Federal regulators repeatedly granted appeals to remove Camp Mystic’s buildings from their 100-year flood map, loosening oversight as the camp operated and expanded in a dangerous flood plain in the y...

Camp Mystic owners successfully appealed to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to redesignate some buildings that had been considered part of a flood-hazard zone.

“It’s hard not to feel like you are surrounded by a higher power when you’re down there, because it’s just so beautiful,” my friend Olivia Marrus told me.