We’re officially in uncharted territory: day three of Prime Day. Amazon made what’s usually a 48-hour sale into a four-day event this year, which means Prime members still have plenty of time to take advantage of exclusive discounts across tech, beauty, home essentials, kitchen and more.
Because I’m sure you’re wondering, yes, deals are just as good today as they’ve been so far — in some cases, we’ve seen prices drop even more. Plus, Amazon is constantly adding new discounts, including fresh Lightning Deals. Just don’t wait too long to shop. Some of the most popular items are already selling out, and with many deals lasting only a day or two, prices can jump without warning.
I’ve covered Prime Day for the past six years, and I can tell you: not every deal is worth your time. As a shopping reporter, I get an early look at what’s coming, and I’ve spent weeks combing through it all to find the offers I’d personally recommend. Every deal below is at least 20% off, highly rated and at its lowest price in at least three months. I’ll update this list live throughout Prime Day so you don’t miss a thing.
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Best Prime Day deals 2025
Lowest Price Ever
Stocking up on essentials during Prime Day is one of the best ways to save long-term. These dishwasher detergent pods, which you constantly need to buy more of, are made with Dawn soap to remove grease and other ingredients to break down dried food and residue. You don’t need to pre-rinse your dishes since this detergent is so powerful, according to the brand. There’s 71 pods in a pack.
Lowest Price Ever
It’s always a good idea to have extra batteries at home, especially to put in your emergency kit and power kids toys, remotes and flashlights. This pack comes with 32 AA alkaline batteries, which last up to 10 years if they’re unused, according to the brand.
Lowest Price Ever
As someone who doesn’t have a dishwasher, I’m very picky about dish soap, and Dawn’s Platinum Powerwash Spray is my all-time favorite option. The sprayer helps me cover a lot of dishes with soap at once, and it comes out foamy, so I don’t need to turn the faucet on until it’s time to rinse.
You’ll eventually need more garbage bags, so you might as well buy them on sale. This box comes with 110 13-gallon trash bags, which have two layers for added leak protection and a Febreze scent.
LifeStraw’s personal filter can remove over 99% of bacteria, parasites and microplastics from water, making it ideal to bring with you while camping or hiking, or pack in an emergency kit. The tool can filter up to 1,000 gallons of water before you need to replace it. It has a cap to protect the part you sip from, and a layard so you can put it around your neck.
Lowest Price Ever
I use this kitchen gadget to make fresh popcorn at home or the office. There’s a built-in cup on its lid to help you measure kernels, and you can also put butter inside so it melts over your snack. The glass, dishwasher-safe popper also doubles as a bowl once you remove the lid and let it cool down.
Each laundry detergent pod in this 76-pack is filled with soap that has a built-in color protector, odor fighter and stain remover. The pods are HE-compatible and dissolves even in cold water.
Once you plug devices like fans, air purifiers and small kitchen appliances into this smart plug, you can control them via the Amazon Alexa app or voice commands. The plug is compact, so it won’t block your second outlet. Using the app, you can set up schedules, timers and routines for your devices.
Bring these protein shakes to work or school, or keep them in the refrigerator at home to drink after a workout or when you need a quick snack. They have a smooth, creamy texture and 30 grams of protein per bottle; they’re shelf-stable until you open them. The shakes come in packs of 12 and are available in flavors like chocolate, vanilla, cafê latte and caramel.
Lowest Price Ever
I’m tossing my decade-old, stained, ripped oven mitts and buying this pair from KitchenAid. They’re covered in soft, ribbed silicone that’s grippy, heat-resistant up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit and water-resistant, according to the brand. The oven mitts also have a cotton cuff that feels soft against your skin.
Out of all the teeth whitening strips we’ve tested, these are our favorite because they’re easy to use and highly effective. Strips are coated in a layer of hydrogen peroxide to remove stains, and they’re flexible, so they mold to the shape of your mouth. There’s 44 strips in the box, which is enough for 22 treatments — 20 are 45-minute standard treatments, and two are 60-minute express treatments.
Lowest Price Ever
See, hear and speak to visitors with Blink’s Video Doorbell. It runs on AA batteries, has a two-year battery life and doesn’t require wiring, according to the brand. The camera gives you a head-to-toe view when you livestream footage through the Blink app, which also sends you real-time notifications when it detects people at your door.
Lowest Price Ever
This travel adapter is compatible with plugs in over 200 countries, according to the brand. It has AC, USB-A and USB-C ports so you can charge five devices simultaneously, and its pins are foldable and retractable, making it compact.
