The investigators’ report concluded:

• Camp Mystic did not have written emergency plans that complied with the state’s requirements. Investigators said camp leadership didn’t have state-approved emergency plans posted in each cabin for counselors and campers, other than instructions to shelter in place. “Staff members and counselors were not assigned any responsibilities in the event of that kind of an evacuation. This was a fatal error,” Massengale said.

• Camp Mystic did not adequately prepare for the storm: The camp had received weather alerts warning of a storm on July 3, investigators said. Camp Mystic “had the means to inform itself and to appropriately protect its campers from severe weather,” Massengale said. “Our investigation showed that apart from what Dick Eastland was likely doing, nobody else at the camp was watching that night.”

• Camp Mystic did not evacuate in advance of the storm, despite ample opportunity to do so: At 1:14 a.m., investigators said, the National Weather Service sent a flash flood warning. Eastland called his son, Edward, for help shortly after 3 a.m., investigators said. In that time, investigators said the campers could have been instructed to evacuate to higher ground.

• Camp leadership confiscated counselors’ cellphones while on site, the report found, and did not provide them with replacement equipment, such as a radio or handheld transmitter that they could have used in an emergency.

• The camp normally employed three counselors per cabin but reduced the number to two in certain cabins. A senior counselor expressed to the camp’s leadership that some of the younger teenaged staff struggled to keep up with their cabins and needed assistance. The report said that having older, more experienced counselors at the camp could have helped prevent more deaths. 

• The reunification efforts and incident management after the storm were chaotic, which led to campers’ parents being “unnecessarily traumatized” by incomplete and conflicting information as they waited to learn whether their children survived.