Dominic Anthony Walsh: This episode includes details of traumatic events
and death, so please listen with care
Previously on After the Flood.
911 call: The flood is up to our house right now.
We're okay, but we live about a mile down the road from Camp Misty.
Emily Foxhall: You can see officials grappling with understanding
what happened, trying to figure out who was missing, trying to
figure out how many were dead.
Matthew Childress: I went back in and gave her 17 kisses before we
said goodbye, 'cause that's how we said goodbye, good night every night.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: On July 12th, 2025, Matthew and Wendy Childress celebrated the
life of their only daughter in Houston.
Matthew Childress: The funeral was overwhelming.
It was a packed house.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: Chloe's service was held at St. Luke's United Methodist
Church about a week after they'd identified her body in Kerrville.
Matthew Childress: Walking into the sanctuary was overwhelming
just to see the level and volume of people that were there.
And the first 10 or so rows, uh, the pews were filled with girls and her friends.
They were all wearing white in honor of Chloe.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: Some of Chloe's friends spoke.
Matthew says they shared happy memories and silly stories.
He wanted them to remember the best sides of Chloe.
Then Matthew took his place behind the microphone.
Matthew Childress: I can't believe this is actually my turn to do this.
Um, so considering this is the first time I've ever had to do something
like this, uh, you guys please bear with me, and I promise that I'm the
last person that's gonna kind of b- beat you down today with stories.
But, um, I'm Matthew Childress, and I am honored to be the father of
a hero, Chloe Madeline Childress.
Um, so yeah, this, this sucks.
This sucks.
This is, this is as terrible as you think it is.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: In his eulogy, and in the times he and I have spoken
since, Matthew paints a portrait of an energetic, precocious little girl
who became an ambitious young woman.
Matthew Childress: Chloe growing up was kind of a mess.
She was always a handful, even just as an infant, as a toddler.
She was always on the move, always doing something, always pushing,
and a lot of that I think was just about her yearning to learn and to
be more than she was at that moment.
Everything she faced, she figured out how to conquer.
Without our hand-holding, she wanted to become a cheerleader
and tumble and be a flyer.
She did that, not us.
She wanted to play guitar.
She did that.
She wanted to start a slime store back in the day.
She made thousands of dollars selling slime all over the freaking world.
She then decided to sell graduation buttons and stickers and pins.
She made thousands of dollars selling this crap to all their friends.
When she started to grow up, we started to see that personality
really come out in her schoolwork.
She was driven.
She wanted to be smarter.
She wanted to drive to be better as a human being, as a woman, as a student.
So what was Chloe to become?
Give me a second.
She had extremely good grades, got into the University of Texas on her own.
Already picking out and designing her room with the new suite roommates that
were becoming her new best friends.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: Matthew and his family were grieving
everything Chloe could have been.
Matthew Childress: Awkward dates, hangovers, school, med school.
She wanted to be a doctor.
You know, work life, bitching and moaning about your boss, first apartments,
dogs, marriage, crazy in-laws, kids.
You know, it's not about a thousand moments.
It's about a billion moments that she's already had, but just many billions that
she won't get to have now, and that's what we're currently grappling with.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: The family had received the church's blessing
to depart from a traditional service and play some non-traditional music.
Matthew Childress: I want you all to take these songs, and if you ever
listen to them, to think of Chloe
So this is I Need My Girl by The National.
We both love this band because one, just because I naturally love them, but Chloe
loved them because the lead singer and Ch- Taylor Swift did a duet on her album.
But every time I would listen to this song, and this is years
ago, even back then it would make me tear up and think of Chloe.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: At the service, Matthew briefly spoke about the
early morning hours of the flood, about what Chloe and her fellow
counselor, Katherine Ferruzzo, were likely doing as the water rose.
Matthew Childress: Chloe was not just my hero, she was an actual hero.
