Federal regulators repeatedly granted appeals to remove Camp Mystic's buildings from their 100-year flood map, loosening oversight as the camp operated and expanded in a dangerous flood plain in the years before rushing waters swept away children and counselors, an AP review found. The Federal Emergency Management Agency included the prestigious girls' summer camp in a "Special Flood Hazard Area" in its National Flood Insurance map for Kerr County in 2011, which means it was required to have flood insurance and faced tighter regulation on any future construction projects. That designation means an area is likely to be inundated during a 100-year flood—one severe enough that it only has a 1% chance of happening in any given year.
Located in a low-lying area along the Guadalupe River in a region known as flash flood alley, Camp Mystic lost at least 27 campers and counselors and longtime owner Dick Eastland when historic floodwaters tore through its property before dawn on July 4. The flood was far more severe than the 100-year event envisioned by FEMA, experts said, and moved so quickly in the middle of the night that it caught many off guard in a county that lacked a warning system. But Syracuse University associate professor Sarah Pralle, who has extensively studied FEMA's flood map determinations, said it was "particularly disturbing" that a camp in charge of the safety of so many young people would receive exemptions from basic flood regulation.
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. After further appeals, FEMA removed 15 more Camp Mystic structures in 2019 and 2020. At least 12 structures at the original Camp Mystic Guadalupe site were fully within FEMA's 100-year flood plain, and a few more partially. Jeremy Porter, head of climate implications at climate risk firm First Street, said FEMA's flood insurance map underestimates flood risks because it fails to take into account the effects of heavy precipitation on smaller waterways. First Street's model puts nearly all of Camp Mystic Guadalupe at risk during a 100-year flood.
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The buildings at the newer Cypress Lake site are farther from the south fork of the flood-prone river but adjacent to Cypress Creek. FEMA's flood plain doesn't consider the small waterway a risk. In a statement, FEMA downplayed the significance of the flood map amendments. "Flood maps are snapshots in time designed to show minimum standards for floodplain management and the highest risk areas for flood insurance," the agency wrote. "They are not predictions of where it will flood, and they don't show where it has flooded before."
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