Camp Mystic’s college-age counselors had no emergency training or drills before a gigantic and deadly flood swept through the historic girls youth camp last summer, an investigator told state legislators Monday.

“That’s just unthinkable that these girls would have no training,” investigator Casey Garrett said at a joint hearing of two legislative committees investigating what happened during the July 4 flood. 

Camp Mystic also failed to have an evacuation plan as required by the state, Garrett said. Counselors and staff lacked specific assignments for what to do when a flood happened, though Garrett said the Eastland family that ran the camp was familiar with the danger floods posed to the area. 

Garrett said counselors also had no ladders or life jackets for emergency preparedness. 

The early remarks marked the start to a two-day Capitol hearing of the House and Senate flood investigating committees. It comes as public scrutiny has centered in recent weeks on Camp Mystic, where 27 campers and counselors and Dick Eastland, the camp executive director, died during the flood. 

“This tragedy could have been prevented,” Sen. Pete Flores, chair of the Senate investigating committee, said in his opening remarks. 

Rep. Morgan Meyer, chair of the House investigating committee, acknowledged the emotional weight and grief of discussing what happened.

Garrett said the scope of her investigation was limited to what happened at Mystic, though the flood killed more than 100 people when heavy rains caused the Guadalupe River to surge through homes, RV parks and youth camps in the middle of the night. 

The committees’ investigator said she interviewed roughly 140 or 150 witnesses all over the state before Monday, including members of families who lost children, members of the Eastland family who own and run the camp and parents of children who survived. 

Garrett on Monday morning painted a picture of Camp Mystic as a rustic place with a culture rooted in obedience and in legacy, where girls were taught to follow rules and where generations of women attended. 

Dick Eastland reigned as the commander of the camp, Garrett explained — a man people knew not to cross, a man who ran the show. Counselors explained that they knew they would get in trouble with Eastland if they took girls into the lightning or ran to the camp office in the pouring rain, Garrett said. 

On the night before the flood, things went as normal at Camp Mystic, Garrett said. Counselors did skits. Taps got played at night. 

Earlier this month in an Austin courtroom, members of the Eastland family testified about what happened in those horrific hours as the disaster unfolded and they couldn’t get girls out of flooding cabins fast enough. They answered questions as part of a suit filed by the parents of an 8-year-old camper whose body has not been found. The Eastlands face multiple other lawsuits from other parents of children who died. 

Legislators from the two committees visited the camp days after the court hearings, as community members gathered along the highway that winds along the river, holding signs calling for the politicians to remember the other people who died in the flood — which included families on vacation at second homes and RV parks and those who lived in Kerr County full time.

The Senate resolution that created the special investigating committee called for “a complete and thorough examination of the facts and circumstances surrounding the flooding,” and the House resolution called for a similarly broad investigation. 

Still, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows focused on Camp Mystic in written statements when they announced the 10 joint committee members.

Seeing the Camp Mystic property, state Sen. José Menéndez said, brought home the fear and despair the campers must have felt. The San Antonio Democrat expected the committees to revisit the state rules for licensing camps.

“On Monday and Tuesday, when the whole state gets a very detailed description of what happened that night, I think people will be able to fill in some of the gaps that they had,“ Menéndez said. “Hopefully we can also identify those areas where, as a state and as a camp and as citizens, maybe we can see the areas for improvement, areas where we could have done better.”

Texas legislators passed measures last year after the flood to implement new safety rules for youth camps and to require vulnerable areas in the Hill Country to install flood warning sirens, which experts say could help but are not a failsafe solution. 

Camp Mystic is planning to welcome campers back this summer to a portion of its property  that is separate from where the girls died. Patrick, though, has repeatedly called on the state to deny the camp’s operating license. 

The Texas Department of State Health Services, which reviews license applications, and the Texas Rangers are also looking into complaints filed about the care of kids at the camp. A lawyer for Camp Mystic has said the state has no regulatory basis to deny their application and that they are glad for the Rangers to be involved. 

The Texas Department of Public Safety said the Texas Rangers visited Camp Mystic on Thursday.

Ayden Runnels contributed reporting.

This article first appeared on The Texas Tribune.