I will never know exactly what happened that night, and as much of the terror
and horror that I try to keep out of my brain, I know she was leading those
children with Katherine by her side, following the counselor policies, doing
everything they could in their power when it got bad to lead those girls to safety.
She wasn't just my hero, she was their hero.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: Matthew's grief was overwhelming, and so was
his anger, so he and other families who lost their kids at Camp Mystic
decided to do something about it.
On July 4th, 2025, the Texas Hill Country saw one of the
deadliest floods in U.S. history.
More than 130 people died that weekend, mostly in Kerr County.
The tragedy prompted outrage and a lot of questions.
What had gone wrong in those early morning hours, particularly at Camp Mystic, a
popular summer camp in the Hill Country where the director and 27 girls died?
Lawyer: She needed your help and you abandoned her, didn't you?
Casey Garrett: These people did not want this to happen.
They are good people that cared about these girls and these families,
but nothing had changed in decades.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: This is After the Flood, a podcast from The
Texas Newsroom and PBS's Frontline.
I'm Dominic Anthony Walsh.
This is episode three, Who, When, Where, and Now What?
We're gonna take you through what happened the morning of July 4th at Camp Mystic,
the legislation and investigations that followed, and what that's all
meant for other summer camps in Texas.
From the Childress' home in Houston, you can hear the bells at St. Luke's, the same
church where Chloe's funeral was held.
Matthew tells me he's still oscillating between the different stages of grief.
Matthew Childress: It is not linear.
Um, the grief, the anger, the acceptance, all those pieces you bounce
around constantly, and it's nonstop.
I still do that today.
Um, certain things will trigger you that you don't anticipate.
It could be a picture.
It could be an action.
It could be driving by a restaurant that you went to.
But we live in this world every single day that I find myself
just shaking my head saying, "I can't believe I find myself here."
Dominic Anthony Walsh: One of the places he has found himself over
and over again with other Camp Mystic families is the state capitol
Senator Charles Perry: Senate Committee on Disaster Preparedness
and Flooding will come to order.
Clerk will call the roll.
Clerk: Chairman Perry?
Senator Charles Perry: Here.
Clerk: Vice Chair Flores?
Present.
Senator-
Dominic Anthony Walsh: A few weeks after the flood, Texas
lawmakers convened hearings.
State Senator Charles Perry opened one with an especially ominous reminder.
Senator Charles Perry: There will be another flood.
What we learn from this and what actions we take and what actionable
items we demand, not options, out of this process will hopefully
save lives in the next event.
So with that, that's the goal and the objective.
Um-
Dominic Anthony Walsh: One by one, survivors detailed their
experiences to lawmakers.
Flood Survivor: On the night of July 4th, my wife, Nancy, my daughter, and I
barely survived the flood that overtook our property at 3:15 AM with water rising
so fast that all routes were blocked.
We ended up staying in the trees for several hours.
Um, we watched other cars shoot down the river and massive
trees, and we just prayed.
My daughter was not identified until Thursday the 10th, and the only thing
that identified her at all- Was her charm bracelet … was her charm bracelet
Dominic Anthony Walsh: Then came a Kerr County official the public had
not heard from, emergency management coordinator William Dub Thomas.
Thomas told lawmakers he had been sick on July 3rd, off duty and resting at home.
The career law enforcement officer then admitted that he'd been sleeping
through most of the morning on July 4th.
He said his wife woke him up at five thirty AM after the flood had torn
through places like Bumblebee Hills from episode one and Camp Mystic.
William 'Dub' Thomas: To those of you who ask, what would you have done differently?
The honest answer is that based on the data we had at the time,
there was no clear indicator that a catastrophic flood was imminent.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: But as you heard about in episode two, federal and state
officials had been preparing for major flooding on July 3rd, and had been
notifying emergency managers across the state, including in Kerr County.
The National Weather Service, which Thomas himself admitted was the
county's first line of notification for weather events, had issued its
first flood watch alert the afternoon of July 3rd when Thomas was home sick.
