Death toll rises to 82 after catastrophic Texas flood
During a separate press conference, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said an additional 10 people were dead in the broader central Texas area. At least 82 are confirmed dead as of Monday morning.
Abbott said another 41 people are still missing across the affected area, including 10 children and one counselor from Camp Mystic, a Christian camp for girls along the Guadalupe River.
Abbottsigned a federal disaster declaration on Saturday, which President Donald Trump signed on Sunday. Abbott also issued a disaster declaration for six Texas counties in addition to the 15 he identified on Friday, when heavy rains first caused the flooding.
On Truth Social, Trump said his administration was working with state and local officials to respond to the flooding.
"Melania and I are praying for all of the families impacted by this horrible tragedy," Trump wrote on Saturday. "Our Brave First Responders are on site doing what they do best. GOD BLESS THE FAMILIES, AND GOD BLESS TEXAS!"
The X account for Elon Musk's Starlink, SpaceX's satellite internet system, is offering support to affected residents. Musk has a strong presence in Texas through his companies Tesla, X, and SpaceX.
"In support of those impacted by flooding in Texas, Starlink is providing Mini kits for search and rescue efforts — ensuring connectivity even in dead zones — and one month of free service for thousands of customers in the region, including those who paused service so they can reactivate Starlink during this time," the post said.
Officials said over 12 inches of rain fell in the county on Friday. The National Weather Service first issued a flash flood warning at 4 a.m. on Friday.
It extended the flood watch until Monday at 7 p.m., saying there was "a threat of flash flooding from slow moving heavy rains overnight and through the day on Monday."
The region is a popular vacation destination and home to multiple summer camps for children. Camp Mystic in Hunt has about 750 campers. Two days after disaster struck, officials said they remain hopeful they can find survivors.
In a statement posted to its website, the Heart O' the Hills, another girls' camp based in Hunt, said its director, Jane Ragsdale, had died in the floods.
"We have received word that Jane Ragsdale did not make it," it said. "We are mourning the loss of a woman who influenced countless lives and was the definition of strong and powerful."
It added that the camp was not in session as the flooding hit, and that "most of those who were on camp at the time have been accounted for and are on high ground."
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said during an earlier press conference that the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet in just 45 minutes, washing away bridges and buildings in a wide area.
On Facebook, parents and community members have circulated flyers with contact numbers, urging the public to help locate the missing children.
Kerr County has an estimated population of about 53,900, according to a 2024 count by the US Census Bureau. The county sits in the Hill Country region of Central Texas, which includes cities like San Antonio and Austin. Beyond the Guadalupe River, the region is home to several others, including the Colorado, Concho, and Blanco Rivers.
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USA Today
35 minutes ago
- USA Today
Are you experiencing extreme weather more? Do NWS cuts worry you? Take our poll.
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Hamilton Spectator
an hour ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Authorities will wait to address questions about Texas floods, as search for the dead goes on
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Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Michael Biesecker and Brian Slodysko in Washington; Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City and Sophia Tareen in Chicago. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
Who's to blame for Texas flooding tragedy? There is a lot of finger pointing.
The catastrophe was caused by a perfect storm of difficult-to-forecast rainfall and fast-moving water. Some wonder if budget cuts made things worse. The Texas rains hadn't even slowed before the debate began about why forecasts had underestimated the devastating flooding over Independence Day weekend. Local and state officials, social media users and even the meteorology community raised questions. What were the National Weather Service forecasts? Why is it so hard to know where rain will fall? Did staff reductions at the weather service, and other budget cuts by the Trump administration contribute to the catastrophe? What role did weather balloons play in the storm forecasts? Answers to some of these questions and many others may never be adequately answered, especially for the families of dozens of children swept away by floodwaters. At least 81 people died between July 4 and 6 and dozens more were injured or remain missing, state officials said. 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Although the warnings arrived less than 24 hours before the flooding started, long-time weather service veterans and regional experts say that's not all that unusual in this region. It's a known shortcoming of the localized rain models forecasters use. They can't yet pinpoint exactly where intense rain might fall and when on an individual community. One expert, Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, said it appears the weather service employees in Austin/San Antonio did what they could, based on the available information. "From what I saw, the warnings were pretty timely," said Nielsen-Gammon, a meteorology professor at Texas A&M University, The weather service office first advised on July 1 and 2 that a very moist air mass was moving in that would increase rain chances across south-central Texas with heavy rain at times that could lead to minor local early morning forecast on July 3 by the NWS Weather Prediction Center said the region should expect 'unseasonably moist' air that could bring 1 to 2 inches of rain an hour and lead to flooding, with approaching storms tapping into abundant tropical moisture. As the day progressed, a clearer picture emerged of how weather systems were interacting above Texas to form storms. An 'urgent' flood watch at 1:18 p.m. July 3 warned heavy rain, with isolated amounts of 5 to 7 inches, could cause flash flooding and 'excessive' runoff that could flood rivers and streams. The watch covered eight counties, including Kerr and Bandera where some of the heaviest flooding occurred. By 7:02 p.m., the weather prediction center warned leftover bits of Tropical Storm Barry, near-record moisture and an unstable atmosphere meant any storms that formed could be self-sustaining, with a potential for rain rates of more than 3 inches an hour, and they could rain over the same area again and again. It stated: 'Considerable flash