Texas Flood Death Toll: Families desperate as number reaches 52; 27 girls still unaccounted for as searches continue
Kerr County: 44 confirmed dead. Most victims were swept away along the Guadalupe River near Hunt and Ingram, where floodwaters rose over 25 feet in under an hour.
Travis County: 5 dead. Several cars were caught on flooded roads west of Austin.
Burnet County: 2 dead. A father and daughter were found in a trailer near Lake Buchanan.
Kendall County: 1 confirmed dead. A woman's body was recovered near Comfort after her car was washed off a rural crossing.
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The missing and the waiting
A region known for danger
Frantic rescues, bitter questions
Families swept away
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When the rain came, it wasn't gentle. It battered central Texas in the early hours of Friday, turning the Guadalupe River into a raging force that rose 26 feet in just 45 minutes. By Saturday night, the floods had killed at least 52 people, 15 of them children, and left rescuers combing through debris and mud for the missing.In Kerr County alone, 43 lives were lost. Many were campers at Camp Mystic , a Christian summer retreat that had stood along the river for nearly a century. It's here that 27 girls are still unaccounted for.'The camp was completely destroyed,' said Elinor Lester, 13, one of the survivors. 'A helicopter landed and started taking people away. It was really scary.'The death toll from the flash floods that ripped through Texas Hill Country has climbed to 52, including 15 children. Search teams are still combing through debris and swollen rivers, with 27 girls from Camp Mystic still missing. Here's what we know so far about where victims were found:Search teams have rescued more than 850 people so far — some from trees, others from rooftops. But there's a grim sense that time is slipping away. Dalton Rice, Kerrville City Manager, said, 'We're tracking the 'known missing' — the 27 — but there could be others. We simply don't know yet.'At an elementary school acting as a reunification centre, families wait for news. Some cling to hope. Others brace for the worst.'We still have people coming here looking for their loved ones. We've had a little success, but not much,' said Bobby Templeton, superintendent of Ingram Independent School District.This part of Texas has a nickname: flash flood alley . It's earned. The Hill Country is all rugged slopes and shallow soils that shed rain like a tin roof.'When it rains, water doesn't soak into the soil,' said Austin Dickson, CEO of the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country. 'It rushes down the hill.'In the past, officials had considered setting up a flood siren system along the river — like the tornado sirens in the Midwest. 'We know we get rains. We know the river rises. But nobody saw this coming,' said Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly. He admitted the plan for flood warnings never got off the ground, partly because of the cost.Inside Camp Mystic, the chaos came fast. Some campers crossed bridges roped together in knee-high water. Others were lifted out by helicopter. An 8-year-old girl from Alabama was among the confirmed dead. Jane Ragsdale, co-owner of Heart O' the Hills, another nearby camp, died in the flooding too.Governor Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster and urged Texans to pray. 'I urge every Texan to join me in prayer this Sunday — for the lives lost, for those still missing, for the recovery of our communities, and for the safety of those on the front lines,' he said.Yet there's anger too. AccuWeather claimed its warnings, along with alerts from the National Weather Service, should have given officials enough time to evacuate vulnerable camps. 'These warnings should have provided officials with ample time to evacuate camps such as Camp Mystic and get people to safety,' the company said.Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem admitted the forecast had fallen short. 'A moderate flood watch issued on Thursday… did not accurately predict the extreme rainfall,' she said.Former NOAA director Rick Spinrad put it more bluntly: 'People's ability to prepare for these storms will be compromised. It undoubtedly means that additional lives will be lost and probably more property damage.'There's no shortage of horror stories. Erin Burgess and her teenage son clung to a tree for an hour after water poured into their house. 'My son and I floated to a tree where we hung onto it, and my boyfriend and my dog floated away. He was lost for a while, but we found them,' she said.Barry Adelman watched water drive his entire family — including his 94-year-old grandmother and his 9-year-old grandson — into the attic. 'I was having to look at my grandson in the face and tell him everything was going to be OK, but inside I was scared to death.'W. Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, promised that no one will give up. 'The process is going to keep going,' he said. 'We're not going to stop until we find everyone that's missing.'President Donald Trump offered prayers and federal aid. 'Our Brave First Responders are on site doing what they do best,' he posted.Yet for many families in the Hill Country, the truth is harder than any headline. Tonia Fucci summed up the mood as she stood in Comfort, a town downstream from Camp Mystic. 'Complete shock. I'm still in shock today. And with the rescues going on and helicopters, you just know there's so many missing children and missing people. You just want them to be found for the sake of the families. But, you know, it's not going to be a good ending.'Here's the thing. In places like this, rain can turn deadly overnight. The question is whether this time, someone should have seen it coming.(With inputs from Agencies)
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8 minutes ago
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Texas floods: Donald Trump vows to upgrade outdated warning system even as weather service defends its forecasts