The alert meant that conditions were favorable for a flood.
About forty minutes after it was sent-
William 'Dub' Thomas: I briefly woke around two PM when there was
no local rainfall or indication of elevated risk, and returned to rest.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: The National Weather Service sent another flood
watch alert around eight that evening.
Its first flash flood warning, meaning a flood was coming or happening and posed
a serious threat to life and property, was sent at one fourteen AM on July 4th.
Federal meteorologists had also tried to personally contact Thomas, calling
him multiple times in the early morning hours of July 4th to notify him the river
was flooding, but he didn't pick up.
He was asleep.
Thomas' boss, Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, told lawmakers that he had been
out of town at the time of the flood.
He was visiting Lake Travis, a popular vacation destination just outside
Austin, and no one beyond Thomas and Judge Kelly had been designated to
answer calls from emergency managers.
Kelly's admission drew a sharp rebuke from Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, one of
the top elected officials in the state.
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick: You should have been here.
You should have been here directing that response.
That's your responsibility I'm not pointing a finger, I'm not blaming you.
I just want to set the record straight.
Everyone was here that day working their ass off, and you were nowhere to be found.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: Kerr County Sheriff Larry Letho told lawmakers that
deputies woke him up after parts of the county had already been devastated.
Senator Ann Johnson: But you didn't wake up till four twenty.
The judge is in Lake Travis, and the emergency manager is sick.
Larry Leitha: Correct, ma'am.
At that time, my people were out there doing the job.
You know, I got the call at four twenty, but they were doing their job
notifying people and rescuing people.
Senator Ann Johnson: But you, to your point, this was a weather
event nobody had ever seen.
It was moving fast.
Larry Leitha: Yes, ma'am.
Senator Ann Johnson: The three guys in Kerr County who were
responsible for sounding the alarm were effectively unavailable.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: According to a federal investigation, the National
Weather Service also tried to call the sheriff's office three times around three
forty AM to warn them of river flooding.
The calls immediately disconnected.
Along with warning them, federal weather officials had been trying
to connect with local emergency responders for another reason.
They needed a better sense of the flooding, particularly on the
South Fork of the Guadalupe River.
There were no gauges measuring that part of the river, which
is also home to Camp Mystic.
As you heard in the last episode, local officials hadn't been willing
to update the flood warning system and add new river gauges to the area.
A few weeks after those hearings is when Chloe Childress should
have been heading to college.
Instead, Matthew was in Austin.
Matthew Childress: So August fourteenth originally was my daughter's move-in
day at her dorm, Hardin House in Austin.
So that day, instead, we had made arrangements to meet with the governor,
the lieutenant governor, and the speaker of the house to lobby for camp safety.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: The twenty-seven girls who died at
Camp Mystic were now being referred to as the Heaven's Twenty-Seven.
Matthew Childress: And as part of that, we were working with some
lobbying teams and about twenty of the Heaven's Twenty-Seven families went.
And we had hour-and-a-half meetings with each of those individuals, and each
meeting ended with us giving them our request, which was to, in the next special
session, to make camp safety a priority.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: What was it like doing that three times in one day?
Matthew Childress: Exhausting.
Absolutely exhausting.
The first time was
The toughest, because a lot of that information was fresh.
We had not heard some of those personal stories from each of those parents.
And every single one of the stories were absolutely devastating.
And not just about their children, but the terror and grief that each
of the parents were going through.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: Lawmakers debated how to plan for and respond
to floods through legislation, and not just at camps, but around the state.
They would ultimately give nearly $300 million for relief efforts to
improve flood preparedness and to help communities across Texas, including Kerr
County, build flood warning systems.
You'll hear more about those in episode five.
They also put new requirements in place for youth camps.
Camps now need state-approved emergency plans and have to train campers on them.
Camps in floodplains need to follow a bunch of additional requirements,
such as adding evacuation equipment like ladders to cabins, and they must
now evacuate if the National Weather Service issues a flood warning alert.
