Jenna Bush Hager had an emotional reason for missing the Wednesday, September 3, episode of Today.
Bush Hager was out on assignment on Wednesday, just one day after she returned to Today following an over two-week-long summer hiatus. The reason behind her absence was revealed on Thursday, September 4, as she spent her day off traveling to Texas to talk with the parents of the Camp Mystic flood victims.
“The parents I talked to, including some of my own friends, are dealing with the unimaginable grief and pain,” Bush Hager said in Today‘s Studio 1A while introducing her interview package. “They sent their girls off to camp this summer thinking it was the safest place on Earth, but they never got a chance to bring them home. Now, amid their heartbreak, they are coming together to make sure this kind of tragedy never happens again.”
27 Camp Mystic campers and counselors were among the 130-plus people killed as a result of intense flash flooding in central Texas over the 4th of July weekend.
“When I dropped her off, I had told her, ‘It’s the safest place on Earth,’” Lacey Hollis, mother of the late Virginia Hollis, told Bush Hager. Caitlin Bonner, mother of the late Lila Bonner, added, “We talk about this being your worst nightmare. This was not a nightmare I had.”
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One of the young campers, Cile Steward, remains missing two months after the floods. “Every phone call, every text, your heart stops because you hope it’s news that they’ve found your child,” said Cile’s father, Will Steward.
Since the floods, the Camp Mystic victims’ families have banded together to pass The Heaven’s 27 Camp Safety Act bill in the Texas Senate, which would enhance safety at youth summer camps. The bill was passed in the Texas state capital on Wednesday and is expected to be signed into law on Friday, September 5.
“It became very, very clear that this wasn’t an accident. This was complacency, and it is 100 percent preventable,” Lila’s father, Blake Bonner, stated. Ryan DeWitt, the father of the late Molly DeWitt, noted, “What’s being laid out in this bill should be the bare minimum for what these camps should be looking to implement.”
Bonner went on to add, “Our girls’ legacy was not that they died in vain. Our girls’ legacy is that this, again, is a catalyst for change.”
Camp Mystic previously shared in a statement that the “safety and well-being of every camper is our priority, and our policies and practices are designed to ensure a safe and supportive environment.”
Bush Hager previously shared her own personal connection to Camp Mystic. “My mom [former First Lady Laura Bush] was a counselor there, but also, so many of my friends were raised at this camp,” she told Craig Melvin on the July 7 episode of Today. “Texas camps are institutions … this camp was 100 years old, so grandmothers, mothers, kids have all gone there. My mom was a drama counselor there. ”
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