If they go rogue, then those policies can be voided and the victims will recover a whole less. I have not idea what their actual policies say but that is a pretty common provision. Once a litigation risk is identified, the insurance companies call the shots not Camp Mystic or the Eastlands.

I do not know anybody who thinks reopening Camp Mystic is more important than the deaths that occurred. Quite the opposite. The decision to reopen or not was going to be painful whether made today, in a year or three years. It's an emotional topic and will also be such for families touched by this event. There is no way to change that.

Alta said:

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I do not have enough information on Mystic's negligence or not from a legal standpoint (and my viewpoint regarding their negligence is completely irrelevant). I feel no need to judge others with incomplete information and will not do so. One thing I've learned is that actual facts get very distorted and small details really matter. I'll say this - I was very comfortable with where Mystic's cabins were located and the plan to stay in those cabins in a flood. I researched that considerably due to previously experiences with evacuations during floods and how dangerous I believe forced evacuations are. And as somebody who has spent a lot of time in outdoor environments, I would not want to be evacuating into the conditions that occurred in the Hill Country that night. I've been in some heavy rain/thunderstorms outside but nothing approaching what reportedly occurred in that region that night. I'm sure what ended up transpiring that night was very complicated, very stressful, with no easy decisions to be made and I believe the people involved were trying their hardest to keep everybody in that Camp safe.

Mystic has no control over how they have handled things since the flood. Once litigation or the thread of it begins then they don't have a lot of control over what they can and cannot do. And quite frankly if anybody wants to sue them you should hope they listen to the advice of their insurance provider. If they go rogue, then those policies can be voided and the victims will recover a whole less. I have not idea what their actual policies say but that is a pretty common provision. Once a litigation risk is identified, the insurance companies call the shots not Camp Mystic or the Eastlands.

I do not know anybody who thinks reopening Camp Mystic is more important than the deaths that occurred. Quite the opposite. The decision to reopen or not was going to be painful whether made today, in a year or three years. It's an emotional topic and will also be such for families touched by this event. There is no way to change that.

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So Mystic had no control on what they released this week? How so?
Do you agreee with their actions this week?

I debated posting this and I have deleted it several times over the past few minutes. I finally decided that this is a public forum meant for discussion, so here we go:

Every time I have read this thread (and I've had it bookmarked since that awful day), I cannot help but imagine my own daughter as a victim. I know I will never understand but I appreciate the reasons for being angry and damn near all are valid.

Whether Mystic is ultimately found negligent or not, we have the benefit of hindsight while also not knowing 100% of the facts and/or the reasoning that went into the various decisions made that night. But we do know that the plan had aways worked before, so I am not sure that this was as predictable as we might think.

I had never heard of either before the flood, so I have no dog in the fight and my mind is open to Mystic being terrible and the Eastlands being despicable regarding their actions since the flood, but I doubt there was a way to make everyone happy. My dad went back to work a couple of days after my mom died. I'm not sure I would have made the choice he did but he had worked with some of those guys for 20+ years, so I think he needed it. It didn't bother me one bit. In fact, I think I it was better for me and two of my siblings. But one sister didn't handle it well, so Dad left early to come home. Dad had 3 kids to think of, not thousands of family and friends from scores of families plus looming lawsuits and insurance, and still couldn't do right by everyone.

Quote:

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So Mystic had no control on what they released this week? How so? Do you agreee with their actions this week?

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My take is worth literally nothing, but here it is. If you remove/pause the determination of if there was negligence or not. And you concede that their actions/communication with families since the flood, etc has been restricted by or driven by their insurance company or legal representation. It is still not right for them to announce reopening at this time. It just isn't. I don't know what the proper time frame is, but I'm certain that it's not within the same calendar year that 27 girls died on their watch.

