Texas Lawmakers Vote to Mitigate July 4th Tragedy

By Max Roemer

  Texas lawmakers have joined ranks to respond to Texas’ massive failures regarding the July 4, 2025, Guadalupe River flooding massacre. 7 weeks ago, the Guadalupe River exploded out of its banks and killed a devastating 130 people. Two of the storm’s victims were teenage camp counselors and 23 fatalities were young campers at a century old, well-established, and Christian camp known as Camp Mystic … nothing short of a nightmare.

  These young children sound asleep in their cabins as they went to bed at 7:30pm and were violently awoken by the flooding with no time to reach safety. Sadly, they were not evacuated by the camp nor local EMS when warning texts were being sent out hours before.

  The weather warnings sent to phones were either undelivered due to the low cellular signal in the area or they were seemingly completely ignored.

  Parents were completely torn to pieces and comforted each other in the gallery of the Texas Senate as each one of the girls’ names were read one after the other. Representative Drew Darby (R-San Angelo) introduced powerful legislation and said, “Make no mistake, House Bill 1 is fundamentally a bill about failure.” He added that, “The camp failed these girls. The county failed them. The river authority failed them, and, in a larger sense the government as a whole.”

  Since the life-changing disaster that killed the Camp Mystic children plus over a hundred others, on August 20^th, meetings have been held with the grieving parents and legislators on Capitol Hill. There were also meetings and hearings of the other 111 who died in the same tragedy. From grandparents to grandchildren and everything in-between, the flood wall did not discriminate on who and whose family was wrecked and torn to shreds.

  Both chambers of the Texas Congress and its two legislative bodies, the House and Senate, have been moving quickly advancing their versions of the bills.

  This is where the bills stand:

• House Bill 1 (HB1) would require overnight kids’ camp operators to develop emergency plans, including ones for natural disasters, and submit them to the state. The plans must include information on when to shelter or evacuate, and they must be taught to the campers. Operators would also be required to tell parents if any part of the camp was in the floodplain. The state would not be able allowed to license youth camps with cabins with cabins in the 100-year flood plain.
• HB1 has passed the House chamber 136-1. It hasn’t been heard by the Senate.
• The Status of Senate Bill One (SB1) is as follows:
• SB1 would prohibit the state from licensing camps if they had cabins in a flood plain unless the flood plain was around a lake or still body of water. It would require camp operators to prepare to evacuate campers any time the National Weather Service issues a flood warning or flash flood warning if they are in the floodplain. Evacuation routes would be displayed in all camp cabins.
• SB1 has passed the Senate with a vote of 28-0.
• Senators renamed the bill the Heaven’s 27 Camp Safety Act in honor of the Camp Mystic campers who lost their lives on July 4.
• Senate Bill 3 was passed primarily focused on having outdoor warning systems for those in flood plains. And, to establish guidance on how to install, maintain, and operate these systems. It was approved in a House committee on August 22.
• Lastly, Senate Bill 5 would pull $240,000,000 from our rainy-day fund for $50 million for sirens and rain gauges in the Central Texas flood region, $28 million to improve weather forecasting and $50 million for the new interoperability council. The federal government is expected to repay our rainy-day fund expenditures. Passed by the House, HB22 would expand a recently created multibillion dollar broadband infrastructure fund so the money can also be used to pay for emergency communication and warning systems.

  As the sounds of grieving parents and family members echoed down the hallway corridors and rotunda, legislatures promised those that this will never happen again and most seem to take full responsibility for the lacking and shortcomings of the state. There is no way to bring a victim back, but this tragedy can be used to better the systems for years to come.