Addressing Audience Questions and Final Reflections

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Today on Talking Dateline, we're joined by Lester Holz. on his latest episode After the Food, which really digs into the devastating flood on july fourth, twenty twenty five ravag the Texas Hill countountry, as well as camp Mystick and all girls camp twenty seven young girls lost their lives. If you haven't seen it, you can watch the episode on Peacock or on the Dateline podcast feed and then come right back here Later we'll have an extra clip from Lester's interview with a former countounty commissioner about his efforts to get a flood warning system in the county years ago Okay. Let's talk dateline. Les are always good to be with you, but particularly on a story that I know we've both had a chance to kind of cover extensively Yeah, this this was a tough one. This was a tough one I know the In your dateline career, this feels markedly different. You're coming off of stellar coverage of the Luigi Mangioni case out of New York. But then you have this tragedy in Texas that I feel like the whole world has been watching to some degree. How did you kind of prepare for that going in Well, you know, many of the stories we cover, of course, are tragic, the story chief among them, was the sense of loss, the fact that there were Small children involved, you know, we're talking eight, nine, ten year olds who were traamped in some cases, no way to escape the rising waters around them We profile one of the Counselors, Aimsley who was helping to wrestle a group of kids under her charge and get them to safety. We also discovered things that went wrong there in terms of planning or lack of planning. We unearthed a lot during our time in Texas covering this story Yeah, this episode, I felt like really introduced people to the Hill countountry that I grew up in, you know, swimming in the Guadluppe River every summer as a kid You followed this story from the moment it began. I'm curious. what struck you when you arrived yourself I to Texas and drove that highway that parallels the river when you arrived at Camp Mystick. It's funny, you talk about that highway paralleling the river. People told us they could normally not even see the river because the vegetation was so lush. but when we drove through there, you know, after all this had happened The trees were torn and twisted. there were belongings that were stuck in trees and bushes and you could clearly see the river And everyone you talked to would use their hands to show you how high the water was. and you'd be like, wait a minute, show me that again. how high? And now you're imagining You know, eight, nine, ten year olds trying to escape in this rushing water. It was really just shock that this water could overtake this area so quickly Now our focus, of course is on camp Mystic. However, there were there were other places that were struck by the rising waters along the Guadalupe River In this case, it was a girls camp. There were other camps that were affected by the water but none had the loss of life that we saw at Camp Mysty. Right, Camp Lahunta, a boys' camp just downriver from Mystic had, you know the boys clinging to rafters inside their cabins there to escape the water. But when you see these Mystic cabins, it was just a ceiling. There were no rafters for them to cling to. Lester, as we kind of talk about the camps that you mention here I think for a lot of people You know, you say summer camp is something that, you know, many kids are a part of all across the nation. But in this particular pocket of Texas, Camp Mystic has a history, a lineage that has drawn generations of young women there. What did you kind of find as you looked into the history of this particular camp and the impact that it has There is a clearly a strong tie between that camp and the community. You know it better than I do, but it's a lovely area. I was there just a few weeks ago part of our follow up reporting, and we could look across the river and the green grass the cabins, we were able to actually get on the property at one point and see the cabins now that have been really kind of signs of life standing still. You can still see the mud. along the windows crosses that have been erected around the cabins. We got a glimpse at the hill that some of the kids were able to successfully make their way to to get above the waterat. So it was You know, it's one thing to tell the story and to hear from people, but it's another thing to get up close and really understand What these kids and their counselors were going through. I think to really understand this story, understanding the layout of the camp is crucial. Yeah This episode really does a great job in showing people exactly where these girls were and when as that water started to rise. The footage that you've included over the course of that night Um It's tough to watch, especially when you hear the screams there important was it to you to kind of marry those two elements together It was difficult and you also want to, you know be mindful of our viewers and how much anyone can take. But that yeah, you mentioned the video, the cell phone video of the sccreams of Hell. And you know, when I first heard that, my only thought was would I do? How would I how would I know as an adult How would I try to get out of there? Um and and I think is really the central question to all this. Was it even possible? I think that That's the question that Some people are going to live with the rest of their lives to some degree. and a question that the parents of these young girls can't help but ask Um every day they wake up. I know that You've sat down with eight mothers who lost daughters and seeing them introduce themselves and then share the name of their daughters or something that I think I'll carry with me a real long time. I'm sure you had an idea as to how that interview was going to go, but then to sit there in that space and speak to them Oh what struck you I so admired those women and their strength and their determination to fight on behalf of their children. you, what they're going through frankly, none of us can imagine. There's another story that was shared with me. during this story, onene of the