Surely their insurance company didn't compel them to make that announcement? Or to try to "soften the blow" by throwing out a half-baked plan for a memorial that didn't include any input from families? Yes, if they ultimately choose to reopen, it's going to be painful for some people no matter what. But for many, maybe in a year, or two, or three, it won't be so gut-wrenching. The lack of sensitivity to parents whose children's graves aren't even grown over with grass yet is kind of shocking.

And by the way, I do dangerous stuff with my kid all the time. We hike, kayak, camp, and ski on a regular basis. So I'm not risk averse and I fully appreciate the benefits of experiencing nature. But having this specific camp, managed by these specific people, open in the immediate future is not a necessity for children to live a full life. It could have waited. It still should wait, in my opinion.

Great post - and correct that this is just a devastating situation. There is no roadmap on how to move forward here and I believe people are trying their best to make really challenging decisions.

And that is a very fair and reasonable opinion. My opinion is different but I respect your opinion.

And to be clear I was not saying Mystic's decision to open was dictated by insurance. I was saying their ability to openly communicate with families is dictated by insurance.

dermdoc said:

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mcsatx said:

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I don't have a legal background so don't know the ins and outs on negligence, but I guess that would depend on if the lack of radios contributed to the outcome. But let's say they had radios and everyone made it to Rec Hall. There is also a potential the upper catwalk could have collapsed from the combination of the weight of the girls and the lateral flood forces. The attached picture appears to be one cabin (about 18 girls) on the catwalk. I think 5 out of 11 cabins made it to Rec Hall. Could it have held twice as many girls? Idk

Does the existence of the upper catwalk make Mystic negligent for not getting all the girls to Rec Hall? This 1000-year flood filled the Rec Hall with about 7 feet of water and it was just by luck that there was an upper catwalk to go to. I don't think that it was ever imagined to be used in that way. Had the catwalk not been there and there was an even greater loss of life, would they be less negligent?

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I was told by Clarke that there was a hill nearby that all the girls easily could have gone to and been safe. He has no idea why they were told to go to the Rec Hall except they had no plan. Especially with the timeline. There was plenty of time to get everybody to the hill. The problem was is that there was no plan on what to do.

Would you have had a plan if you had a camp with 700 girls under your care by a river that was prone to flood events? Do you think you would be negligent if you had no plan?

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Former summer employee here.

Yes, there is a hill immediately behind the line of cabins on the Flats. I don't know how difficult it would be to climb in the dark by 13-and-under girls. Foliage is really thick.

I don't believe the catwalk in the Rec Hall would've supported all the girls on the Flats. Even if it could hold the weight, I don't think there's enough floor space.

I'm with Derm. Mystic was negligent. I don't like to speak ill of folks that have passed, so I'll just say that, from my observations during my time there, Dick didn't always make the best decisions. Nice guy, meant well, but not great at decision making.

Alta said:

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And that is a very fair and reasonable opinion. My opinion is different but I respect your opinion.

And to be clear I was not saying Mystic's decision to open was dictated by insurance. I was saying their ability to openly communicate with families is dictated by insurance.

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So you agree with Mystic's actions this week? I am confused. You are definitely entitled to your opinion.

Thank you for expressing how I have been feeling. There is zero need to announce reopening right now other than to secure tuition for the upcoming summer. And even then, since Camp Mystic is so beloved by so many and they are understood to have a waiting list even, camp goers would be willing to wait. Their statement could be that time is needed to heal and grieve the insurmountable loss of life and out of respect for the affected friends and families, they would be making a determination regarding reopening at a later date. Their handling of this has been atrocious and less than 90 days out from this tragedy is just gross - for lack of a better term. A statement like this would have no impact on them legally and shows a scintilla of compassion.

I can't even start to address the lack of communication about the memorial or to the grieving families at all. It's just too much to process and really disappointing.

It would behoove them to spend a little money on a PR person.

And, yes Camp Mystic was negligent.

Totally get being mad that they are reopening. A little confused by why the memorial is insulting. I'm trying to understand.

It sounds like they have just planned on making a memorial but haven't actually decided anything around it..so maybe they only have the vaguest outlines of a vision?