Lowest Price Ever
You get three boxes of 10 mini granola bars with this pack, and they come in three flavors: caramel almond and sea salt, dark chocolate nuts and sea salt, and peanut butter dark chocolate. Each gluten-free, low-sugar bar has three grams of protein.
Once you plug this Fire Stick into your TV’s HDMI port, you can enjoy your favorite shows, movies and music via streaming services or cable. It comes with an Alexa Voice Remote, and you can bring the device with you on trips to use in hotels or rental homes.
Lowest Price Ever
These are our all-time favorite wireless earbuds for listening to music, taking calls and exercising. You can use them in active noise cancellation to completely block out sounds, transparency mode to hear the world around you or adaptive audio, which automatically swaps between the two depending on your environment. The headphones, which come with four pairs of silicone tips to customize your fit, are water-resistant, according to the brand.
Lowest Price Ever
This is one of my favorite water bottles — I actually like it better than Stanley’s popular Quencher because it doesn’t leak and is more convenient to travel with. It has a 30-ounce capacity, a flip-up straw, a large handle and a tapered bottom so it fits in most cup holders. The dishwasher-safe water bottle is made from stainless steel and has double-wall vacuum insulation — it can keep your beverages chilled for up to 12 hours, according to the brand.
Vital Proteins’ collagen peptide powder, which I’ve used for years, helps support hair, skin, nail, bone and joint health, according to the brand. One serving has 20 grams of collagen peptides, as well as vitamin C and hyaluronic acid. The unflavored powder seamlessly blends into hot or cold liquids once you scoop it in. (Remember to consult your doctor before taking anything.)
If it weren’t for these little trackers, I’d lose everything I own. I keep them in my wallet and bag, attach one to my keys and always put one in my suitcases while traveling. The AirTags pair with the Find My app on iPhones and iPads, which shows you where they are and gives you directions to locate them. You can also make trackers play a sound through the app, and share them each with up to five people if needed so everyone can track items.
The snail secretion filtrate in this essence, one of our favorite K-beauty products, can help soothe damaged skin, repair dark spots, reduce the appearance of fine lines and moisturize, according to the brand. It has a lightweight feel and quickly absorbs into the skin.
Lowest Price Ever
Our team tested 100 face sunscreens this year and Round Lab’s came out as our number 1 winner. “This sunscreen feels like a moisturizer and leaves my skin hydrated,” says NBC Select editorial projects manager Rebecca Rodriguez. “It blends in seamlessly and doesn’t leave behind that sticky sunscreen feeling.” The broad-spectrum SPF is oil-free, making it suitable for acne-prone skin, too.
I always keep Liquid I.V. electrolyte powder at home to drink before a long run. The pre-measured, single-serve packets make it easy to add to my water, and after I give it a stir, the powder blends right in. Each serving has 500 grams of sodium. You can buy Liquid I.V. in numerous flavors like arctic raspberry, strawberry lemonade and orange vanilla dream, plus there’s sugar-free options.
Lowest Price Ever
You’ll wake up with smooth, moisturized lips when you leave this mask on overnight, says NBC Select updates editor Mili Godio. “I use Laneige’s lip mask on days when my lips are super dry and it makes my nighttime routine so much more luxurious,” she says. “My lips feel so soft after I apply it, and I love using the little included spatula.” The lip mask is made with hydrating ingredients like vitamin C, murumuru seed and shea butters, antioxidants and coconut oil.
The Little Green Machine helps you get stains out of upholstered furniture, carpets, area rugs, car seats and more. It has two 48-ounce tanks to separate cleaning solution from dirty liquid, and the head on the end of its long hose lets you spray cleaner on messes, scrub and suction them. You get a bottle of Bissell’s Oxy Formula with your purchase, as well as a tough stain tool, self-cleaning hose tool and spraying crevice tool.
Lowest Price Ever
Mielle’s hair oil targets thinning hair and dry scalps with biotin and essential oils like rosemary, mint, tea tree and peppermint oil. The ingredients work to strengthen your strands, improve circulation and nourish skin to reduce flaking, according to the brand. The oil is suitable for all hair types and textures, and you use it pre-wash, post-wash or as a 10-minute treatment with a shower cap.
This organizer comes with three bins to separate different items. The handle allows you to remove each bin from the turntable base. The bottom has non-slip feet to keep the Crazy Susan sturdy while you rotate it.