mothers was hoping for her daughter, this would be a moment of healing This mother had lost her husband She lost her brother And then then her daughter all within a six month period of time Oh, I can't imagine carrying that kind of burden around But you did. Yeah, I think that that mother was mother of eight year old Blakeley and I was struck by just how incredibly composed she was with a world of grief so close at hand. did she share anything with you at all just about how she's gettingting by day to day. I know she mentioned that she still goes into Blakeley's room, even sleeps in her bed Um, I I can't even imagine the healing process there. She wants to make sure that she's talking about her daughter a lot that she doesn't, you know forget her. I mean, of course, there's no way she could ever forget her, but for her coping mechanism is to make sure She's always talking about her daughter. and it's interesting each parent different thing, you know, the Geton family They had letters that they'd received from their daughter shortly after camp started They haven't brought themselves to read those letters. And I think, we can all appreciate you know, what that must be like to You know you want to know how she was doing, what she was doing at the same time. You know, does that open the hole in your heart even even larger? I think these are these are questions to we and I think only they will know when they reached that I know you spoke to those parents. and then you also spoke to young Lucy Kennedy, whom I act also chatted with in the days following that flood, And it's There's something unique about when you interview I think, a child following some tragic event like this because They speak with a level of truth and authenticity that I don't think we always always get. and just hearing how matter of fact she was about what she witnessed is something I'll carry with me and I assume you as well Yeah, I think you put it really, really well. interterviewing kids during stories of tragedy, it's never easy. I always approach them as cautious as I can. It's very important to me to be as protective as I can and that's the journalist in me and the father and that's enough about me. Um you're right. Lucy was u She was brought on with her ability to really kind of capture the moment. You know, she was like many kids in that area Despite what had happened, was prepared to go back to camp Um, you know, this month, And she was very articate about why she felt this was kind of a one off. as frankly a lot of the adults did. This goes off in another area, but there were a lot of folks there who were very divided about the camp, about the Eastland family, about what they did or didn't do And it's created, you know, some friction, frankly, in the community. We had the initial tragedy We had this incredible amount of grief And then it felt like As more details came to light, that division became Al right, when we come back, Lester has an extra clip from his interview with a former Ker County commissioner. Stick around This podcast is brought you by Wise, the app for international people using money around the globe. 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And to stay ahead, you need to see through walls and around corners Light's about to fail, filters ready to clog, HVack on its last leg. If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind Count on Granger for quality products, easy reordering, and twenty four seven support Call one eight hundred Granger, click Granger. com or just stop by Granger. For the ones who get it done It took months before we finally saw kind of the beginnings of legal action in this case. And I'll never forget that first courtroom hearing, Lester, seeing the camera there showing the crowd a half wearing purple for Hea twenty seven, that group formed following the deaths of those young girls and then half in mystic green, almost to a person. And I don't know if I've ever seen any court proceeding so clearly delineated or polarizing here Yeah I think polarizing is the correct word here. We spoke to people who are you dramatically and affected by what happened Um But yet They're still very careful in how they describe what happened. and whether they think there's any blame and if so, where it should be, Um People are very, very careful, but when you talk to them, you start to hear you where they stand. and whether the camp should be reopened and on accountability and responsibility in this So there's there's clearly this polarization, but there's also this sense of tread carefully when we talk about it Hving been back to Kurville several times since the flood, it is interesting what's shared privately as opposed to publicly, particularly with a family that has been known for generations in that area, just down the road on the river. I'm curious, you know Were you surprised when you spoke to parents Wh shred that they would be comfortable sending their children, their daughters back I was yeah, I'll be honest and I was a little surprised You know, I thought just given the of the fact of The changes have come slowly. I thought you'd see more people wanting to sit out If nothing else, sit out the camp this year but you know, I think people Also, some people want a sense of normalcy and they want to be able to like, you know recognize and grieve as they have, But you know, a lot of people take the position that you know we have to find a way to move on find some touchstone and some normalcy So I think that accounts for some of the divide you're seeing and how people are reacting to it. Of course, we know that the Eastlands the company has filed for bankruptcy, a reorganization, which suggests that reorganization as opposed to other options that might permanently close the camp. This suggests that they plan to reopen again at some point It also, according to lawyers for some of the families, gives them an opportunity to in their estimation, to evade responsibility because it essentially puts a pause on the lawsuitsits for an indefinite amount of time. As some lawyers had describeed, it could be months, it could be years So that's creating another level of friction, if you will, about You know, is this family taking full responsibility And are they