Approved Flood Bills Designed to Address “A Preventable Failure” at Hill Country Youth Camps

Houston businessman Matthew Childress should have spent last week moving his 18-year-old daughter Chloe into her first college dorm at the University of Texas.

Instead, Childress was at the Texas Capitol, pleading with lawmakers — alongside dozens of other parents whose daughters died at Camp Mystic — for safety measures including evacuation routes and emergency management plans. Within 24 hours of his testimony, the Texas Legislature would pass a package of youth camp safety laws, promising they wouldn’t let such a senseless tragedy happen again on their watch.

Chloe Childress died because, according to her father, she followed instructions outlined in a vague and flimsy training manual: Camp staff were told that, in case of a flood, they and the campers were to stay in their cabins. So