Cecilia “Cile” Steward’s parents threw her a ninth birthday party last month, but one person wasn’t there: the birthday girl herself.
Since Cile was swept away by the floods that inundated Camp Mystic in the Texas Hill Country last summer, her mother has coped with her grief by writing her daughter a letter every day.
Meanwhile, her father watches Texas authorities’ continued search for her remains and feels less hopeful by the day.
“I have a gut feeling they’re never going to find her,” Will Steward said when he and his wife, CiCi Steward, sat down this week for an emotional “TODAY” interview with their longtime friend and fellow Texan, show co-host Jenna Bush Hager.
CiCi and Will Steward during an interview with Jenna Bush Hager on Tuesday. (TODAY)
(TODAY)
Cile was among 130 people who were killed on July 4 after slow-moving storms in Kerr County, Texas, caused the Guadalupe to overflow its banks, turning a meandering river into a terrifying torrent.
Cile, 8 at the time, was one of 27 children and counselors at Camp Mystic, a venerable Christian summer camp for girls, who perished in the flood.
But unlike the other victims, Cile’s body was never found.
“I write her every day. I tell her how sorry I am that this happened to her. I’m sorry her life was stolen,” CiCi Steward told Bush Hager, her voice breaking.
“Despite the fact that I cry every time I write to her, I stay so close to her,” she said. “We look at her pictures every day. Thank God for phones and the amount of photos and videos we have. A blessing and a curse, really.”
The Stewards spoke with Bush Hager, who they have been friends with for more than 20 years, on the same day they filed a lawsuit against the Eastland family, which has operated the girls’ camp for decades in Travis County, Texas.
“They were completely unprepared,” the couple’s attorney, Brad Beckworth, said of the Eastlands.
Despite the fact that the camp was in a floodplain and had a well-documented history of flooding, the Eastlands had a practical emergency evacuation plan and repeatedly ignored National Weather Service flood warnings, the Stewards allege in their lawsuit.
So by the time they started evacuating the girls from the flooded cabins, it was already too late, the suit says.
“It’s just absolute chaos,” Beckworth told Bush Hager. “When you talk to the councillors, they can hear the screams. Nobody knows what to do. They don’t know where to go.”
Among the victims was Richard “Dick” Eastland, owner of Camp Mystic. His family says he lost his life trying to save the girls.
The stewards claim in the lawsuit that Eastland and his son, Edward Eastland, waited more than an hour before trying to evacuate the girls from the cabins.
They insisted in their interview with Bush Hager that camp counselors and first responders deserve credit for saving most of the 750 girls who were at Camp Mystic when the flooding began.
“There are heroes at Camp Mystic and none of them are named Eastland,” said CiCi Steward.
The Austin couple is seeking more than $1 million in actual and punitive damages, according to the suit.
In response to the lawsuit, Eastlands lawyer Mikal Watts said it “intends to prove and demonstrate that this sudden rise in floodwaters far exceeded any previous flood in the area by multiple magnitudes, that it was unexpected and unforeseeable, and that there were no adequate flood early warning systems in place in the area.”
Stewards said they are furious that the Eastland family is trying to get back into business while their daughter remains missing.
“It’s an active crime scene,” said CiCi Steward. “I don’t know anyone in their right mind who would willingly send their child to a crime scene.”
“With the same management,” said Will Steward, completing his wife’s thought. “We are not opposed to children going to camp. We are opposed to Eastlands, the audacity to send deposit slips when our child, one of their campers, who they said they love in this community, is still missing.”
The couple’s attorney, Brad Beckworth, agreed.
“It’s a rush to reopen without everyone knowing the facts of what happened,” he said. “And, I mean, I can tell you as a parent, my kids would never go back to a camp run by this family.”
Three days after last summer’s deadly flood, Bush Hager went on “TODAY” and revealed that her mother, former first lady Laura Bush, had once been a camp counselor at Camp Mystic.
“But also, so many of my friends were raised in this camp,” Bush Hager said. “Texas [summer] camps are institutions where many family members, generations – this camp was 100 years old – so grandmothers, mothers, children all went there.”
Speaking to the Stewards, Bush Hager asked CiCi Steward to read the statement the couple had prepared before the interview.
“Our hearts are broken,” the grieving mother read. “Our souls are troubled. But we have no choice but to fight so that the lives of Cile and the other 26 girls were not taken in vain. They deserve better.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com