doing the right thing in the face of this tragedy with that pause on the legal proceedings, I can only assume that there's a fair amount of frustration there because as you mentioned, an indefinite period of time for families hoping for some sort of legal closure They don't know what to think now. Yeah, because when you get obviously, when you have a lawsuit, you get discovery. and so you know, you get some more answers to some of your questions. Our understanding is this now all this ceases for a time. And so I'm just guessing here that it's going to be much more difficult and that the polarization we talked about is going to become deeper as people realize that things may slow to a crawl I know that You had a chance to sit down with Michael Watts, the attorney representing Camp Mystick here in their ongoing legal proceedings And during that interview, he mentioned the lack of a adequate warning system. was that facet of this tragedy, something that you heard repeated from others. Yeah, to some extent. I mean, I think what he was making the point was he believes that the state Texas bears a lot of responsibility for what happened. And by that, he says A long time ago, there had been approval of a system, a flood warning system that would sound off an alarm But he says the state legislature never went forward with it, never funded it and therefore, you know, he was shifting a lot of the blame to the state for not moving more quickly on a system that would you know, that would sound an alarm that could be heard for a long period of time and send people into action But he also, on the other hand, you know was a proponent of this idea of shelter in place in which others have questioned whether that was a good thing because we know that many of those who did evacuate were able to evacuate successfully. The problem was there was no plan per se. Yeah, no uniform written plan In an interview that didn't make the final episode, you spoke to a former Kirk County commissioner, Tom Moser. who actually addressed the conversation about potential flood warning systems that could have potentially been in place. We're certainly being discussed but never transpired, never actually came to be. What' you learn from him? He was very interesting because he had worked on this, you know some years ago, this whole idea of a warning system. Remember, the floods aren't new to that part of the Texas, the Hillicter.' just it's just in this case, it was larger and quicker and swifter than anyone remembered, but it's certainly the conversation moved very quickly to this idea Is there a way to warn folks and get them to higher ground in time? Right. And I just want to play a brief clip of that interview because I think it's important for folks to understand the context of here. Take a listen In twenty fifteen, there was a Major flood on the Blanco River South of Kirville And people died, you know, got washed away in homes and things like that And they improve their flood warning system So as a countounty commissioner, I thought that that was the right thing to do to look at what somebody else had experienced they've done to make it better for the future So I went down with another one or two people and looked at what they had brought it back h an engineer to do some preliminary design. approving the flood warning system, presented it to countounty commissioners, city council Anybody else around an elected position where one huge meeting and present it, you know, here's what we can do and shouldould do So at that at the result of that meeting, we said, we're going to move forward. Where' the community are going to move forward on this flood improving the flood warning. system And to do that,s see if we can get some Funding from the state via grants. Would a flood warning system, in your view, have saved lives on july fourth? Had it been in place? Had it been in place? yes It would it saved to everybody And the reason I say yes, is because What we understand about what a flood warning system can be today And what's being implemented, okay, not there yet, but being implemented definitely would Most people Qool warning to get above and away from the flooding area So You know, it's so the answer is yes. And to inverse that question is Is it shocking that something like that wasn't in place. whereere there missed opportunities. I'm not making excuses for anybody when I was a Unc commommissions's court We looked at what the needs were, okay? We tryed to satisfy the needs with the revenue that we had Could we have found another million bucks The answer is yes thatid we think we could get some money from the state government and from the federal goverment to do that? Yes, we thought we could. So we applied for grants. for, you know, million dollars plus and not to throw stones at anybody in the state But they had funds set aside to mitigate floods at that time, not to necessarily warn for floods So we applied for flood warnings as opposed to flood mitigation And our requests for grants were not accepted So I think what's Morgan what's interesting here is he he's very clear. It's like, this isn't going to save everybody So don't don't think that you know this was going to be the miracle, you know cure to this. at the same time, it could have apparently saved lives at some level. Well certainly when you contrast it with what had been for generations, kind of the typical procedure, which was literally a phone tree. of a rancher back there in Westkirk County seeing the river rise, calling someone downriver and then that person doing the same And I think one of the things I personally struggled with following this tragedy was kind of having a veil lifted from my own eyes per se, as the hometown kid on how everything had been for so long and forcing me to look at it through in modern times and realizing in real time Um How many more tools are at our disposal now? that could have potentially saved an unknown number of lives. Yeah, I think a lot of people have in our conversations they' talked about a flood culture. and that might have affected the response. And by flood culture, we're talking about Um you know, the warnings, many people say, Well, we used to get them all the time. you know, we get heavy rains