The family of Mary Grace Baker, one of the 25 campers and two counselors who died in the care of Camp Mystic during the flash floods on July 4, 2025, has filed a lawsuit against Camp Mystic, its owners and affiliated entities and persons. The suit alleges wrongful death, negligence and gross negligence.
Eight-year-old Baker was one of six deaths in her cabin (“Twins I”), which housed the youngest campers.
The Nov. 9 filing came the same day the automatic stay on wrongful death lawsuits against Camp Mystic lifted, clearing the way for civil cases to proceed despite Camp Mystic’s ongoing bankruptcy proceedings, which the institution initiated in June after facing previous lawsuits related to the fatal flood.
“There is no timeline for grief, and we needed this first year simply to survive it,” said Clarke Baker, Mary Grace’s father.
“We are not filing today out of anger. We are filing out of love — for our daughter, and for every child who deserves to come home from summer camp alive and unharmed. Now that we have found the strength, we owe it to Mary Grace’s memory to understand the truth and to seek accountability.”
The petition, filed in the District Court of Travis County, asserts Camp Mystic knowingly operated in a high-risk flood zone and failed to take even the most basic safety precautions to protect the children in its care.
The Baker family is represented by Tim Ferguson of The Ferguson Law Firm in Beaumont, Texas.
“This was not an unforeseeable act of nature. What happened at Camp Mystic was preventable, and no family should have to bury their daughter because a family owned camp put other priorities ahead of children’s safety,” Ferguson said. “This lawsuit is about transparency, responsibility and ensuring that no other family endures what the Bakers have suffered.”
According to the lawsuit, Camp Mystic had documented, decades-long knowledge of flooding on its own property. This included prior flood events, FEMA flood-hazard designations and annual floodplain permits.
A view inside of a cabin at Camp Mystic, the site of where at least 20 girls went missing after flash flooding in Hunt, Texas, on July 5, 2025. (Photo by RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)
Despite these facts, operators failed to implement proper safety, training and evacuation protocols in an area of the state known as “Flash Flood Alley.”
The lawsuit claims that as floodwaters rose rapidly on July 4, 2025, camp leaders failed to order evacuation, leaving campers in cabins located in the floodway. Inexperienced first-year counselors faced impossible decisions with water sweeping through their cabins on the Guadalupe River.
Camp Mystic has been owned and operated by the Eastland family since 1987, with Dick and Tweety Eastland serving as camp owners and executive directors. According to the complaint, “Dick Eastland exercised dominant authority over camp operations, counselor supervision and flood response procedures” and was nicknamed by staff as “the ruler” or “Mr. Veto.”
He was the ultimate authority over every decision.
In what the petition calls an “obedience culture,” counselors “feared taking action because they knew they would be in trouble if Eastland did not explicitly allow it.” This fear went so far that, during the flood, kitchen workers worried assisting campers would illicit “Dick’s reign.”
The petition says the camp “lacked a meaningful, written and independently executable flood-evacuation system” and instead “relied almost entirely on Eastland’s personal knowledge, instincts and unilateral decision-making during emergencies.”
Disaster response plans “existed largely in Eastland’s head,” not as written or rehearsed protocols.
In turn, disaster response plans “existed largely in Eastland’s head,” not as written or rehearsed protocols.
The Baker family’s petition accuses Camp Mystic and its affiliates of:
- Ignoring repeated flood warnings and historical data
- Failing to build cabins and facilities in safe locations
- Lacking an effective emergency or evacuation plan
- Demonstrating gross negligence and “conscious indifference” to camper safety
- Prioritizing operational convenience and profits over children’s lives
The family’s attorney argues this was not an “act of God,” but rather a foreseeable and preventable tragedy caused by reckless inaction. They seek damages in excess of $1 million for wrongful death, survival claims and exemplary damages intended to hold Camp Mystic accountable. The lawsuit demands a jury trial.
The Baker family placed Camp Mystic on notice of its duty to preserve all evidence related to the flood — including surveillance footage, staff communications, and camp records — by a preservation letter sent July 11, 2025, just one week after Mary Grace’s death.
The Bakers’ petition comes at a moment of mounting scrutiny for the camp. Last week, after a federal bankruptcy judge found material conflicts of interest between the Eastland family and the camp’s bankruptcy estates — and warned that a chapter 11 trustee would otherwise be appointed — the Eastland family gave up control, ceding authority over all flood-related litigation to two court-approved independent fiduciaries.
The Baker family remains committed to pursuing accountability through these proceedings.
“Waiting this year did not make the loss any smaller, but it gave us the footing to fight,” Clarke Baker said. “We are asking for accountability, transparency, and meaningful change so that no other parents ever have to live through this.”
Related:
Camp safety can’t wait | Opinion by Patrick Marsh