Are We Learning the Right Things from the Camp Mystic Flash Floods?
Steve Smith
In the summer of 2025, 28 people lost their lives in a tragic event at Camp Mystic in Texas. The State Legislature passed two laws meant to mitigate harm from future events, and commissioned a committee to investigate and write a report on the event. However, the laws that were passed, and the report they generated fall short of the deeper learning that we might gain from the event by applying a systems-thinking approach. Join us to discover the deeper lessons from this event, and how to avoid common traps such as hindsight bias, counterfactuals, and cherry-picking in analyzing and learning from your own events.
About Steve
Steve Smith is the founder of Experiential Consulting, a risk management consultancy for outdoor & experiential education programs, and the author of several books on risk management. His latest book has distilled lessons learned from high-risk, complex industries and adapted them for outdoor & experiential educators. He is also the creator and host of the “Were We Lucky or Were We Good” Podcast, a non-judgmental, curious community of professionals creating learning for others by sharing their experiences.
