In their first television interview, the parents of 19-year-old Katherine Ferruzzo are demanding changes from Camp Mystic, where their daughter died in last summer’s devastating floods. Katherine had attended Camp Mystic for 10 years and was the last counselor to be found after the flooding that killed 27 at the camp and more than 135 people across the Texas Hill Country.
“Katherine died a hero. She gave her life trying to save those little girls,” her mother, Andrea Ferruzzo, told CBS News.
The Ferruzzos, who live in Houston, say the tragedy was preventable. Katherine, her co-counselor Chloe Childress, and 25 campers were among those swept away as the flood waters rose during a torrential storm last Fourth of July weekend.
Less than a year later, Camp Mystic is enrolling children with plans to reopen one of its two campuses, farther from the river, this summer. In early February, the all-girls Christian summer camp was slapped with its fifth lawsuit — this one from the family of 8-year-old Cile Steward, a camper who has yet to be found.
Now, the camp victims’ families — calling themselves “Heaven’s 27” — are pushing for legislation to make camps safer nationwide. In September, they helped pass a bill in Texas that prohibits camps in FEMA-designated floodplains and requires annual emergency training, among other measures.
“We knew that change had to happen so that no other families send their children to camp only to have their child returned in a body bag,” Andrea Ferruzzo said.
When the Ferruzzos learned Camp Mystic was reopening this summer, they were shocked, calling the decision “very disrespectful.”
“It just seems to me like it’s all just business, business as usual,” Andrea said. “How could they be ready to accept campers back to their camp without addressing all of the issues that led to the tragedy?”
Camp director Britt Eastland has said of the reopening plans, “If we do it right, then the girls will have an amazing experience,” adding, “They’ll gain so much by being together. It can be very healing.” Eastland’s father, Richard “Dick” Eastland, was the camp director during the floods and also died in the disaster as he attempted to move children to safety.
About 100 flood warning sirens will be built along the Guadalupe River, which will give people more notice to evacuate in the event of rising water.
“The sirens are a good start,” John Ferruzzo, Katherine’s father, said. “But then, you must have an evacuation plan in place. The counselors have to be trained on what to do with their campers. There needs to be a communication system.”
To turn their pain into purpose, the Ferruzzos started an organization to honor their daughter, calling it the Katherine Ferruzzo Legacy Foundation. They have since raised more than $1 million for special education, the cause Katherine cared most about.
Before the disaster, Katherine had been planning to start her freshman year at the University of Texas in Austin to study special education and then hoped to return to Houston as a teacher.
The foundation reimburses special education teachers for out-of-pocket costs, since their classrooms often have fewer resources than others. Volunteers regularly create sensory task kits — learning tools for students with disabilities that usually cost classrooms more than $1,000.
“Katherine was a doer, and she would want us to power through and do the work,” her father said.
“Amidst this horrific grief, doing what (Katherine) would, that’s what gets me up and out of bed every day,” her mother added. “To spread Katherine’s name and her legacy and to make her proud of us … at least gives us a purpose of why this happened.”
