The operator of Camp Mystic filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, almost a year after catastrophic flooding killed 28 people there.
The company, Camp Mystic L.L.C., submitted a Chapter 11 filing in a Texas bankruptcy court for itself and related companies.
The filing was another turn in the aftermath of a disaster that scarred the Texas Hill Country, taking the lives of more than two dozen children and turning intense scrutiny on the longtime owners of the camp, a decades-old Christian institution that has housed generations of girls.
The flood killed 25 campers, two counselors and the camp’s co-owner and executive director, Dick Eastland.
State investigators earlier this month released their first official findings from the disaster last July 4. They concluded that the camp had inadequate emergency plans and did not respond quickly enough. Although many adults were nearby, investigators said, they were unprepared to evacuate scores of girls to safety.
Investigators also criticized the camp’s efforts after the waters receded, saying its work to reunite families and inform the bereaved were “chaotic.”
Members of the Eastland family, which has managed the camp since 1939, have said that they had never seen the river rise so high. They were overwhelmed, they said, by the scale and speed of the waters that overflowed the Guadalupe River, far surpassing earlier floods.
Parents of campers and counselors who died in the floods have filed suits against Camp Mystic and members of the Eastland family, alleging negligence and arguing that the family was underprepared for serious flooding. Edward Eastland, the director of the site, testified in an April hearing in one case that the day before the flood, he did not discuss the possibility of a disaster with camp workers.
A lawyer who submitted the bankruptcy filing on behalf of the Eastland family did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did a family spokesman.
The Eastlands initially planned to reopen Camp Mystic at a different site nearby for what would have been its 100th summer, but faced barriers in obtaining a license.
The family’s effort to reopen the camp divided what had been a previously tight-knit community of camp alumni. After opposition from the victims’ families and state lawmakers, Camp Mystic said in April that it would remain closed.
Seamus Hughes and David Goodman contributed reporting.
