Mixed feelings as Texas camp plans to reopen

After deadly flooding, some call the decision insensitive. Others say they want to return.

- SEAN MURPHY

A SEARCH-and-rescue volunteer holds up a T-shirt and backpack in July after flooding at Camp Mystic.

(DANIELE VILLASANA For the Washington Post)

Patrick Hotze's three daughters made it home safe from Camp Mystic after July's catastrophic floods that killed 25 campers and two teenage counselors. He attended some of the funerals and says he understands the outrage over the Texas camp's plan to partially reopen next year.

He also intends to send his girls back.

"My heart is broken for them," Hotze said of the parents whose girls died, including some he described as close friends. "I think it's different for each kid and each family."

For the first time since the roaring flood, the 100year-old all-girls Christian sleepaway retreat plans to sign up campers in January, forging ahead with a reopening that has divided families and stunned some lawmakers. Campers will start arriving in May, bunking on higher ground than the area where fast-rising waters on the Guadalupe River swept away two cabins.

Some families say the decision to let their daughters return is a vital step in their own healing from the disaster that is still under scrutiny.

The floodwaters that worsened with terrifying quickness during the July 4 holiday weekend killed at least 117 people in Kerr County alone. Two victims have still not been found, including an 8-year-old Camp Mystic camper.

'Healing journey'

Next year, Texas legislators are set to hold investigative hearings into the tragedy, but they have shown little appetite to assign blame.