Post-flood regulations vex some youth summer camps

AUSTIN — Eddie Walker was 11 years old when he attended his first summer camp.

He went to the Jan-Kay Ranch outside of Paris, Texas, because he wanted to swim, ride horses and pal around with the friends who urged him to come.

But Walker’s experience during that summer of 1976 led him to discover a love of God that continues to fuel his faith.

Fifty years later, Walker now runs the Christian summer camp Mount Lebanon in Cedar Hill. There, he tries to instill a love of God among the 1,000 or so campers who stay there each summer.

But Walker is worried that summer camp opportunities for children and teenagers are disappearing after lawmakers created new regulations after the July 4, 2025, floods that killed more than 100 people in the Hill Country, including 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic.

Records from the Department of State Health Services show the number of licensed summer camps in Texas has shrunk by 20% – about 75 camps – since December.

The laws created additional safeguards for children. They limited camps’ ability to be located in floodplains and mandated emergency warning systems.

For lawmakers and families who pushed for the changes, stronger protections for children took precedence, even if they made it harder for some camps to operate.

The laws triggered higher licensing fees, with many jumping from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars, and required infrastructure upgrades that some camps said would cost more than $1 million to implement.

Walker said that, faced with those new burdens, many camps have shut down or modified their services to no longer meet the definition of a “youth camp,” slipping into a gray area that requires less oversight.

It’s reduced activities at some camps and some say it risks cheapening the summer camp experience that shaped Walker’s life.

“You unplug from your phone and computers and all those things, you look at stars and ponder big questions,” Walker said. “For some kids, you know, they’re gonna start their faith journey that way.”

Dan Neal, the director of Camp Double Creek in the Austin area, praised the new emergency planning requirements that include submitting plans to local authorities, more robust staff training and camper emergency drills.

But Neal said the bills became “two steps backward” after lawmakers passed them during a special session in September with little to no input from camps.

In particular, a provision requiring fiber-optic internet at camps proved to be cost-prohibitive. 

A lawmaker representing Kerrville, state Rep. Wes Virdell, R-Brady, said he warned lawmakers about some provisions in the bills, including the fiber-optic internet access requirement. He was one of the few lawmakers who spoke out against the flood legislation. 

Virdell said he spent days talking to lawmakers in hopes of changing the bills before they came up for a vote. But the political pressure was on. The final vote, he said, “had to do more with, you know, they had the families that lost their girls in the camp sitting in the gallery.”

“It frustrates me that many people in authoritative or leadership positions knew how bad this bill was, and then they were still willing to let it pass at the sacrifice of all these camps,” Virdell said.

The authors of the two youth camp bills passed in response to the floods, Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, and Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, did not respond to interview requests.

At the time of the bills’ passage, Perry said the bill he authored was a legislative duty “to protect our citizens from things that will harm them.” 

Darby said his bill made sure “every single youth camp in Texas has a rigorous professional-grade emergency plan to protect the children entrusted to their care.”

Both bills included a requirement for fiber-optic internet connections at youth camps.

By April, it had become apparent that the fiber-optic requirement was an expensive obstacle to many camps remaining open for the upcoming summer. Reports emerged of camps either reducing activities to skirt the requirement or shutting their doors altogether.

It drew the attention of Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dustin Burrows, who issued a joint statement on May 5 urging state regulators to issue licenses to camps without fiber-optic internet access. But with the requirement still on the books, state regulators’ hands were tied.

Neal said a new alternative had emerged to stop the costly requirement: sue the state of Texas.

Led by Tejas Camp and Retreat, a sleepaway Christian camp located about 60 miles east of Austin in Lee County, 19 camp groups sued the state health services department. 

Tejas director Paul Biles estimated that it would have cost about $250,000 to run fiber to his site. Others said it could cost more than $1 million to meet the fiber requirement.

They were ultimately victorious. Two days after Patrick and Burrows told state regulators they should relax fiber enforcement, the state entered into a temporary agreement, setting fiber aside for all youth camps for the summer season.

In their joint statement, Burrows and Patrick alluded to altering youth camp rules in 2027’s legislative session.

Walker, whose Cedar Hill camp lies about 20 minutes south of downtown Dallas, said he hopes lawmakers can preserve what made summer camp transformative for him while ensuring children are protected from disasters like the one at Camp Mystic.

“It’s not us against Heaven’s 27,” he said. “We’ve got to be on the same team in that. So I’m just asking them, please put camp leaders at the table.”

• Licensing and oversight: Requires license renewal after major camp changes, establishes minimum camper-to-counselor ratios, and creates a statewide youth camp safety team.
• Emergency planning: Requires action and evacuation plans for severe weather, floods, fires, medical emergencies and other incidents, with designated emergency coordinators.
• Emergency communications: Mandates emergency notification systems, weather monitoring and communication protocols with first responders and parents.
• Camper and site safety: Staff training, camper safety orientations, posted evacuation routes, flood-specific safety measures, and limits on new cabins in floodplains.
• Infrastructure requirements: Requires redundant communications capabilities, including fiber-optic internet connections and resilient emergency warning systems for camps.