Stuck at Camp Forever

Summary

Podcast Summary: Where the River Took Us

Episode 4: "Stuck at Camp Forever"

Host: Texas Monthly Senior Editor Aaron Parsley
Date: June 9, 2026

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Main Theme & Purpose

In this emotionally charged episode, host Aaron Parsley (A)—himself a survivor of the 2025 Central Texas floods—interviews Michael McCown (B), a father grappling with the devastating loss of his eight-year-old daughter, Lenny, during the tragedy at Camp Mystic. The conversation delves deep into the personal aftermath of mass tragedy, the complex process of grieving, searching for accountability, and finding ways to channel loss into purposeful action. The episode explores individual and collective grief, the need for answers and reforms, and how survivors work to make sure such a tragedy does not happen again.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: The Aftermath and Initial Grief

• Aaron recounts the immediate chaos after the flood: losing his home, the search for his nephew, and the viral response to his Pulitzer-winning article (00:00–02:20).
• Michael McCown’s introduction and connection: Michael reaches out to Aaron after reading his story. Both grapple with their roles as survivors—one having lost a child, the other trying to support his grieving sister (03:10–04:10).
• Aaron reflects on survivor’s guilt and the randomness of fate:
  "I was honest. It was just chance that I survived… Even though I understood that this was possibly how I was going to die." (02:40)

2. Remembering Lenny

• Michael welcomes Aaron to his home and shares memories of Lenny:
  • Her bedroom is left much as it was, filled with stuffed animals and handprint messages from friends (05:00–06:00).
  • Lenny was shy, deeply loved dance and gymnastics, and was the “glue” of her family (06:10–07:00, 06:33).
  • First-time camper, eager for new experiences at Camp Mystic (07:00–09:00).
  • Michael poignantly describes the hopes parents have for summer camp:
    "What if they become really good friends and then they go to college together… That's what we wanted out of this." (08:29)

3. The Day of the Flood: Parental Terror and Systemic Failures

• Michael describes the dawning horror as news trickles in:
  • Slow realization as unprepared parents hear rumors, get cryptic communications, and drive into disaster (11:02–12:30).
  • The chaos at the reunification center:
    "That Ingram Elementary was like a college reunion from hell." (12:58)
• Fragmented information and fruitless waiting:
  • Families vanish quietly—a sign that deaths are being confirmed privately (13:31–14:30).

4. The Search for Lenny

• Michael’s firsthand search and the devastation at Camp Mystic:
  • Describes a landscape shattered by the flood—scattered belongings, cabins eerily intact, the ordeal of searching (16:20–19:15).
  • Lenny's cabin, Bubble Inn, survived physically but was the scene of tremendous loss (17:15–18:21).
  • Michael finds a girl’s body but not his daughter:
    "She just looked like that’s where she was." (20:40)
  • Emotional toll of searching:
    "You got to do something even if it ends up being futile." (20:57)
• Mistaken identification and ultimate confirmation:
  • After misidentification and DNA confusion, Lenny is finally located via DNA testing, bringing both relief and devastation (22:34–23:26).
  • Michael reflects:
    "It will hurt my family forever that for reasons I still do not know, these protections were not in place or not thought out thoroughly for my daughter and the rest of the girls here." (31:53)

5. Living with Loss

• The ongoing, nonlinear process of grief:
  • Michael:
    "Some weeks are worse than, like, right after when it happened. … Days are one step forward. Next day is five steps back." (23:54)
  • Aaron discusses the desperate urge to undo the past:
    "Grief is this like intense desire to change what happened." (25:21)
  • The sense of a daughter "stuck at camp forever" and facing the empty space she left (25:49).

6. Demanding Answers and Pushing for Reform

• Michael’s call for accountability and transparency:
  • Believes the deaths were preventable—not just a "tragic twist of fate" but failures in protection and emergency response (27:05–27:57).
• Legislative testimony and reform:
  • Michael addresses the Texas Capitol, recounting his loss to support new camp safety legislation (29:46–31:13).
    • Notable quote:
      "This bill is written in the blood of our daughters." (32:44)
  • Laws quickly signed to strengthen camp safety procedures, remove floodplain cabins, require detailed emergency planning.
• Ongoing lawsuit against Camp Mystic’s owners:
  • Families believe the Eastland family’s generational knowledge should have prevented tragedy despite claims of regulatory compliance (32:44–33:59).
  • Michael's motivation:
    "We want to know every single thing that happened, and so far, none of that has been really revealed to us except for through our own investigations." (33:59)