In September, Matthew and other Heaven's 27 families watched from the gallery
of the Texas Capitol as bills they'd helped create that could have saved
their daughters were becoming laws.
And then during the Senate bill passing, the Lieutenant Governor,
Dan Patrick, made additional comments about the two counselors.
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick: They were old enough and big enough
they could have saved themselves.
And they stayed.
They stayed.
So to those two counselors, I don't know that we have an award
for courage in Texas, but if we don't, we need to have one.
Because those two 18-year-olds did what Scripture says.
You give your life to try to save another.
Matthew Childress: I was pretty stoic, pretty stone-faced, and what
he said brought me to roaring tears.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: The families are even lobbying for changes in other states.
Alabama's new camp safety law is named after Sarah Marsh, an eight-year-old girl
from the state who died at Camp Mystic.
Childress says he sees momentum behind bills filed in Maryland,
Missouri, and Oklahoma.
Matthew Childress: Most meaningful to all of us is what we're
doing across other states.
What we passed in Texas is now being used as a template for other states
to leverage, and it brings such joy and happiness that their lives are not
just lost in vain, that they can be conceived or seen as heroes helping
to save other lives of children that they would never have met in the past.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: But would anything actually change at Mystic, or any other
summer camp in Texas, for that matter?
I'm Dominic Anthony Walsh, and this is After the Flood.
We'll be right back.
Senator: Chair calls the Senate General investigating committee on the
July 2025 flooding events to order.
The clerk will call the roll.
Clerk: Chairman Flores?
Senator: Present.
Clerk: Vice Chair Perry?
Senator Charles Perry: Present.
Clerk: Senator Hughes?
Dominic Anthony Walsh: Seven months after Texas passed new camp
laws, Mystic was back in the news.
The investigation Matthew, Wendy, and other Mystic parents
had pushed for was complete.
Senator: Members, we are here today to examine in detail an unimaginable tragedy
that occurred in the Texas Hill Country on July the 4th, 2025 Among the many
lives lost were twenty-seven vibrant young girls from one camp, Camp Mystic.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: On April 27th, 2026, a lawyer appointed by the state
legislature named Kasey Garrett presented the findings to lawmakers in Austin.
She laid out what happened that morning at the camp.
Garrett started by highlighting just how prestigious and beloved it was.
Casey Garrett: The lion's share of the situation was a multi-generational,
um, you know, put your daughter on the wait list at birth.
Uh, this was, you know, wives telling their, their, you know,
their new husbands that, "If we have a daughter, she'll go to Mystic."
It was, it was a known thing.
It was a very traditional culture.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: Also part of that culture, flooding.
Casey Garrett: Part of the camp lore, right?
Uh, many people in this room told me about being on Senior Hill when it would, when
the land bridge would flood, and we liked it because we could stay in our cabins
and have food delivered to us by boat.
It was novel.
It was part of camp lore.
It became a very complacent s- sort of flood culture at Camp Mystic.
It was just kind of part of life there.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: What you're about to hear is what happened that
morning according to Garrett, a federal investigation, and testimony
that's come out in the multiple lawsuits filed against Camp Mystic.
The Eastland family, which owns the camp, declined to be
interviewed for this podcast.
Unlike some of Kerr County's leaders, Mystic co-owner and
director Dick Eastland was awake the night of July 3rd into July 4th.
He'd been obsessively monitoring rain and river gauge data on
his phone as he watched news about national politics on TV.
The data he was looking at would not have given him a good sense of how the
Guadalupe was rising near Mystic, since again, there were no gauges nearby.
At 1:14 AM, the National Weather Service issued that first flash
flood warning for Kerr County.
Weather alerts had become really common over the years in this part
of the state, but flash flooding during camp season was rare.
Only two flash flood warning alerts had been sent out
during camp season since 2007.
