Before the floods came, Camp Mystic’s sprawling 700-acre campground was dotted with green-roofed, cobblestone cabins and rows of cypress, live oak and pecan trees. After, bed sheets tangled in broken branches. Muddy clothes, an overturned canoe and other belongings from campers remained.

Two days before flash floods on the Guadalupe River in Texas killed dozens of campers at a Christian girls summer camp, a state inspector approved operations, noting there was a written plan for responding to natural disasters.