(KERR COUNTY, Texas) -- The parents of children who were among the 27 killed at Camp Mystic on Texas' Guadalupe River during the historic Fourth of July flash flooding that devastated the Hill Country region gave emotional testimony on Wednesday before a state legislative committee probing the disaster.
A coalition of Camp Mystic parents testified before the Texas Senate Disaster Preparedness and Flooding Select Committee, which is considering reforms to increase safety at youth camps across the state.
Cici Williams Steward told the committee that her 8-year-old daughter, Cile Steward, is the only Camp Mystic camper still missing, and one of two flood victims that remain unaccounted for in the wake of the disaster.
"Three generations of women in my family went to Camp Mystic. This year, it was finally Cile's turn. She was 8 years old, going for the very first time, her heart full of excitement to join the tradition of her mother, her aunt and her grandmother, her great aunt and five cousins," Steward told the panel. "For Cile, camp meant adventure, memories, friendships, and lessons to carry for a lifetime. For me, it meant watching my child grow and learn, but always under the assurance that she would be safe."
Steward added, "Joy and growth cannot exist without safety. Cile's chance to experience camp only existed because I was ensured that her safety and the safety of all the young girls was paramount. I ask you, what could have been more important than that? But that assurance was betrayed. Obvious common-sense safety measures were absent, protocols that should have been in place were ignored. As a result, my daughter was stolen from us.
Sitting next to her husband, Steward said the agonizing experience of waiting for her daughter's remains to be recovered has left her and her family in a "torture chamber of uncertainty."
"Cile's life ended, not because of an unavoidable act of nature, but because of preventable failures on just her fifth day of camp," Steward said, breaking into tears.
Steward and the other parents who testified asked the committee to pass Senate Bill 1, a measure that will boost safety at campgrounds along the Guadalupe River, where Camp Mystic was devastated during the flood.
"Our children’s lives were cut short because the safeguards in place were not enough," the Campaign for Camp Safety, a group that includes the Camp Mystic parents, said in a statement released this week ahead of Wednesday's hearing. "We are asking lawmakers to make sure no other family ever has to endure the pain we have lived with every day since July 4th."
Proposed bill intended to bolster camp safety
Texas State Sen. Charles Perry said the senate bill will place "basic campground safety reforms" on campgrounds, requiring them to have emergency plans on file with the county, prevent cabins from being constructed in flood plains, force camps to equip cabins with safety roof-top ladders and radios and require them to have at least two separate internet connections.
Perry said that had Senate Bill 1 -- which will be renamed the "Heaven 27 Camp Safety Act" -- been in existence during the flood, "I have no doubt that some lives, if not all lives, would have been saved on the camp front."
The parents testifying on Wednesday were expected to make additional suggestions on how to improve camp safety along the Guadalupe River. In its statement, the group said it wants lawmakers to require campgrounds in a 100-year floodplain like Camp Mystic to equip cabins with emergency rooftop ladders and develop flash flood evacuation plans.
"It didn’t even cross my mind that a camp like Mystic wouldn’t have a detailed emergency procedure in place. When action was finally taken, it was too little, too late," Michael McCown, whose 7-year-old daughter, Linnie McCown, died in the flooding. We did not send Linnie to a war zone. We sent her to camp. We trusted she would be safe. No parent should ever again face what we are living through now."
'She not only wan't safe, she died'
Carrie Hanna described her 8-year-old daughter, Hadley, as a "hilarious, kind, caring, silly, loving little girl who always wanted to help others."
"I told her camp was the safest place she could be, and she would make new friends and learn new things," Hanna said. "I lied to her. She not only wasn't safe, she died."
Hanna said her daughter died "because there was no plan, because there was no backup system or sirens, because the sweet 18- and 19-year-old counselors did not have the training they needed."
"Instead, they were told to stay in place, a rule that proved to be fatal," Hanna said.
Wiping away tears, Clark Baker held up a photo of his 8-year-old daughter, Mary Grace Baker, holding up a fish she had caught.
"This picture you're seeing was my last living memory of my daughter," Baker said.
'I sit before you a broken man'
Brandt Dillon, whose 8-year-old daughter, Lucy, was killed, pleaded with the committee to not allow Senate Bill 1 to be "watered down" before it is passed.
"When Lucy left for camp, it was the very first time she ever slept away from us," Dillon said. "We entrusted her care to the camp operator and never for a moment did we believe she would be returned in a casket."
He called his daughter his "best friend, my greatest contribution to society," and told the committee, "Today I sit before you a broken man."
"I will never forget the emotionless call that she was simply unaccounted for," Dillon recalled. "We must make sure that when parents entrust their children to camps that they can have confidence that facilities are safe, operators are prepared and emergency plans are sufficient and executable. And, I'll add, enforced as well."
Ryan DeWitt told the committee that he dropped off two daughters at Camp Mystic and only one came home alive. In his testimony, DeWitt recalled his final goodbye with his younger daughter, 9-year-old Molly.
"She walked up to me. I was on one knee. She gave me a big hug. She pulled back. She grabbed me by both arms and she looked me directly in the eye, and no less than ten times with eye contact I had never experienced from this little girl, she said, 'I love you, dad. I love you, dad. I love you, dad," DeWitt said.
The heartbreaking testimony moved members of the committee to tears.
"I want you to know, you're being heard," a tearful state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst told the parents who testified. "You're impacting lives."
Camp Mystic, one of 19 youth summer camps on the Guadalupe River near Hunt, Texas, was devastated on July 4 when torrential rains fell over a short amount of time, causing the river to overflow in the early morning hours of July 4, trapping many campers in their cabins. Officials in hard-hit Kerr County, where Camp Mystic is located, said that more than 12 inches of rain fell in under 6 hours, and that the Guadalupe River rose more than 20 feet per hour during the storm.
At least 138 people were killed in flash flooding across the Hill Country region, including 117 in Kerr County, officials said.
During an Aug. 1 hearing of the Texas House and Senate Select Committees on Disaster Preparedness and Flooding, the Kerr County emergency management director conceded that he was sick and asleep as the water rose to historic levels on the Guadalupe River.
Other Kerr County officials testified that an inadequate flash-flood warning system upstream contributed to the disaster.
Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly testified that in the aftermath of the flooding, the county commissioned an independent hydrology study that confirmed the July weather event was a 1,000-year flood.
"By the time flooding became visible downstream, upstream communities, including multiple youth camps, were already underwater," Kelly said.
When committee members asked Kelly why an evacuation order was not issued, he said, "It was too late."
ABC News' Jeffrey Cook contributed to this report.
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