7. Forgiveness vs. Accountability

• Complexities of forgiveness:
  • "Forgiveness doesn't exclude accountability. It doesn't give a pardon. But that's just not where my head's at right now."* (34:30)

8. Life After: Turning Grief into Action

• Impact on families and the closure of Camp Mystic:
  • Camp Mystic withdraws license to operate the following summer, citing ongoing grief and investigations (35:08–35:50).
• Channeling loss into advocacy and innovation:
  • Michael leaves his oil and gas startup, pours himself into tech for first-responder communications (36:27–37:19).
  • Creates H27 Technologies (“Heavens 27”) and “Linisync” software, dedicated to keeping children safer in future disasters (37:19–38:09).
    • "For me, it is a singular purpose. I'm doing this in honor of my daughter. And it's also a way for me to put my energy into something productive rather than other things. Right. Get lost in my own thoughts. … It's part of who I am now." (38:09)

9. Looking Forward

• Aaron on the many faces of grief:
  • Next episode preview—expanding on how families each find different ways to process and memorialize loss (38:36–end).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Michael on randomness and grief:
  "It was just chance that I survived… you know, I really don't have anyone to blame." (03:00)
• Michael on the impact of losing a child:
  "Everything about her, you know, we miss. … She would show me things, either on purpose or just by being her, that I think softened a lot of my behavior over the last decade." (24:00)
• Michael on the trauma of waiting:
  "That Ingram Elementary was like a college reunion from hell." (12:58)
• Michael testifying at the Capitol:
  "This bill is written in the blood of our daughters." (32:44)
• On forgiveness and accountability:
  "Forgiveness doesn't exclude accountability. It doesn't give a pardon. But that's just not where my head's at right now." (34:30)
• On purpose after tragedy:
  "For me, it is a singular purpose. I'm doing this in honor of my daughter." (38:09)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• Background on the flood and viral article: 00:00–03:00
• Arrival at the McCowns’ home, Lenny’s room: 04:46–05:50
• Family and personality of Lenny: 05:50–07:00
• Camp Mystic traditions/culture: 07:00–09:00
• Last exchanges before camp, letters home: 09:07–10:28
• Sequence of events on July 4th: 10:45–12:34
• Reunification chaos at Ingram Elementary: 12:43–13:54
• Search at Camp Mystic post-flood: 16:02–19:17
• Finding a child’s body, identifying Lenny: 20:34–23:26
• Grieving and the desire for change: 23:54–26:29
• Michael’s advocacy and legislative testimony: 27:57–32:44
• Details of new safety laws, lawsuits: 32:44–34:15
• Forgiveness and accountability: 34:15–35:08
• Camp Mystic’s closure announcement: 35:08–36:27
• Turning grief into communication reform, founding H27: 36:27–38:09

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Tone and Language

The episode is deeply compassionate, sober, and raw. There is a palpable sense of unfinished mourning, coupled with a grim drive to transform anger and regret into tangible reform and innovation. Both Aaron and Michael speak with openness, vulnerability, and an undercurrent of hope that their pain might spark lifesaving change for others.

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For Listeners

If you or someone you know was affected by the 2025 Central Texas floods—or if you’re connected to summer camp communities—you will find this episode profoundly moving. It serves as both a personal chronicle of one family's nightmare and a testament to resilience, civic activism, and the necessity of accountability in the wake of mass tragedy.

Transcript

[A]