I use a pair of these under-eye masks almost every day to depuff and refresh my skin. They’re soaked in a serum made with hydrating ingredients like hyaluronic acid, niacinamide and glycerin, and made from a gel-like material that has a cooling effect. There’s 24 pairs of individually-wrapped patches in each pack.
La Roche-Posay’s fragrance-free moisturizer is a top-pick among those on our team with dry skin, myself included. It’s made with hydrating ingredients like ceramides, niacinamide and thermal water, and has a lightweight texture. It sits nicely under makeup, so I typically apply it in the morning, but you can wear it at night, too.
This kit comes with everything you need to collect a saliva swab and send it to Ancestry’s lab. Then, six to eight weeks later, you’ll get your results online, which includes information about your origins across the world, ethnicity estimate and genetic traits you may have a propensity for.
I’ve been a loyal Orgain customer for years and its protein powder is the only one I’ll buy. There’s 21 grams in each serving, and less than one gram of sugar, plus it blends into my smoothies almost instantly, making them extra creamy. The powder is also gluten-free and vegan.
This mini Bluetooth speaker connects to music, audiobook and podcast platforms, letting you play entertainment throughout your home. It also has Amazon Alexa built-in — you can ask the personal assistant to set alarms and timers for you, check the weather, give you traffic updates, control compatible smart home devices and more. I have an Echo Pop in my bedroom, and since it’s so small, I easily hid it on my dresser.
This corded vacuum can clean dirt, pet hair and other messes on all floors in your home. It has a detachable pod and long nozzle, letting you clean hard-to-reach areas like above door frames, on stairs and under furniture. The vacuum is built with a HEPA filter to trap allergens like dust and pollen, and it comes with crevice and upholstery tools.
Reuse these absorbent, dishwasher-safe clothes up to 100 times to clean your home, dry dishes and more, making them an eco-friendly alternative to paper towels. They come in a pack of 10 and are safe for all surfaces, according to the brand.
You can massage Sol De Janiero’s highly rated body cream onto your butt, legs, arms and stomach area to moisturize and tighten skin, according to the brand. The viral scented formula has notes of salted caramel, pistachio and vanilla, and once you run out, you can refill the container instead of throwing it out.
Lowest Price Ever
This rechargeable device diffuses mosquito repellent to keep bugs away, creating a 20-foot protection zone around you in about 15 minutes, according to the brand. It works for about nine hours on a full battery. This pack comes with a repeller and one refill — you can buy additional refills separately.
This rechargeable electric toothbrush has all of the features dentists told us to look for while shopping: a pressure sensor, a two-minute timer and brush head change alert. You can also choose from three cleaning modes. The toothbrush comes with a travel case and two extra brush heads.
Lowest Price Ever
“The Kindle really is impossible to live without once you try it,” says NBC Select editor Lindsay Schneider, who’s used a number of models over the years, courtesy testing samples from Amazon. “It makes it a whole lot easier to read on the go and outside. The battery is quite impressive too. I feel like I never have to charge it.”
The Kindle Paperwhite gives you 12 weeks of battery life on a single charge, according to the brand, and it’s thin and lightweight, making it easy to travel with. It also has a 7-inch glare-free screen and an adjustable warm light so you can clearly see text in any environment. The e-reader is water-resistant, too — you can use it at the beach, by the pool or in the bath without worrying about splashes.
“This shower oil completely soothes my skin and gives me that silky soft effect,” says Schneider. “It lathers really nicely and never feels oily despite its initial consistency. The formula, while scented, is quite subtle.” You can use the shower oil as a body wash or to prep your skin before shaving, plus it doubles as a soak when you pour it into warm bath water.
Thanks to its internal organization system, my Samsonite luggage holds an impressive amount of clothes, and it never breaks down despite how much I beat it up during my travels. This set comes with a hard-sided carry-on and a medium checked bag. Both suitcases have built-in TSA locks, expandable storage, 360-degree spinner wheels, and adjustable handles.
“I’ve been using ColorWow’s Dreamcoat Spray for over two years and I don’t remember what it was like to blow dry my hair without it,” says associate commerce social editor Caitlin Cusack. “I have super frizzy hair and this product makes a noticeable difference in frizz and leaves my hair feeling soft for days between washes.” The brand recommends reapplying it every three to four shampoos, and there’s also a version for curly hair that I swear by.
Track workouts, daily activity, sleep, health metrics like heart rate and more with this smartwatch. It’s water-resistant, so you can swim with it, and it connects to your phone, letting you answer calls and texts. The watch’s battery lasts for about 18 hours when it’s fully charged, and 30 minutes in the included charger gives you about 80% battery, according to Apple.
