KATY, Texas – Several families were forced to leave a Christian lock-in at Typhoon Texas Water Park Friday night after chaos erupted, according to a group of Katy parents.
According to several Facebook accounts, several lock-in attendees became too rowdy and forced water park employees to call the Katy Police Department.
Emily Tiras, 16, was one of thousands of teen who paid to attend the event. She said when she arrived with her friends everything seemed fine, but later in the night many of the teens started acting crazy.
[VIDEO: Dozens of teens overfill pools at Typhoon Texas Water Park]
“It was insane,” Tiras said. “They were stampeding behind us, in front of us and people were throwing tubes.”
At one point things got so out of hand in the lazy river, Tiras said someone pushed her, which made her scrape her chin against the cement in the pool. She had to go the hospital to get stitches.
“It makes me extremely mad and it also makes me extremely cautious,” Tiras said.
Many parents and teens also reported that people were smoking marijuana in the park.
Eventually water park management decided to end the lock-in early, forcing out about 5,000 people — most of them teens — out in the middle of the night.
Maria Miller said the situation turned from bad to worse when officers with the Katy Police Department arrived.
"It was chaos,” Miller said. “They called in even more police before they announced they were shutting it down. When people heard that, they started rioting in the pool. We had to grab our kids and run to get out of the way. But nobody would leave.”
OFFICIAL STATEMENT: Last night a private event was held at Typhoon Texas as planned by a third party. When our code of...
Posted by Typhoon Texas Houston on Saturday, June 11, 2016
“Security was not the issue, the issue was that our patrons were not abiding by our code of conduct and our standards,” Evan Barnett of Typhoon Texas Water Park said.
Police were able to get everyone out of the water park around 1:30 a.m. The event was billed as a Christian lock-in, which was supposed to run from 10:30 p.m. to 6 a.m.
Tiras said even though it seems to be an isolated incident, she won’t be going back to Typhoon Texas anytime soon.
“I’m extremely disappointed in the kids who made this a terrible experience for those who were actually being respectful,” Tiras said.
KPRC Channel 2 tried contacting the third party organizer who planned the event to see if attendees will get a refund, however we have not yet heard back.