Before we get started, a warning that this show contains descriptions of subjects including child loss, drowning, and grief. Texas monthly. The day after the flood, I'd gotten up early. I was still feeling that intense combination of distraught, exhilarated, and emotionally overwhelmed. I wrote an email to several folks at Texas Monthly, where I work, to tell them what had happened and that my nephew Clay was missing. That was a Saturday. On Sunday, I called our editor in chief, Ross McCammon, and let him know that Clay had been found. And he and I discussed whether or not I would want to write a story about what had happened. And he said that if I was up for writing the story like I had suggested, the Texas Monthly would want to run it as the COVID of the August issue. And, you know, I wanted this story to honor our family, to honor Clay. I wanted this story to be a record of what happened and a way for me to tell what I knew to be true, which is that my sister is a hero, that my sister did everything she could in an impossible situation, that she saved her daughter and saved herself, and that we're really grateful for her. I wrote the story in a couple days, and we published it a few days after that. I didn't know it at the time, but the story went viral almost immediately. My email and my phone started going off. I was receiving lots of letters and messages from people who had read the story, people who knew me or my family. I got a text message from a guy named Michael McCown, an old friend of mine. Michael told me that he had read the story. He offered his condolences. He asked me to give him a call and said that his daughter Linnie had been at Camp mystic and that she didn't make it. I called him right away, and he said that he had been down there in the area the day after the flood looking for his daughter himself, and that Texas Rangers had ID'd her body. The day before we spoke, Michael and I agreed to meet for coffee at a neighborhood spot along the Colorado River. You know, I don't have children. I didn't lose a child. And so whenever I get a chance to hear how he and his wife are doing, it just helps me better understand what my sister's going through. I think he wanted to understand something in me. In the same way he said that for him and his wife's sake, he wanted to know what it was like to be in the water so that they could know as much as possible about their daughter's fate. I told him the truth. I was honest. It was just chance That I survived. I told him that I knew that this may be the end of my life, but that I didn't feel afraid because I think my body and my mind just didn't allow for me to feel that fear. Even though I understood that this was possibly how I was going to die. Having that conversation with Michael sort of opened up something in me. Like I started to understand that this event, this flood, was affecting people all over the place, not just people who were there. And it made me realize that he and I were not alone. And I don't. I don't. I don't feel angry about this. I felt that it was extremely unfair, but I don't know who to be angry at. You know, I really don't have anyone to blame. But things are different for Michael. It's a much different situation. There were people who were meant to be taking care of his daughter when she died. And now he's seeking transparency so he and others will know exactly what happened and accountability to ensure it doesn't happen again. From Texas Monthly, I'm Aaron Parsley, and this is where the river took us. Episode 4 Stuck at Camp Forever. You can see all the ribbons on the streets, on the trees and stuff. One afternoon last fall, I went to visit Michael at his home in Tarrytown. It's a neighborhood in West Austin. A few of the girls who died at Camp mystic were from here, and their neighbors had tied ribbons around the tree in their memory. This feels like a neighborhood where everybody knows everybody. We walked through the metal gate to a cute cream colored house. It had big windows and black shutters, and the stars and stripes waved from a flagpole on the porch. Hey, good to see you.

[B]

You too.

[A]

How you doing?

[B]

All right.

[A]

Thanks for having us.

[B]

Michael. Come on in. This is Ramona.

[A]

Hi, Ramona. We were greeted right away by their very friendly French bulldog.

[B]

That's the dog that Lenny begged me to adopt, and I was very against it. She's just a sweet little couch potato.

[A]

Really sweet.

[B]

This is Lenny's room, slash George's room.

[A]

I had asked to see Lenny's bedroom, and Michael led us to her brother George's room where she spent most of her time.

[B]

And so this is all of her decorations, everything else like that, all of

[A]

Lenny's stuff, A lot of stuffed animals,

[B]

a lot of pink. Yeah, she loved American Girl dolls for a while, and then she kind of grew out of it. And then they became like Toy Story creatures, you know, like the ones that got their hair cut and painted on.

[A]

And so they became there Are reminders of Lenny everywhere. Across the window, there's a chain of pink and blue paper cut out handprints with messages from her classmates all laminated.

[B]

And they just wrote little notes to her.

[A]

So Lynnie is a nice girl. She always has a smile. Love, Natalie. Lenny. What I keep thinking about is Lenny's shyness. What I liked best about her was her shyness.

[B]

Was she shy? A little bit. Like in a setting like dance where there were a bunch of other girls, she might not have been the first person, you know, making a bunch of noise and yelling, but she would warm up pretty quickly to just about everybody. We tried soccer and basketball, but she was really serious about dance and gymnastics. She was so good at it and she worked so hard on it every day. Like I knew her footsteps. This is an old house and the forest creek. And you can hear when she's doing a handstand and her feet drop back down, things like that.

[A]

Lenny was the middle child between two brothers. She was eight years old last summer. Bates was 11 and George was three.

[B]

Right. They're both boys and so they connect. But Lenny was the one that really was the glue. And you hear that word a lot with all these girls who died, that they were the glue of the family.

[A]

She went to camp for the first time this year, right?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. We put the idea out there, do you want to go to this camp? And she said yes. And it wasn't something that we had to drag her to do. She was really excited about it.

[A]

Summer camp culture is a big deal out here. Camp mystic is a private Christian summer camp for girls ages 7 to 17 on the banks of the Guadalupe. Campers do all kinds of activities like archery, kayaking, swimming, dance. Our river house was directly across the river from two summer camps, Camp Rio Vista and Camp Sierra Vista. It's a boys camp and a girls camp. And you can see them from our balcony. And we could hear the music that they played. We could hear the announcements that they made. And we saw the campers kayak by the house sometimes. They had a water slide, the most massive, impressive rope swing. And this giant looks like a giant inflatable pillow they call the Blob. It just looks like a lot of fun. And these places exist in a paradise. You know, it's beautiful. It's exactly where any kid would want to be during the summertime. And some of them are over 100 years old. Generations of Texans have gone to these camps. There's a lot of pride involved in people who identify with their camps. I think it's because it's such a meaningful time and a meaningful experience, and they come away with new friendships and connections. This was Lenny's first summer going to camp out there at mystic. So the McCowns aren't one of those families who've been sending their kids there for generations, but they knew how those camp friendships worked.