These food storage containers come in a pack of five, and each has a 2.85-cup capacity with two compartments. They’re made from a clear stain- and odor-resistant material, so you can always see what’s inside. The containers’ lids have an airtight seal and secure latches, and if you flip the latches up, they act as vents — that means you can keep the lid on while microwaving to avoid splatters.
Keurig makes some of our favorite coffee makers, and this one is compact, so it won’t take up much room on your counter. You can brew 8-, 10- or 12-ounces of coffee at a time and remove the 48-ounce water reservoir to refill it.
Lowest Price Ever
The Dyson Airwrap simultaneously dries and styles your hair, letting you create curly, wavy and straight styles without causing heat damage, according to Dyson. It comes with three interchangeable attachments: a smoothing dryer, round volumizing brush and long barrel. The Airwrap also has a cool shot button.
Lowest Price Ever
The camera built into this bird feeder livestreams video to an app so you can watch critters visit for a snack. The water-resistant feeder has a 1.5-liter container you fill with feed, and there’s a wide perch on the front you can add accessories to as you learn what the birds in your area like. The app stores videos for up to 30 days so you can download and share them.
Best Prime Day Lightning Deals
These limited-time deals are live until stock runs out, so make sure you checkout before they’re gone.
Lo & Sons: Up to 50% off during the Jet Set July Sale
Frequently asked questions
Most Prime Day deals last through the duration of the sale (it ends on Jul. 11), but some are limited-time offers. For example, Lightning Deals are typically a few hours long — once a product sells out, the deal is over. Amazon is adding new deals each day of the sale, so make sure you’re constantly browsing. It’s also important to check out as soon as you see something you want since prices can go up any time.
For the first time ever this year, Amazon Prime Day is four days long. It’s typically a 48-hour event, so you have double the amount of time to shop this year.
Prime Day 2025 ends on Friday, Jul. 11 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (2:59 a.m. ET on Saturday, Jul. 12).
Amazon has not announced when the next Prime Day is. For the past few years, the retailer hosted its Prime Big Deal Days in October, which is nearly identical to July’s sale with slightly different products on sale to focus more on the holiday shopping season.
How I found the best Prime Day deals
All of my recommendations above are based on NBC Select’s previous coverage and reporting. I also included products the NBC Select staff tested, including Wellness Award and Giftable Tech Award winners. I ran each deal through price trackers like CamelCamelCamel to ensure products are at their lowest price in at least three months. All the products I recommend are 20% off or more, and highly rated with at least a 4.0-star average rating from hundreds of reviews.
Why trust NBC Select?
I’m a reporter for NBC Select who has covered Amazon Prime Day since 2020. In addition to writing about the best deals, I also wrote about what’s included in a Prime membership, the history of Prime Day and what to buy and skip this year. Prior to Amazon’s flagship sale, I previewed a list of deals from the retailer and sorted through them to find worthwhile sales you should know about.
US President Donald Trump has said he will send weapons, including Patriot air defence systems, for Ukraine via Nato.
Trump told NBC News that in a new deal, “we’re going to be sending Patriots to Nato, and then Nato will distribute that”, adding that Nato would pay for the weapons.
His announcement came after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of having a “positive dialogue” with Trump on ensuring that arms arrived on time, particularly air defence systems.
Zelensky said he had asked for 10 Patriot systems, after a surge in Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities in the past week.
Speaking in Rome on Thursday, the Ukrainian leader said Germany was ready to pay for two of the Patriots and Norway for one, while other European partners were also prepared to help.
After a phone-call with Russia’s Vladimir Putin last week, Trump said he was “not happy” that progress had not been made towards ending the war, and he has since complained that Putin’s “very nice” attitude turned out to be meaningless.
During his interview with NBC News, Trump said he would make a “major statement” on Russia on Monday, but did not say what it would be about.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Friday that he had urged countries including Germany and Spain to hand over some of their existing Patriot batteries, as they could reach Ukraine faster.
“We have continued to encourage our Nato allies to provide those weapons… since they have them in their stocks, then we can enter into financial agreements… where they can purchase the replacements.”
The US defence department halted some shipments of critical weapons last week, raising concerns in Kyiv that its air defences could run low in a matter of months.
Among the armaments reported to have been placed on pause were Patriot interceptor missiles and precision artillery shells.
Then, as Ukraine was pounded by record numbers of drone attacks this week, Trump said more weapons would be sent: “We have to… They’re getting hit very hard now.”