At 1:45 AM, about 30 minutes after the alert was sent, Dick walkie-talkied
his son, Edward, who had been asleep.
Dick was worried the river would start rising, and asked Edward, a director at
the camp, to help him move some canoes.
Edward later told a court that neither he nor his father saw the need to
wake anyone up at that point, but many campers were awake and worried.
At 2:30 AM, two counselors from the cabins closest to the Guadalupe River ran to
the front office to tell Dick and Edward that water was coming into their cabins.
Casey Garrett: Let me remind you, this is 2:30 AM.
It is pitch black, it is pouring rain.
These girls are in their pajamas, and they make the decision to
run to the front office, and so that was a significant decision.
Um, they were obviously very concerned about what was going on.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: Dick had been messaging his wife,
Tweety, in the meantime.
Casey Garrett: And Dick obviously knows this is a real serious
problem because he's texting that there's over four inches of rain.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: But Edward said in court testimony that
at that point in the night, the river hadn't reached the cabins.
So Dick and Edward drove the concerned counselors back to
their cabins and told them to put towels down to soak up the water.
Shortly thereafter, at 2:55, the camp's gatekeeper used her walkie-talkie
to tell Dick and Edward that her cabin was quickly taking on water.
Casey Garrett: Uh, she gets on the radio and frantically, uh, radios to
Edward and to whoever's listening, "My cabin is flooding." Um, Edward
says, "Get to higher ground.
Get out, Frances.
Get to higher ground."
Dominic Anthony Walsh: A few minutes later, Dick, Edward, and the camp's
night watchman began evacuating some of the cabins closest to the river.
Edward later admitted in court that they could have done things
differently leading up to that point.
The grounds were still passable on foot, so they could have gone cabin to cabin
and told campers to evacuate themselves.
They could have used the loudspeaker, which just hours before had played
Taps before bedtime, to tell the girls to run to higher ground.
Instead, the girls were expected to shelter in place, which was camp
protocol, but some counselors decided to take matters into their own hands.
Between 3:24 and 3:40, they started evacuating their campers on foot.
Here's Garrett talking about the conversation investigators
had with those counselors.
Casey Garrett: They express to us that they know nobody's coming.
"Nobody's coming for us. We know that that's done." These counselors
realize- We've got to take action.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: Dick then radioed that campers in cabins called Bubble Inn
and Twins One and Two had to be evacuated.
The cabins were in a particularly low-lying area of the camp,
near the Guadalupe River.
They also housed the youngest campers, the eight and nine-year-olds.
Chloe Childress was a counselor in Bubble Inn.
At 3:50, Dick used his walkie-talkie to ask for help.
State investigators later found that he had likely put all of the girls in Bubble
Inn in his SUV to try to evacuate them, even though he'd warned Edward against
driving in the flood earlier that night.
Casey Garrett: And then the next radio transmission from Dick is, "I
have Bubble Inn cabin in my car. I'm stuck against a tree. I need help."
Dominic Anthony Walsh: Edward radioed back that he couldn't help.
He was stuck trying to help girls in Twins One and Two.
Edward would later describe the harrowing situation to a court.
Edward Eastland: Uh, I held onto those girls, um, holding onto the door
frame while, um, there was a- another girl, Twins One, jumped on my back.
I don't know who it was, but they put their arms around my neck,
um, before we got washed out.
Um, and the, the water came up over my head very quickly
Dominic Anthony Walsh: The state investigation found that counselors
in the twin cabins were eventually left with no choice but to try to
help the campers swim to safety.
Some were swept away and died.
Mary Liz Eastland, the camp's chief medical officer and Edward's wife,
later told a court she didn't help evacuate some of the most vulnerable
campers because rushing water had stopped her from reaching their cabins.
Then she made a startling admission about camper Ceil Steward under questioning
from the Steward family's attorney.
Lawyer: You knew the property, you knew the flood lines, you knew, you knew
access points, your children knew them, and these were first-year campers.