[B]

And that was really cool because it's like, what if they become really good friends and then they go to college together, right? And they're in each other's weddings and things like that. Like, that's what we wanted out of this, was to for them to make lifelong friends and do some things that they wouldn't normally be able to do here, you know, in Austin.

[A]

Before she went to camp, Lenny had only ever been away overnight for sleepovers with friends.

[B]

And it's a month, so it's scary for an eight year old. But it was filled with so many of her friends, and so there was a lot of people there that she knew, and they were all, you know, there to make sure she had a good time to look after her.

[A]

So on the last weekend in June, Michael and his wife Callie drove her out to a spot near town where girls meet up for a ride out to Camp Mystic.

[B]

We just. We dropped Lenny off at a parking lot where the Camp mystic buses were, where we loaded up her trunk. And then, you know, we said bye. And that was it. Bye. We love you. Can't wait to see you. And actually, you know, she told us we weren't allowed to go on any trips because she didn't want us to die. She didn't want our plane to crash. She was. And I'm like, nothing's gonna happen. Like, we're gonna be fine. We haven't planned any secret trips without you. And so you're not missing out on anything. In fact, you're having more fun than anybody else here.

[A]

In her five days at camp, Lenny wrote letters home.

[B]

We got so many letters from Lenny, even, of course, after the event, because they were still in the mail. And she was honest with us, too. She was like, I got homesick the first couple nights, but she was having the best time. But she's not. You know, I see the. The term on social media like these mystic angels, you know, in quotes, like, you know, she was there for five days, right? I mean, so she never got had the chance to become, you know, one of those girls.

[A]

We left the bedroom and sat down in their living room. Ramona, the French bulldog, jumped on Michael's lap, and as she fell Asleep and started snoring gently. Michael told me about the fourth. Michael got up early that Friday, and he was getting ready to go out for a coffee run.

[B]

And as I was about to leave, Callie, you know, sat up in bed and said, michael, something's going on at Mystic. I'm like, what are you talking about? It's like, because of all this rain. And I'm like, well, I'm gonna go get coffee, and then let's just wait to hear, you know, what else happens.

[A]

On his way to Starbucks, Michael got a call from his neighbor, whose nieces were also at Mystic.

[B]

And he says, hey, I'm gonna go and pick up some supplies and go down there and see if I can help. I said, well, I mean, what are you talking about?

[A]

At this point? He's still thinking maybe the cabin roof's leaked or maybe there's a little water that seeped in. And this is something I remember so well, waking up that morning, slowly putting the pieces together and being so unprepared for the magnitude of what was actually happening.

[B]

As I was driving back, Callie called me and said, hey. And she's, you know, borderline hysterical at this point that people don't know where Lenny's cabin is. Like, there's no. No one has eyes on Lenny or any of these girls. I'm like, that doesn't make sense.

[A]

Michael called his neighbor back, and they headed out there together. They stopped to pick up a bigger truck, bought some rope and other supplies they thought they might need.

[B]

Like, we didn't know what. We were grabbing flashlights, and as we drove down there, you know, it was raining sheets the entire time.

[A]

The drive from Austin is at least a couple hours. It was getting lighter, the floodwaters were receding, but they still ran into standing water as they got close.

[B]

And then before we got there, I got an email that said, if you've not been contacted by us directly, then your daughter is accounted for. And I think that was like 10, 30 or 11. And I'm like, okay, well, I haven't been contacted, and Callie hadn't been contacted yet. And then I got a call, and

[A]

then his father in law called and said Callie had heard from the camp and Lenny was missing.

[B]

So that's when it really sunk in. And it was pretty quiet.

[A]

It was around 11 when they reached Kerrville. Authorities directed Michael and his neighbor to a reunification center at Ingram Elementary School, where my family had been earlier that morning when they were still setting up and where campers were being sent to reunite with their parents.

[B]

And that Ingram elementary was like a college reunion from hell. It was everybody across the state of Texas who sent their kids to these camps that were in session were all there to pick up their kids. So I saw people from high school. I saw friends from my professional life. We stayed there all day and all night. Not much information. Nothing from the camp. And it's just rumors flying around of why. Where are they?