here and we get the flooding and you know, and they It's almost as if it was an excuse for not acting that people had fall into a complacency. And so we heard a little bit about that. I'm sure you've seen another disasters you cover. that sometimes there is kind of a sense of You know, this is nothing new, it's nothing to worry about and you kind of talk yourself down you know, away from reacting in a more demstative way I think we all think we know until we don't. You know, you talk to folks in Florida who refuse to evacuate ahead of hurricanes because they've seen them all. You hear from people in Buffalo who have seen blizzards their entire life until they get the big one. And I feel like that's what I heard shades of when I spoke to friends, family and folks I met along the way in the hill countountry that this one really rewrote the rules, making it all the more important to have something anything more Uh than than what we did, you know I remember hearing about nineteen seventy eight's flood, nineteen eighty seven's flood. You know, I was only one year old with ' eighty seven, but that was the flood that everyone knew as the big one, really up until this one And time goes by And for all of the the grief and the shock, that you feel following one of those It is sad but true that I think human nature just tends to slowly but surely forget to some degree It's a variation on the. Can't happen to me Right. that I think we've all heard and we've unfortunately been a part of it. That sense of Yeah, it can happen, but it won't happen to me In covering this story, I want to ask you a question from some of the people that I've heard back home in Kurville and that is one hundred and nineteen people died in Kirk County And coverage of this has been overwhelmingly and understandably, surrounding those twenty seven young girls at mystic volunteer firefighter that I've met through this tried to save people at a RV camp in Ingrham where more people actually died at that site and yet you know, there's been Not a lot of not many mentions of that. What would you say to folks who perhaps feel Um Olooked in this tragedy I think that's a fair question. I think some of it is a product of the fact that this was That was a large number from a singular place that suffered this. But we have to go back and remember, you, we played those nine hundred eleven calls that came in. and you heard people from different parts different areas there along the Guadallopepe River who were an immediate danger Th Like nothing before. I think those nine hundred eleven tapes really, really rocked me Um I mean, these these are people who were, you know, being hyperbolic, they were and said we're going to die And in some cases, they did So yeah, your point is well taken. I think that You know, it's important that we acknowledge that there was a large number of people in Kerr County succumb to this tragedy. And I know that This is a river known for its pristine beauty, you, untouched by man, so to speak. And yet when we see what it is capable of, If there was ever a time to have a time machine and put that sound, those sirens in place I'd give anything for it. But you'd have to, you know, I listen to but you'd also have to know what that sound meant It's one thing to say, hey, you know, there's a flood coming, Wh, what do I do? Where do I go? And think that's where everything in this conversation ultimately leads that you know, What do we do with the information Eacuate you know, shelter in place Get in a car, don't get in a car you know, Siren can't give you all that We're going to take a quick break now, but when we come back We're going to be fielding questions from social media on helping people understand the depth of this tragedy. Stay with us Hello from Metstsy. So we've got a pretty personal question. What moments mean the most to you Big firsts like your first home, baby or pet. Or what about hosting a party, getting a freelance gig, or ending a toxic relationship One moment isn't bigger than the other, they're all special. 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A lot of folks talk about the rising river, but there was also a remmember a thunder and lightning storm Heavy lightning, heavy thunder and those are conditions that we know from experience. you can't really fly in. what they I think they did bring in life flight helicopters at some point after the the water had receded. But at the height of this thing, My understanding that there was no use of helicopters. No use of helicopters because I think if people aren't familiar with this, we need to point out the fact that that first National Weather Service alert came in at one hundred fourteen AM. It was pitched black in the middle of a monster storm in a very concentrated area there. Emily Dowdy Bush on Facebook asks Has Mystick at any time produced a document or any evidence that they had a flood plan that was shared with counselors each year? anythingything, she says, a map, a protocol that says how to get to higher ground and which cabin goes Good question. There was we know in this manual, if you will, that counselors had There were some basic instructions, but they also mentioned that if you're in these cabins, you are in a safe place and that really stood out to me when I saw that, I'm like, how could they? Because you they weren't in a safe place. Sylvia Vigil on Facebook here I know the answer to this but I have to ask and it breaks my heart. was the last missing girl ever found You, Ce Seil Stewart has not been found. There is still a search for her. and her name has come up a lot in this discussion over whether the camp should go forward m, you know, some folks saying we've got to move on, but a lot of folks say, hey, this is still There's still a child that's missing here And, um you you know, it's like so many things in the story, you just can't imagine Um You know, the whole in the hearts of the family of this young girl And I have to note that the efforts that crews are going to to locate her and bring closure to the family are nothing short of just incredible using high tech sonar going through that river inch by inch, it feels like. And to their credit, they have not given up. Sharon Frley here on Facebook says