You had 34 more years of experience than Ceil.
She needed your help and you abandoned her, didn't you?
Mary Liz Eastland: Yes.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: By 4:09 AM, Edward was submerged,
according to his phone data.
He was swept away by the floodwaters, along with some of
the girls he was trying to help.
Edward and hundreds of girls and camp staffers at Mystic survived
the flood, but Dick Eastland, 25 campers, and two counselors did not.
The state investigation found that Mystic had no written plans for what
to do in an emergency, which were required even at the time of the flood.
There were no evacuation protocols or drills.
None of the nearly 40 adults at the camp at the time had been
told to evacuate campers, and none were assigned to supervise any
of the campers who had evacuated.
One of those girls, who returned to her cabin to retrieve a belonging, died.
Garrett summed up the state's investigation by saying
this about the Eastlands.
Casey Garrett: They are loving Christian people.
Unfortunately, they were running a multi-million dollar for-profit
business like something from 1965.
These people did not want this to happen.
They are good people that cared about these girls and these families,
but nothing had changed in decades.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: For Matthew Childress, the hearings and the state
investigation were tough to listen to, but there was also a sense of vindication.
Matthew Childress: All that information was shocking on the
face of it, but also confirmed everything that we had been claiming.
There was a tremendous amount of relief.
You know, it felt like that there was a, a weight lifted from many of us.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: At a court hearing in April, Edward Eastland
apologized to the families of the Heaven's 27, many of whom, including the
Childresses, were suing the Eastlands.
Edward Eastland: I think about the night of the flood every moment of every day.
We tried our hardest that night, and it wasn't enough to save your daughters.
We were devastated alongside you.
I regret not communicating more with each of you earlier, and I'm so sorry
Dominic Anthony Walsh: But up until that point, Camp Mystic had been planning
to reopen for the 2026 season, even though it was under investigation
by the state for possible neglect.
Girls were already signed up for summer sessions that would have
been at a separate property from where people died in the flood.
The Heavens twenty-seven families fought the reopening, but Eastland
family attorney Mikal Watts said that their objections weren't
enough to stop it from happening.
Mikal Watts: I acknowledge, uh, their pain, and I acknowledge how difficult it
is, but, um, no one person has, uh, in my view, uh, the right to tell hundreds
and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of other families who have benefited from
the Christian guidance of this camp and want their girls back here for future
generations, uh, that they can't do that.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: But days after Edward's apology, Camp Mystic changed
course and announced it would not reopen for the summer 2026 season.
Many of the Eastlands, including Edward, had just very publicly testified in court.
Casey Garrett had just presented her findings to state lawmakers, and the state
had just notified Mystic that it hadn't complied with many of the new laws around
youth camps in its application to reopen.
Mystic's safety plan in the event of an emergency, including a flood,
had been deemed insufficient, and it hadn't laid out where cabins were in
relation to designated floodplains.
The state gave Mystic the chance to amend its application and refile
before the camp decided to close for the year, and Mystic wasn't alone.
While the new camp safety laws had overwhelmingly passed, there were
a few notable holdouts, including State Representative Wes Virdell.
He's a Republican who represents Kerr County.
Virdell argued that lawmakers had been so quick to pass legislation
that they hadn't worked with camps to make sure the new laws were feasible.
He pointed out that many camps were small, nonprofit, faith-based.
In other words, they couldn't afford costly safety plans or new licensing fees.
Wes Virdell: My honest opinion, I think that this bill was filed to
punish Camp Mystic, and everyone else has to suffer because of it.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: But his calls to change the laws before the
2026 camp season went unanswered.
Every camp that applied to operate for the season was told their emergency
plans had not followed new state laws.
They were each given a chance to amend their applications, and
most were eventually accepted.
But many camps either closed or scaled back operations to avoid
needing to be licensed at all.
Wes Virdell: I think this legislation has hurt camps.