[A]

Michael heard that a friend of Lenny's who'd been in a cabin close to hers had been found alive downriver. The neighbor that Michael raced out there with had two nieces who were at camp mystic on July 4th. Both survived. There were so many remote pockets along the twisting Guadalupe, he imagined his daughter alone but alive, waiting to be found.

[B]

So you just hear these rumors of people being found on islands or whatever, and there are, like, grainy pictures being circulated around, and I had no idea what they were. And then, like, the weirdest thing started happening. People, families, would just, like, disappear. And in my mind, I was like, why would y' all leave? Like, this is so weird. You just. I just saw you. Now you're gone. Like, our girls are out there. They might be coming in any second. It wasn't until a couple hours later that I realized, you know, they're getting calls from the sheriff's office or the justice of the peace to come identify their daughter.

[A]

Eventually, Michael ended up at a church where some families were still waiting for news. And then that night, Michael got one of those calls. Someone at the sheriff's office told him they'd found a girl who they thought might be Lenny and asked Michael to come to Grind's Funeral Chapels in Kerrville. After the flood, the owners of this funeral home had stepped up to help with the massive tragedy. It had become a de facto morgue, and there was a tent set up outside. This was the same funeral home where I'd gone with Lance to identify Clay. Michael headed over there and brought pictures of Lennie, and he also brought pictures of other missing girls in case one of them was a match. When he got there, the officer said he wasn't sure, thinking that that was

[B]

going to be Lenny. And I was about to look at her body was. I don't even know what to call it. Very hard, right? Thinking that this was it, and I'm about to walk 20 yards away and see her.

[A]

So Michael went in to see for himself. But when he did, he realized that the little girl they found wasn't Lenny. Michael called Callie. Neither of them had heard any news. He spent the night at a Friend's house there in Kerrville.

[B]

I just remember crying all night, like. Like, what went wrong? I woke up the next morning and I decided, I'm not going to go sit at a church anymore. Like, that's just not what I wanted to do.

[A]

Michael was going back to look for Lenny himself. By now, his brother had come out to help him. And together they got in the truck and drove upriver along the highway, past all the devastation, the moonscape of riverbanks stripped of their trees. It's about 15 miles from Kerrville to Camp Mystic.

[B]

When we get to the entrance, there's a game warden truck there. And I said, you know, my daughter is unaccounted for. She was at camp. And he goes, well, we're not really supposed to let people in here. I'm like, I gotta go in.

[A]

The official let Michael in, but warned him.

[B]

We don't know what it's like, you know, if something looks dangerous, you know, don't do it. Like, he's basically saying, you're on your own.

[A]

They drove further into the camp and found themselves alone with the wreckage. Brightly colored shirts and other clothes belonging to the campers were scattered on the ground and hanging in the limbs of trees. Can you just talk about what it looked like?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, the way that the trees looked, the way equipment was downstream, you know, these trunks just exploded. The big dining hall had a giant wall washed away. As we drove around, another truck drove through, and it was an older couple. And I said, do you know where Bubble Inn is?

[A]

Bubble Inn is the name of Lenny's cabin.

[B]

And they pointed it to me. So we drove over there. And that's when we were at the flats area where the younger campers were all staying.

[A]

The Flats, the prettiest spot on low ground, just about 500ft from the river. He realized now for the first time that it was these cabins where the youngest campers had been. Bubble Inn was one of them. Another was called Twins.

[B]

And so the first thing I thought of before I even entered into Bubble Inn is I'm just, like, looking around, and I'm like, this doesn't make sense. I don't even know how I can even articulate this, but there's no reason geographically right here, and this is basically in the middle of camp. They can't find any of these girls. I'm just like, how is this possible?

[A]

The flats were littered with dead fish. Michael saw someone had moved things out of the cabin. The girl's belongings, bed frames, some other furniture. But the cabin itself was still There it was intact.

[B]

Intact. I didn't see any broken windows. Maybe like one broken window. A lot of the screens were still on the windows, but inside it was. There's some mud on the ground, just wet clothes, personal items, things I would have thought would have washed away.

[A]

He even recognized some of his daughter's things.

[B]

One of Lenny's little throw blankets. I found her digital watch. Like random things. And we were just trying to figure out, like, what do we do next? There was no search and rescue. There's. So we started just walking around, seeing what we could find. Any signs of these girls. And all the while there were drones kind of flying over us. And I didn't know if they were law enforcement drones. I didn't know if they were from some kid down the road just flying around and saw people. I had no idea. But we didn't have contact with anybody.

[A]

A few trucks with game wardens showed up and Michael realized they weren't part of a wider organized rescue effort. They were just here to help and search.

