Camp Mystic on Thursday said it has withdrawn its application for an operating license, a decision that means it will not reopen to campers this summer.
The decision follows a grueling hearing earlier this week when Texas lawmakers pushed the family that runs the camp to consider if they were truly ready to reopen after 25 campers and two counselors died there during last year’s July 4 flood, along with the camp’s executive director Dick Eastland. Family members of the girls who died also spoke passionately to the camp directors in that hearing about their loss.
Camp Mystic had planned to welcome back more than 800 girls to a portion of its property that was away from the hardest-hit areas where people died. But in its statement Thursday, the camp said it wanted to be clear that it heard and respected the concerns of grieving families and legislators.
“No administrative process or summer season should move forward while families continue to grieve, while investigations continue and while so many Texans still carry the pain of last July’s tragedy,” the camp said in its statement.
This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
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The two-day hearing marks the first public session for the joint state House and Senate flood investigating committees. Members previously visited Camp Mystic, where 27 girls and the director died.
A group of parents whose children died in the July 4 floods claim in a federal lawsuit that Camp Mystic’s emergency instructions directed kids to stay in cabins even though state law requires evacuation plans for camps.