HUNT, Texas – Hours before devastating floods swept through the Texas Hill Country last July, Camp Vistas had just bid farewell to 270 children heading home from summer camp.
That timing, a matter of mere hours, may have averted tragedy.
“We count our blessings every day,” said Justin Hawkins, owner of Camp Vistas, one of the Southwest’s oldest camps. “We had 270 kids go home at lunch that day and probably 85 or so of our staff left for a night off. So, there’s only about 30, 35 of us here on camp that night.”
Now, six months after the disaster, Texas Hill Country camps are taking unprecedented steps to protect their young campers.
A groundbreaking flood detection system, developed by a group of concerned camp parents, could transform how these historic institutions handle severe weather threats.
The innovation, called River Sentry, represents more than just new technology, it’s part of a broader effort to rebuild trust and ensure the survival of a cherished Texas tradition that spans nearly a century.
A Tragedy Turned Into Inspiration
For Ian Cunningham, a former Navy pilot and airline captain, the July floods hit particularly close to home.
His own daughters had attended a nearby camp just two weeks before the disaster.
“After the floods, I found myself asking why this hasn’t been solved,” Cunningham said. “We know where the threat is coming from. We just don’t know when. And we know where that threat is going downstream.”
Drawing on his aviation background, where threat mitigation is routine, Cunningham assembled a team of fellow camp dads, many with backgrounds in technology and engineering, to develop a solution that would work even when traditional infrastructure fails.
“We were all heavily interested in solving this, not only as parents but as camp dads,” Cunningham explained. “We shouldn’t tolerate this anymore. Let’s just fix this issue. It’s within our technological ability.”
A New Approach To Safety
Unlike conventional flood alerts that rely on weather services and river gauges, River Sentry creates an independent network of flood detection towers that can function even when power, cellular and internet services fail.
“That’s where these things are going to come into play,” Cunningham said. “Once the situation gets to a certain level, a certain high risk threshold, we’re going to intervene and we’re going to start the evacuation without any other decision making required. We’re there to guard the line between dangerous flooding becoming deadly flooding.”
Each $7,500 tower combines multiple safeguards:
- Water detection sensors monitor rising water levels
- Two AS-124 speakers capable of generating 135-decibel alarms
- Directional lighting systems that illuminate evacuation routes
- Battery backup systems with solar charging options
- LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) technology for tower-to-tower communication
The system is designed to ensure sleeping campers hear the alarm.
“It’s placed here so that we can generate at least 75 decibels inside the sleeping structure that it’s protecting,” Cunningham noted. “That’s benchmarked against commercial fire code.”
Community Wide Protection
The technology’s reach extends beyond individual camps.
A group led by Camp Mystic plans to install 100 towers along the North and South Fork of the Guadalupe River before the 2026 camping season, creating a network that will benefit entire neighborhoods.
“This encampment and all the ones up there kind of serve this unique role,” Cunningham explained. “They serve the camp that they’re on, but they also serve the greater community solution for the entire river.”
The company is also developing smaller “flood cubes” for residential use that can receive warnings from nearby towers, extending protection to local homeowners.
Rebuilding Trust
For camp directors, the technology represents a crucial step in rebuilding parent confidence.
During the flooding, 25 campers and two counselors weren’t able to escape the flooding of Guadalupe River. The owner of the camp, Dick Eastland, also didn’t survive.
His son, Britt Eastland, was there that night, but at their Cypress Lake camp, which is on higher ground. Britt is now taking charge of the camp and invited KPRC 2’s Gage Goulding onto the campground for the first time since the flood.
“My wife and I, we’re the directors of this camp and as we were watching over the girls here,” he said. “We were fortunate this camp didn’t flood. And so they were safe in their cabins.”
The Cypress Lake location will be re-opening for the 2026 camping season, but their cabins and camp along the Guadalupe River will remain closed. It’s fate remains in a sort of limbo.
But before any campers can claim their bunk in a cabin, they’ll be the first to be under a new safety protocol.
“Working with a third party safety experts to come up with a good plan that the parents feel comfortable with, too,” said Eastland. “We have found out from so many families that it will be healing if we do it right. If we keep them safe and have fun with their best friends and they’re outside in nature and we have the plans in place.”
The camps are incorporating River Sentry into comprehensive safety improvements.
“Now we know what this river can do and these towers... the training we’re going to do is not just to prevent something happening from another historic flood, but... we’re gonna have better tornado procedures for fires, for all kinds of things,” Eastland explains.
Gage Goulding: “Do you think that there’s work to be done by camps to earn that trust back from parents?”
Britt Eastland: “Absolutely.”
Gage Goulding: “It’s probably a mountainous task.”
Britt Eastland: “It is. And we understand that this is a year and a summer that a lot of parents are going to ask a lot of questions and a lot parents are maybe going to say this isn’t this is in the summer we are going bring our daughter.”
Justin Hawkins of Camp Vistas expressed a sentiment shared by many camp owners.
“I don’t want these to ever go off because the water’s here,” he said. “But if mine go off because I got warned, that’s amazing.”
Looking Ahead To Next Camp Season
As the Hill Country approaches the 2026 camping season, the implementation of River Sentry marks a significant step in the region’s recovery.
The system could serve as a model for similar communities nationwide, demonstrating how innovation can emerge from tragedy when driven by those with deep personal connections to the community.
“It will be so good for families, it’ll be so good for the campers, it will be so good for even the public to see why families send their kids to camp and why it’s so good for them,” Eastland said. “We’re working non-stop to make sure that confidence is in place.”