[B]

And we walked down with them and it's just looks like a war zone, like with trees, splintered, shattered cars, everything like that.

[A]

Was it hard to maneuver around everything?

[B]

Yeah, there are boulders, downed trees, you know, 75 foot cypress trees toppled over and broken. A lot of debris. It was like pictures of nine, 11, but more natural. Like instead of rebar and concrete, the natural environment was just completely upheaval.

[A]

Michael took a moment, he walked up a hill for better cell reception and checked in with his wife Callie.

[B]

After that, I went back down and I kind of knew in my heart that it's going to be very hard to find Lenny alive. And so I went back out downstream and I'm like, I'm just going to keep walking and just see what I can find. And eventually about. I think it was about a mile downstream is when I. Something caught my eye.

[A]

It was a girl's body. She was under a fallen tree and it wasn't Lenny.

[B]

And she was, I guess, good shape. Like no bruises, no cuts, no anything. She just looked like that's where she was.

[A]

He was able to flag down some officials who took the girl's body away. Do you realize how strong he must have been to have to do all that?

[B]

I mean, you got to do something even if it ends up being futile.

[A]

Right?

[B]

Like we found this one girl and that makes me really happy. Like in a weird way, like she was found and she is known and she is someone's baby and maybe my daughter gave me the strength to go over that next pile of brush. You know, once we found that girl, I'm like, all right, if I do any more, I'm probably gonna just hurt myself. So that night we were at the church and I was getting ready to leave, and then I got a call that I need to come back to Grimes and identify a body. And I didn't tell my wife yet that I was going over there. I was like, I want to make sure it's her.

[A]

Identifying a body that has been in the water after a few days is not easy to do. Michael went in, and this time the girl he saw looked like Lenny.

[B]

And they didn't take a DNA swab. They just said, all right, we'll send her to your funeral home. And that's when I called Callie and I said, you know, I just ID'd her. And my brother and father in law said the same thing. That's her. So I don't get into Austin until 11pm that night. I don't need to describe what it's like to, you know, tell your son that his little sister's not coming home. It's about as terrible as anybody could imagine it.

[A]

But then a day or two later, Michael got word that the girl he'd seen wasn't Lenny after all. The body he'd seen was somebody else's daughter.

[B]

And that girl was already in Austin. And our funeral director was just like, I can't believe that he sent this girl here.

[A]

So you found out from the. From the rangers that first. When they first called.

[B]

So she had. That girl was matched DNA with her family. I asked them, I said, do you all need my DNA? Remember the justice of the peace saying no.

[A]

The Texas Rangers had taken over making IDs and told Michael they had a few unidentified girls. Michael went back to Kerrville to give the rangers a sample of his DNA. They called back to tell Michael and Callie that Lenny was one of those girls.

[B]

And so, like, strangely enough, that was very good, right? Like, not what we want, but at least we got her.

[A]

She'd been found a couple miles downriver, well beyond where Michael had been searching. I can't imagine the rollercoaster of emotions, searching for his daughter, finding another little girl, showing up to ID bodies. Michael's experience was so heartbreaking to hear.

[B]

Now, nothing is worse than July 4th and July 5th, but some weeks are worse than, like, right after when it happened. And I think it's going to be more measured in years than it is ever going to be in days, because days are one. Day is one step forward. Next day is five steps back. Everything about her, you know, we miss. You know, I laugh about this is like she was so difficult the mornings of school. Like we would fight every morning to get her from her bed to that table, to eat her food, to get dressed and go to school. And then of course, on the weekends, she would be up at the time, same, same exact time, on her own volition, doing whatever she wanted to. It's things like that that I'll think about that will just come across my mind. And I'm like, I really miss that part about her. Lenny showed me so much about what it's like to interact with girls. Like they're alien to me, like these little girls. But I grew every day with her and she would show me things, either on purpose or just by being her. That I think softened a lot of my behavior over the last decade.

[A]

Well, after Lenny was found and you knew that she was gone, obviously it's sort of a whole new phase of this experience. And I was trying to think about, like, what grief is. And I think for me, in the immediate aftermath, grief is this like intense desire to change what happened. You just don't want to accept it. There's gotta be something I can do.

[B]

Yeah, that's what it is. Because it feels like she could just be around the corner at any moment. Right. I bring Bates lunch every now and then at school. And I see all of her friends at the table that she's supposed to be at too. And so there's this mental part of me that's like trying to protect me. We have pictures of her getting on the bus and then we never saw her again. So she's stuck at camp forever.