flooding this evening is possible." A flurry of forecast updates continued. At 1:14 a.m. on July 4, the weather service issued a "Flash Flood Warning" for central Kerr County and northwestern Bandera County. Almost simultaneously, water flow began increasing dramatically on the Guadalupe River at Hunt, Texas. "This pleasing stream had a flow rate of 53 gallons per second at midnight on July 4," said Nielsen-Gammon. At 3 a.m., it was flowing at 264 gallons per second. Between 3 a.m. and 3:30 am., the water flow jumped to 125,000 gallons per second. Within four hours of the initial rise, the river level jumped 21.8 feet and was flowing at 900,000 gallons per second. Did weather service cuts have an impact? President Donald Trump campaigned on cutting the federal bureaucracy and reducing the budget. His administration, including the Office of Management and Budget and the Department of Governmental Efficiency, has been mission-focused on doing so. The sweeping cuts left many federal offices short-staffed and demoralized, according to recent retirees. Many remaining employees, including those who declined to speak on the record for fear of retribution, say employees still fear more jobs will be lost in a reduction in force. Federal agencies were required to prepare a plan for making further reductions, but a federal judge in California ruled in May that the job cuts could not move forward. The weather service office in Austin/San Antonio oversees much of the Hill Country area where the flooding took place. Of the 26 staff positions in that office, six are vacant at the moment, including two senior members, said Victor Murphy, a recently retired National Weather Service meteorologist in Texas. One of those is the warning coordination meteorologist who oversees emergency warnings and working with local officials on communicating around such events. The Austin office also is short two forecasters. Did the cuts play any role in the recent tragedy? Murphy wondered out loud. "I don't know … The fact is that the office had record flooding two days in a row.' The San Angelo, Texas office is down four positions, including a staff forecaster, a lead hydrologist and its meteorologist in charge, said Tom Fahy, legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization. Weather service forecasters often become "an easy target for people's wrath," when people are looking for someone to blame, Fahy said. 'The real blame is the Trump Administration budget cuts to NWS and FEMA that cut off coordination planning with local emergency management officials,' he said. 'Even during Trump's 1st term, NWS managers would plan, practice and train their combined teams for increased cooperation. All that ended when Trump was inaugurated in 2025.' President Trump said July 6 that he doesn't think the federal government needs to rehire weather service meteorologists in the wake of catastrophic Texas flooding. 'I would think not,' Trump told reporters when asked about rehiring weather forecasters, adding that flooding 'happened in seconds. Nobody expected it.' When asked if he would investigate whether the cuts left key vacancies in the weather service or emergency coordination, Trump said he "wouldn't blame (former President Joe) Biden for it either. I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe, and it's just so horrible for all." Why is it so hard to know where rain will fall? At a news conference on July 5, Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said: "The original forecast that we received on Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3 to 6 inches of rain in the Concho valley and 4 to 8 inches in the Hill Country." "The amount of rain that fell in this specific location was never in any of those forecasts," Kidd said. Rainfall estimates in these extreme rainfall events have fallen short before, frustrating emergency managers, forecasters and even members of Congress, who approved measures in 2021 and 2022 to improve rainfall modeling and estimates of maximum possible precipitation within any given time frame. As the weather service looked at their computers on July 3, the models they use for forecasting thunderstorms wouldn't come together with a consensus on where the greatest rain would fall, according to their discussions. Many showed the potential for extreme rainfall somewhere in central Texas, while others showed almost nothing happening, Nielsen-Gammon said. "Where it was going to develop would depend on the details of the individual thunderstorms that popped up." Pinpointing localized extreme rain remains "a very difficult challenge," said Gerard. Any time you have this type of environment, there's going to be a chance that local areas are going to get more rain than anticipated." Rainfall in a storm is 'controlled by very small-scale processes that are happening within the storm,' said Gerard, now CEO of weather consulting company Balanced Weather. 'We don't have the resolution of modeling to be able to forecast that yet.' The storms laboratory is working to develop higher resolution modeling, he said, but it's on the chopping block in the president's proposed budget. Did weather service balloon launches play a role? Weather balloon launches measure moisture up through the atmosphere to help predict how much is available for rain. The better the data, the better the outcome, said Murphy, the recently retired Texas meteorologist. "You find out from a sounding what's up 20,000, 30,000 or 40,000 feet. The only way to measure that is with a balloon.' However, staffing shortages at local weather service offices across the U.S. has forced the limiting or cancelation of numerous weather balloon launches. Of 11 locations in Texas and surrounding states that were launching in the early spring, only six of the sites now launch balloons on any given morning, Murphy said. There was only one weather balloon launch within 200 miles of the flooded area, Nielsen-Gammon said. However, that one weather balloon proved its worth, the experts said, providing essential information that helped weather service forecasters see the increased chances for rain. Launched remotely from an automated site in Del Rio, Texas, Murphy said it's "the only one of its kind in the region.' But the federal cutbacks and rising number of climate disasters mean the public is likely to blame someone for every botched forecast and missed opportunity to warn ‒ whether deservedly or not. On July 7, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the president and the National Weather Service's performance. 'Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie and it serves no purpose during this time of national mourning," Leavitt said. "The National Weather Service did its job." Contributing: Zac Anderson and Joey Garrison, USA TODAY Dinah Voyles Pulver, a national correspondent for USA TODAY, writes about climate change, violent weather and other news. Reach her at dpulver@ or @dinahvp on Bluesky or X or dinahvp.77 on Signal.