Over sixty camps, uh, are now out of business that didn't reapply for,
for a youth camp license, and we have about three hundred and sixty camps
in the state of Texas, and the others are just barely, I think barely being
able to meet the requirements because they're such an overstretch of what,
what government's responsible for.
Because of what happened at Camp Mystic, which is terrible tragedy, um- Now
there's this idea that all camps are really unsafe and that we have to create
this extreme, uh, requirements on it.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: State lawmakers will meet again in 2027.
Verdell says he'll push for changes to the camp legislation.
Wes Virdell: I'll be filing a bill to repeal, uh, the things that I think are
an overreach of it, including the, the up to $20,000 for a camp safety license,
and, and we'll see, but honestly, I think the Texas legislature did a huge
disservice to, to the state of Texas, and to camps, and to campers, and
people that send their kids to camps.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: He's especially upset about what he
characterizes as an attempt by lawmakers to punish Camp Mystic.
Wes Virdell: I think a lot of people, uh, expect perfection out of Dick
Eastland and the East- Eastland family through all this, and, and
I think in reality, all of us are not perfectly prepared for anything.
The Eastlands, they lost, you know, not only their dad, but 27 other people
they cared a lot about, and, uh, they're emotionally devastated with what happened
to the people that they care about, and then now they have the weight of the world
just telling them how terrible they were.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: In late June, following a year of
investigations and lawsuits, Camp Mystic filed for bankruptcy.
It's unclear when or if it will reopen.
I first sat down with Matthew Childress just before Thanksgiving 2025.
Matthew, his wife Wendy, and their son Jack were about to
head abroad for the holiday.
Chloe would have been a freshman at the University of Texas, and
her 19th birthday was in October.
Matthew Childress: We're gonna be breaking tradition.
Traditionally, we would be with my family, and so we're gonna start,
start creating new traditions.
And so my wife, son, and I, at least for Thanksgiving, we're going to be
going abroad to travel to create new traditions, because going back to our
usual traditions here in Houston, here at our house with our family is maybe
too hard of a burden to, to take on.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: He told me that the pain is always there,
interrupting the regular rhythms of life.
Matthew Childress: You find yourself not thinking about it, which is great, and
you're focused on positive things and productive things, but there's always
this sort of dark cloud sort of waiting for you, um, that reminder that, oh, yes,
this happened, and this is something that we're stuck with, that we can't escape.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: Next time on After the Flood, we'll take a detour to a part
of Texas that did not make national news after its own deadly flood last July.
Brandy Gerstner: Having heard the night before all about Kerrville,
and it was just loud on the news, and everybody heard it.
And I'm thinking, "Well, surely somebody's gonna be here for us."
But there wasn't.
There was no one.
Dominic Anthony Walsh: After the Flood is a production of the Texas
Newsroom and PBS's Frontline.
This episode was written by me, Ana Campbell, and Rachel Oster Lindley.
They also edited this episode.
Ana Campbell is our executive producer, and Elizabeth McQueen is our producer.
Our editors at FRONTLINE are Erin Texeira and Mia Zuckerkandel . Our
music is by Rene Chavez and APM and our audio producers are Casey
Cheek, Jake Perlman and Matt Largey.
Our multimedia editor is Deborah Cannon and Michael Minasi
is our multimedia producer.
Our fact-checker is Ena Alvarado, and our attorney is Thomas Leatherbury.
Erin Geisler oversees our marketing, and our cover was designed by Maile Carballo.
Corrie MacLaggan is the executive editor of The Texas Newsroom.
Special thanks to Lauren McGaughy.
The Texas Newsroom is a collaboration among NPR and the public radio stations
in the state, including Houston Public Media, KUT in Austin, Texas Public Radio
in San Antonio and KERA in North Texas.
This project received editorial and financial support from FRONTLINE’s
Local Journalism Initiative, which is funded by the John S.
and James L. Knight Foundation.