Zelensky had appealed for the shipments to resume, describing the Patriot systems as “real protectors of life”.
On Tuesday night, Ukraine was hit by a record 728 drones, and the Ukrainian president warned that Russia wanted to increase that to 1,000.
June saw the highest monthly civilian casualties in Ukraine in three years, with 232 people killed and more than 1,300 injured, according to the UN.
Since re-entering the White House in January, Trump has pushed to scale back US support for Ukraine.
Trump has also pressed Nato allies to pledge more of their GDP to the security alliance. Last year, all European Nato members pledged to spend 2% of GDP on defence.
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The US has been urging the two countries to reach an agreement to end the war.
Rubio told reporters that he and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had a “frank” conversation on the sidelines of a meeting in Malaysia on Thursday.
Rubio echoed Trump’s “frustration at the lack of progress at peace talks”, including “disappointment that there has not been more flexibility on the Russian side to bring about an end to this conflict”.
He said the two had shared some new ideas about how the conflict could conclude, which he would take back to Trump.
Rubio declined to elaborate on what Trump said would be a “major” announcement about Russia on Monday.
Dick Eastland warned for decades about the hidden dangers of the beautiful but volatile Guadalupe River, a peril he saw firsthand while running his family’s youth camp alongside its banks.
Eastland saw floods damage Camp Mystic again and again – and his pregnant wife was even airlifted to a hospital while the camp in central Texas was cut off by floodwaters.
He successfully pushed for a new flood warning system after 10 children at a nearby camp were swept to their deaths in 1987, and in recent years served on the board of the local river authority as it supported renewed efforts to improve warnings on the Guadalupe.
“The river is beautiful,” Eastland told the Austin American-Statesman in 1990. “But you have to respect it.”
But after 27 people were killed at Camp Mystic in last week’s cataclysmic flooding – along with Eastland himself, who died while trying to rescue his young campers – the scale of the tragedy highlights potential missed opportunities by Camp Mystic’s owners and government officials to better mitigate those risks.
About a decade after it was installed, the warning system Eastland had championed in the late ‘80s became antiquated and broken. The river authority ultimately shut it down in 1999, saying it was “unreliable with some of the system’s stations not reporting information,” according to an article in the Kerrville Daily Times.
Yet periodic attempts to adopt a more modern flood-monitoring system, including one with warning sirens that might have alerted campers last week, repeatedly failed to gain traction – stalled by low budgets, some local opposition and a lack of state support.
At Camp Mystic, meanwhile, several of the cabins that were hit hardest in the flooding were in an area identified by the federal government as the highest-risk location for inundations from the Guadalupe. Even as the camp built new cabins in a less-risky flood zone elsewhere on its property, nothing was done to relocate the buildings in the most danger.
“Camp officials might have not been aware of flood risk when they first built the cabins,” before the county even had flood maps, said Anna Serra-Llobet, a University of California-Berkeley researcher who studies flood risk. But after the recent construction, she said, officials should have realized they were in an area of “severe hazard.”
Eastland has been praised as a hero for his efforts to save campers on Friday and remembered as a beloved figure by generations who spent their summers in the idyllic riverside refuge. His legacy is less clear as a public steward of the sometimes deadly river that ultimately took his life.
“If he wasn’t going to die of natural causes, this was the only other way—saving the girls that he so loved and cared for,” his grandson George Eastland wrote in an Instagram tribute. “Although he no longer walks this earth, his impact will never fade in the lives he touched.”
Camp Mystic did not respond to a request for comment.
Camp Mystic has a long history with flooding, going back to just a few years after it was established 99 years ago.
In 1932, flood waters “swept away” several cabins at the camp and led campers to evacuate across the river by canoe, according to an article in the Abilene Daily Reporter. A counselor told the Austin American-Statesman at the time that campers might “have drowned if we had gone out the front door and walked face-into a sheet of water!”
In 1978, an article in the Kerrville Mountain Sun reported that Camp Mystic was “the most severely damaged” of local summer camps affected by a flood that year. A separate article reported that five Camp Mystic counselors “had their automobiles swept into the Guadalupe River” by flood waters that year.
And in 1985, Eastland’s wife Tweety, then pregnant with their fourth child, had to be airlifted from Camp Mystic to a hospital due to floodwaters, local news reported.
One of the region’s most devastating floods – until last week’s Fourth of July disaster – came in 1987, when 10 children attending a different camp in the area were killed by floodwaters during a rushed evacuation.