They lost a father and son too, I'm not really sure what getting input from the family's on the memorial would look like. permission? creative design input?

We the families of the students lost in the bonfire asked to help design the memorial bonfire? I don't know the protocol on this...but asking 27 grieving families for suggestions on a memorial design sounds very chaotic...and something that is nice to do as a gesture more than as a practical move.

swimmerbabe11 said:

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Totally get being mad that they are reopening. A little confused by why the memorial is insulting. I'm trying to understand.

It sounds like they have just planned on making a memorial but haven't actually decided anything around it..so maybe they only have the vaguest outlines of a vision?

They lost a father and son too, I'm not really sure what getting input from the family's on the memorial would look like. permission? creative design input?

We the families of the students lost in the bonfire asked to help design the memorial bonfire? I don't know the protocol on this...but asking 27 grieving families for suggestions on a memorial design sounds very chaotic...and something that is nice to do as a gesture more than as a practical move.

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I am old school. There is a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things in bad situations. Mystic is not winning points publically. Or in the eyes of potential jurors in my opinion. Makes it looks like all they care about is the money and putting it behind them.

We shall see.

Jbob04 said:

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Agree. I don't understand being angry about the memorial. I doubt A&M consulted the families of the bonfire tragedy when they moved forward with the bonfire memorial. Heartbreaking tragedy all the way around and there is still a lot of anger out there from the families, and understandably so.

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Actually A&M did consult the families. And the families contributed to the words written on each of the fallen student's memorial pillar. Go read them as they are very moving.

Alta said:

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And that is a very fair and reasonable opinion. My opinion is different but I respect your opinion.

And to be clear I was not saying Mystic's decision to open was dictated by insurance. I was saying their ability to openly communicate with families is dictated by insurance.

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What do you think prompted Mystic's decision to announce the re opening at this point in time?

swimmerbabe11 said:

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I guess and I'm thinking out loud here, if I were the one doing it.. I'd get a firm to make two or three designs and say "these are the concepts we are considering, which do you like best or do you have input? We'd love for you to contribute a quote or something"

if I had to guess, thats how bonfire was done. Its been a long time since Ive been to the bonfire memorial.

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If I recall correctly, the families were consulted throughout the process of the bonfire memorial.Gave input and final approval. And of course were allowed to put whatever they wanted on their son/daughter memorial. To my knowledge, Mystic did none of that. And I think a little chaos would have been worth it just for appearances sake.
It is almost like Mystic is saying we are going to re open to maximize our profits for next year. But we did come up with a memorial. On our own. Aren't we great?
The arrogance and hubris is only trumped by the complete apparent lack of sensitivity. They pulled off the rare trifecta.

Sounds like it has more to do with completely ignoring the families of these girls. It's really not that hard to send a simple email to the families indicating that they are working on a memorial to honor their daughters and that they will keep them in the loop as the project progresses. Instead, the families received nothing and were in fact excluded from the announcement distribution lists. That is awful.

Tragically the Eastland's lost family members as well. However, if they can announce the reopening of the camp, they could do better. I mean these girls were their responsibility that day. They state they are a family. Families treat each other better than that.

Or, in the event they have been told by counsel or insurance not to speak to the families…just not say anything about a memorial.

To those who don't get the frustration about it - say one of your family members died (due to what you believed to be another person's negligence). Would you want the person who you deem as responsible for your loved one's death to announce on their own that they have erected a memorial In their honor?

It feels like a gross negligence of common decency.

Or, that they are virtue signaling at the expense of the 27 victims. Almost like they think it will soften the blow of the opening announcement if they included that note.

It's icky.

The memorial feels like an afterthought. Like they needed to say something about the girls who died so that reopening didn't only look like a cash grab.

The more I learn about this situation, they failed, monumentally.

This feels gross. God bless those sweet little girls and their families and may they find some measure of peace. Everything else is absolute bull*****