[A]

That long path to finding acceptance is one that I recognize too. And the search for answers was so much more difficult for Michael, who wasn't there. Which is why he wanted me to tell him what it was like to be in the river.

[B]

And I don't know, we don't know what like the last moments of our girls lives were. I hope we find out one day, because there were 300 people at that camp. Somebody must have seen what happened. And there's a lot of it is just asking why, like, why did this happen on this one night out of the history of the world in this one part of this one county in Texas

[A]

after the flood. He kept hearing people say how tragic his daughter's death was. And something about that bothered him. Michael believes that Linney died not by a tragic twist of fate, but because of the decisions, actions and Inactions made by other people. Other people whose job it was to keep her safe. There's a chance you've heard Michael talk about Lenny and the flood somewhere before. Since the flood, he's been an outspoken advocate for changing laws and demanding answers from the ownership of Camp Mystic. It's another way our stories diverge. His grief and his determination to honor Lenny have been channeled into this very public project. A few weeks after I went to his house, Michael agreed to come to our studio to talk about that work.

[B]

After we were able to digest the entire scope of what happened and talking to each other, then it's like, why did this happen, not the flood? You know, I hear the word act of God mentioned quite a bit. And, yeah, that's the weather, but we've been predicting the weather for thousands of years. After my mind cleared, I realized something was really amiss. Something happened in the situation there end and as close as they were to safety that they weren't evacuated. The youngest, most vulnerable children at the camp were left alone until it was too late. The idea that all of the deaths in this mass death event happened within, like, 30 yards of each other. That's where all these girls were sleeping. Is very telling that something seriously went wrong.

[A]

Of the 27 campers and counselors who died at Camp mystic, all but one were in those two cabins on the flats. Bubblin and twins. There's been some reporting since the flood about how close those cabins were to the river. According to the New York Times, Twins was actually in the Guadalupe river floodway, and bubble inn was just a bit beyond in what was designated a flood risk area. Then there were the emergency instructions, which were still pinned to the wall at Twins after the water receded that said if there was a flood, campers and counselors should stay in their cabins and wait for instructions from the staff.

[B]

So that's really where all this is coming from. It's just accountability.

[A]

So one day last August, Michael put on a gray suit, A white dress shirt, and a purple tie and headed to the state capitol.

[B]

It reminded me a lot of waking up the day of Lenny's funeral. Or you wake up in the morning and you have something really big that is just hanging over your day. I wrote a speech.

[A]

Lawmakers had proposed new safety rules for camps, and Michael and other Camp mystic parents had a chance to testify in support of the bill. This was about six weeks after the flood, and they were suddenly the center of attention in the press.

[B]

My name is Michael McCown, and I'm here representing myself and my wife, Callie, in support of SB1, Chairman Perry and the members of the committee, I want to thank each of you for inviting us, the families who lost our daughters at Camp mystic during the Kerr county floods. And we knew we were going to get a longer time to speak than the public because we were specifically invited. It was intimidating at first, but when you're speaking from the heart and something that you are very passionate about, I mean, all that just goes away. Lenny was the middle child between her brothers, Bates, who's 11, and George, who's 3. To Bates, she was the pesky but beloved little sister. To George, she was a gentle, playful mother figure. On the weekends, she would even pour him Cheerios of milk so my wife and I could get a couple more minutes of rest.

[A]

She.

[B]

To everyone else, she was a joy. She hugged her teachers, was a friend to everybody, and spread an infectious giggle everywhere she went. That was the first time I think anybody really heard our stories. And we went there as grieving parents with a huge amount of loss, trying to make a very bold statement that the status quo is not good enough, clearly, and that action had to be taken. The camp had a heightened duty of care, and they failed to perform. That failure cost 25 campers and two young counselors their lives. No one had to die that day. It will hurt my family forever that for reasons I still do not know, these protections were not in place or not thought out thoroughly for my daughter and the rest of the girls here. SB1 cannot bring Lenny back, but it can save other children. Please pass this bill. Protect our kids, and do not let their deaths be in vain. That is all.

[A]

So when it did come time to put this legislation together, how did you and the other families, like, come up with what you wanted in the bill?

[B]

So we obviously didn't write the bill because none of us were pros at this. And so we went through the Capitol, made meetings, and we were able to tell them about our children. You know, this bill is written in the blood of our daughters.

