Camp Mystic director Dick Eastland and other rescuers used SUVs to move girls to safety from three cabins closest to the river. Then things fell apart.

For decades, Dick and Tweety Eastland presided over Camp Mystic with a kind of magisterial benevolence that alumni well past childhood still describe with awe.

A spokesperson for the owners and executive directors of Camp Mystic now says it is not known whether Richard “Dick” Eastland received a National Weather Service alert on his phone. Eastland lost his life trying to save the camp’s youngest campers from July 4 flood waters.

Richard “Dick” Eastland, the owner and director of Camp Mystic in Kerr County, Texas, died while helping campers get to safety during the devastating floods that impacted the area last week. Eastland, who was the third generation from his family to manage the camp, was 74.

The duo offered a place where parents knew their daughters would be enriched and happy. During the tragic floods, Dick Eastland died trying to save them.