AUSTIN, Texas — Day two of the Camp Mystic evidentiary hearing made one thing clear: This case is no longer just about what happened the night floodwaters tore through the Hill Country camp.
It is also about what happened afterward.
On Tuesday in an Austin courtroom, Camp Mystic’s legal team worked to reinforce its argument that the July 4 flooding along the Guadalupe River was sudden, extreme and impossible to predict. But attorneys for the family of 8-year-old Cile Steward, the only camper still missing, argued the camp should not be moving toward reopening while their daughter has yet to be found.
The hearing is part of an ongoing legal fight over whether Camp Mystic can continue work at its Guadalupe River site ahead of the 2026 summer season.
Eastland back on the stand for a second day
Edward Eastland, Camp Mystic’s co-owner and co-director, returned to the witness stand Tuesday after spending roughly five hours under questioning Monday.
Eastland is also the son of Dick Eastland, the camp patriarch who died in the flood.
Twenty-eight people were killed at Camp Mystic during the flooding, including 25 young campers, two teenage counselors and Dick Eastland.
Tuesday morning, Camp Mystic attorney Mikal Watts began by questioning Eastland about the alerts he did - and did not - receive before the flooding intensified.
“Did you get a text from the National Weather Service?” Watts asked.
“No, sir,” Eastland responded.
“Did you get an email from the National Weather Service?”
“No, sir.”
Watts also pressed Eastland on whether any warning sirens sounded before the floodwaters overwhelmed one of the cabins.
“Did you hear a siren system that had been installed by the state 10 years earlier?” Watts asked.
“No, sir,” Eastland said.
“Did any sirens go off before you were sucked out of that cabin with those girls draped around your neck?”
“No, sir.”
The questioning was aimed at supporting Camp Mystic’s central defense: That the flooding near Hunt unfolded with extraordinary speed and without the kind of direct warning that would have made the danger clear in time.
Sharp exchange over weather warnings
Later, attorneys for the Steward family returned to one of the hearing’s most disputed issues: Whether Camp Mystic had enough information to understand the risk before the river rose.
Brad Beckworth, the attorney representing Cile Steward’s parents, pressed Eastland on whether the camp missed warning signs.
“You failed her, did you not, Mr. Eastland?” Beckworth asked.
“I wish we had more information,” Eastland replied.
“All the information was there,” Beckworth said. “For your entire family to see and utilize if y’all had just stayed awake and looked, right?”
That exchange captured the central argument from the Stewards’ side: That the warnings were there, and Camp Mystic should have acted differently.
Family says it offered a way to avoid the court fight
But some of the most significant testimony Tuesday focused not on what happened during the flood, but on what happened afterward.
Beckworth told the court he offered what he described as a simple path to avoid the injunction fight now playing out in Austin. He said he would not file for an emergency order if Camp Mystic agreed to pause.
“I said stop destroying evidence and remodeling and hold off on reopening the camp until either their child is found or the state of Texas declares they’re going to stop looking for her,” Beckworth said in court.
Camp Mystic’s attorneys pushed back, saying they never agreed to keep the camp closed indefinitely.
The camp is currently scheduled to reopen in less than two months, depending on how the court rules.
What the hearing is about
The three-day evidentiary hearing is part of a lawsuit filed by Will and CiCi Steward, the parents of Cile Steward.
Earlier this month, District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble granted a temporary injunction limiting what can happen at Camp Mystic’s Guadalupe site. Camp Mystic has appealed that order, calling it “deeply flawed” and arguing the camp will suffer harm if it remains in place.
The Stewards have argued that work at the camp could alter or destroy potential evidence while their daughter is still missing and the legal case is still unfolding.
Eastland stepped down from the witness stand shortly before 11 a.m. Tuesday after roughly a day and a half of testimony. Additional witnesses took the stand later in the day.
By the end of day two, the divide in the courtroom was clear: Camp Mystic is arguing the flood was impossible to see coming, while the Stewards are arguing that while their daughter is still missing, the camp should not be moving on.