[A]

The changes the bill proposed included stricter licensing rules for kids camps to be licensed. Those camps couldn't have cabins and floodplains along rivers. They'd need to file emergency plans with local officials and review the plans with campers. That reform bill, along with two others, sailed through the Capitol around two weeks after Michael testified. That day, the governor signed them into law. Not long after, though, Michael and some other families sued the owners of Camp mystic. Since the 1970s, mystic has been owned and run by the Eastland family. Dick and Tweedie Eastland were the camp's directors on July 4, and Dick Eastland died in his SUV that morning trying to rescue campers. Their attorney has told Texas Monthly that the camp's emergency plan was informed by past floods and were at the time in line with the requirements of government agencies. But the McCowns and the families of other campers who died believe the people running the camp were irresponsible with their children's lives, despite generational knowledge of the area, including its history of flooding. What in your mind, do you hope will be achieved? Like, what in your mind does accountability look like?

[B]

We want to know every single thing that happened, and so far, none of that has been really revealed to us except for through our own investigations and speaking with people. And we deserve to know everything.

[A]

Another thing that stuck with me that I thought was really powerful is the idea that forgiveness and accountability kind of exist at the same time and in the same process, but they don't replace each other.

[B]

Yeah, well, you know, I think everybody has the capacity for forgiveness. I think that's part of human nature. But for something like this, it's just so fresh and raw, like, it's just not on the table right now. Forgiveness doesn't exclude accountability. It doesn't give a pardon. But that's just not. That's not where my head's at right now. We handed our children over to someone else's care and were assured that they would be safe. And they weren't safe.

[A]

On one level, it's unfathomable to compare the grief of two parents who've lost their children. But it also becomes sort of inevitable in conversations like these. Earlier this spring, the leadership at Camp mystic announced they had informed the Texas Department of State Health Services that they would withdraw their application for an operating license this summer. Their statement read in part, no administrative process or summer season should move forward while families continue to grieve, while investigations continue. And while so many Texans still carry the pain of last July's tragedy, they also made it clear in the statement that they had considered the concerns of grieving families like Michael's. I asked him about the decision. He told me that his family is glad they will not be operating this summer. He also said, we will continue our pursuit of accountability, transparency, and making sure this never happens again. As I talked with Michael, something became clear that this work. He's been doing the lobbying at the Capitol, and now this lawsuit creates a way to turn his grief into action. And it's not the only way. Michael has spent his career Working in the oil and gas business. Last summer, he had a new company he joined that was just a couple of years old.

[B]

And as my mind cleared and I was grieving, I did not have the capability to work. I just knew it. I just felt it inside. I need to take time off, which I did. And then every time I thought, like, okay, this week I'm gonna get back to it. Cause I was CEO of this little startup and the passion just wasn't there.

[A]

His passion now was to honor Lenny's memory by making the world safer in the next storm. And like my brother in law, Lance, a civil engineer who came to see the flood as an engineering problem, Michael realized that he actually had experience that could help.

[B]

And so when all this happened and when I was down there searching, what I learned as a layman is that not all these radios talk to each other. I'm like, okay, how can I use my experience in the oil field, all the connections I have there?

[A]

So now Michael has been talking to first responders around Texas, learning about how they talk to one another in those critical moments when a disaster is unfolding. And he started a company that's designing what he hopes will be a better, more reliable, more universal way to communicate. The company is called H27 Technologies, a tribute to the 27 girls who died at mystic in the wake of the flood. People started calling them Heavens 27, which is now the name of a foundation set up by their families. The communication software itself Michael named Linisync. Michael recently told me Linisync is going very well. They are deep into development and plan to release late summer or early fall. He's working with many state and local resources who believe in the mission. And he said pilot partners are signing up as we speak.

[B]

For me, it is a singular purpose. I'm doing this in honor of my daughter. And it's also a way for me to put my energy into something productive rather than other things. Right. Get lost in my own thoughts. Yeah, it's just. It's part of who I am now.

[A]

After the interview, I kept thinking about all the ways this flood has affected people across Texas and how grief looks different for all of us. Michael later told me he'd given my contact info to his friend, Dallas attorney R.J. harbour, who experienced a loss on July 4th that is beyond belief. When R.J. and I spoke, he showed me another way to navigate loss, and it made me see things very differently. On the next episode of where the River Took Us. I'll receive messages all the time. I'm going back to Mass because of your girls. I'm praying the rosary every day because of your girls. That's part of why I'm speaking with you. Because I really do think that they're changing lives and they're bringing people closer to God. Where the River Took Us is a Texas monthly production written and hosted by me, Erin Parsley. Executive producer is Melissa Reese. Produced and edited by Patrick Michaels and Sarah Kinney. Produced, engineered and scored by Brian Standifer. Story editing by J.K. nichol. Fact checking by Doyen Oyeni. Art by Emily Kimbrough and Victoria Milner. Studio musicians are Jeff Queen and Peter Schultz.