Eastland, who at the time was serving on the board of the Upper Guadalupe River Authority, which manages the river, pushed for a new flood warning system. In newspaper articles, he described a computer-powered system that would lead to automatic alerts if water levels on the Guadalupe rose beyond a set limit.
The proposal was delayed, but officials eventually created a system of 21 gauges up and down the Guadalupe and its tributaries.
Even as Eastland voiced pride in the new system, he was quick to remind the public of the Guadalupe’s deadly power.
“I’m sure there will be other drownings,” Eastland said in a 1990 interview with the Austin American-Statesman. “People don’t heed the warnings.”
In the following years, the early flood warning system that Eastland advocated for – and was once considered state-of-the-art – started to suffer problems. In April 1998, the company that maintained the system “closed its doors without notice,” and the gauge system soon stopped functioning because of lack of maintenance, the Kerrville Daily Times reported.
In February 1999, the river authority shut the system down because it had become “unreliable with some of the system’s stations not reporting information,” and board members worried about “liability concerns that the system would send ‘false signals,’” according to an article in the Times.
A handful of river gauges remain in service on the Guadalupe today, but the county lacks a full-scale warning system to broadcast public alerts when floodwaters rise.
Kerr County officials, along with the river authority that Eastland periodically served on, worked to change that over the last decade, searching for funding for a flood warning system that included more river gauges and a network of sirens.
But they found themselves struggling to overcome funding deficits and opposition from some skeptical residents.
Grant applications for the system were denied by the state in 2016 and 2017, and the authority later decided not to pursue a separate grant after realizing that it would only cover five percent of the system’s cost.
Around the same time, Camp Mystic was embarking on an expansion project. As the number of girls attending the camp grew over the years – leading to waitlists to get in each summer – the camp built more than a dozen new cabins farther south of the Guadalupe River alongside the smaller Cypress Creek.
Some of those cabins were located in an area that the federal government has determined has a 1% chance of flooding each year, which would have required officials to get special approval from the county government to build there.
But the risk was even higher at some of Camp Mystic’s cabins closest to the Guadalupe, several of which are located inside the river’s “regulatory floodways” – the areas that flood first and are most dangerous – according to federal flood maps. Those cabins have been around for decades, historical aerial photos show, apparently before the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s first floodzone maps were developed.
Dealing with preexisting structures like these inside risky floodzones is especially challenging, said Serra-Llobet, the UC Berkeley flood expert.
“When they did the construction of the recent buildings, they should have seen the FEMA maps,” Serra-Llobet said. That, she said, was a “window of opportunity” where camp officials could have realized their decades-old dorms were in a high-hazard zone and acted to address it. Camp Mystic could have relocated the buildings to higher ground, or just turned them into structures for recreational activities and made sure that campers were sleeping in safer areas, she said.
Still, Serra-Llobet argued that Kerr County should move past the “blame game” that comes after any disaster and focus on the lessons that could be learned for protecting people from floods going forward.
It’s not clear whether Eastland personally grappled with the high-risk flood zone running through his own campground. But in recent years, he was part of continued efforts for an improved flood warning system for the region.
Eastland returned to the river authority’s board in 2022 after being appointed by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. After the previous setbacks, the board this year moved forward with a proposal to create a new “centralized dashboard” of rainfall, river depth and other data sources “to support local flood monitoring and emergency response,” according to the county government.
In April, the river authority voted to hire a firm to develop the data system and had planned to begin work this month. That was postponed after last week’s disastrous flooding.
After Eastland was found dead, tributes have rolled in from his colleagues, community members and former campers whose lives he touched over the decades at Camp Mystic.
“Although I am devastated, I can’t say I’m surprised that you sacrificed your life with the hopes of someone else’s being saved,” Eastland’s grandson wrote in his Instagram post.
April Ancira spent summers from the age of 8 to 14 at Camp Mystic. In an interview, she remembered Eastland helping her catch a big fish – and being just as thrilled as she was when she successfully reeled it in.
“My memories of him wrapping his arms around so many campers and being so excited to see them excel is incredible,” she said.
Austin Dickson, who served on the river authority board along with Eastland and sat next to him at board meetings, remembered him as a “pillar in our county and our community” who had championed a recent effort to create a new park along the river.
“So many people say, ‘Mystic is my heaven,’ or ‘Mystic is a dreamland,’ and I think that’s true,” he said. “That’s Dick and Tweety’s life’s work to make that true.”
CNN’s Allison Gordon and Lauren Mascarenhas contributed reporting.