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The calls for modernisation come even as the Trump administration has dramatically reduced staffing at the agencies responsible for forecasting and climate research. Earlier this year, Senator Maria Cantwell revealed that at least 880 employees were cut from NOAA, which oversees the National Weather Service and the critical observational networks that feed data to forecasters. Officials are now facing mounting criticism over the late warnings that left families little time to escape the rising waters. Noem acknowledged that the flood exposed glaring weaknesses in federal weather alerts. 'We needed to renew this ancient system that has been left in place with the federal government for many, many years, and that is the reforms that are ongoing there,' she said. She cited her time as a governor and congresswoman to underscore how unpredictable weather can be, but emphasized that communities deserve better notice. 'The weather is extremely difficult to predict,' Noem insisted. 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The comments came amid mounting criticism of outdated alert systems and staffing shortages linked to federal cuts and early retirements under the Trump administration. Tom Fahy, the legislative director for the NWS employees' union, told CNN that while he believes the offices had 'adequate staffing and resources,' the Austin-San Antonio forecast office lacked a critical position. 'The Austin-San Antonio office is missing a warning coordination meteorologist — a role that serves as a crucial, direct link between forecasters and emergency managers,' Fahy said. A NOAA official told CNN that this and other vacancies were the result of early retirement incentives introduced by the Trump administration to reduce the federal workforce. NOAA spokesperson Kim Doster rejected suggestions that warnings were too late, saying the Weather Service issued alerts well before the Guadalupe River overwhelmed communities. 'The National Weather Service is heartbroken by the tragic loss of life in Kerr County,' Doster said in a statement to CNN. 'On July 3, the NWS office in Austin/San Antonio, TX conducted forecast briefings for emergency management in the morning and issued a Flood Watch in the early afternoon.' Doster added that multiple Flash Flood Warnings were issued during the night and early hours of July 4.
Time of India
an hour ago
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‘Nobody saw this coming': Texas flood kills 59; 27 girls still missing after camp washed away, rescue efforts enter day 3
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First Post
an hour ago
- First Post
Officials defend response as flash flood devastates Texas camps and communities
As officials undertake one of the greatest search-and-rescue operations in recent Texas history, they are facing more criticism over preparations and why people and youth summer camps near the river were not notified sooner or advised to evacuate read more Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signs and holds up an disaster declaration proclamation as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, left, looks on during a press conference about recent flooding along the Guadalupe River, Saturday, July 5, 2025, in Kerrville, Texas. AP Before going to bed before the Fourth of July holiday, Christopher Flowers checked the weather at a friend's house on the Guadalupe River. Nothing in the forecast concerned him. Hours later, he rushed to safety: He awoke in the dark to electrical plugs popping and water up to his ankles. His family quickly packed nine people into the attic. Flowers claimed that phones buzzed with warnings on Saturday, but he couldn't remember when the mayhem began. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'What they need is some kind of external system, like a tornado warning that tells people to get out now,' Flowers, 44, said. The deadly fast-moving waters that began before daylight on Friday in Texas Hill Country killed at least 43 people in Kerr County, authorities reported Saturday, with an unknown number of people still missing. In Kerr County, where the majority of the bodies were found, 27 girls from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along a river, were among those still missing. However, as officials undertake one of the greatest search-and-rescue operations in recent Texas history, they are facing more criticism over preparations and why people and youth summer camps near the river were not notified sooner or advised to evacuate. In the early hours of Friday, the National Weather Service had sent out a number of flash flood warnings before declaring flash flood emergencies, which is a rare alert of impending danger. The local officials have stated that no one foresaw the impending flood and have justified their conduct. 'There's going to be a lot of finger-pointing, a lot of second-guessing and Monday morning quarterbacking,' said Republican US Rep. Chip Roy, whose district includes Kerr County. 'There's a lot of people saying 'why' and 'how,' and I understand that.' STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD When the warnings began An initial flood watch, which generally urges residents to be weather-aware, was issued by the local National Weather Service office at 1:18 p.m. Thursday. It predicted between 5 to 7 inches (12.7 to 17.8 cm) of rain. Weather messaging from the office, including automated alerts delivered to mobile phones to people in threatened areas, grew increasingly ominous in the early morning hours of Friday, urging people to move to higher ground and evacuate flood-prone areas, said Jason Runyen, a meteorologist in the National Weather Service office. At 4:03 a.m., the office issued an urgent warning that raised the potential of catastrophic damage and a severe threat to human life. Jonathan Porter, the chief meteorologist at AccuWeather, a private weather forecasting company that uses National Weather Service data, said it appeared evacuations and other proactive measures could have been undertaken to reduce the risk of fatalities. 'People, businesses, and governments should take action based on Flash Flood Warnings that are issued, regardless of the rainfall amounts that have occurred or are forecast,' Porter said in a statement. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Officials say they didn't expect this Local officials have said they had not expected such an intense downpour that was the equivalent of months' worth of rain for the area. 'We know we get rains. We know the river rises,' said Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county's top elected official. 'But nobody saw this coming.' Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said he was jogging along the river early in the morning and didn't notice any problems at 4 a.m. A little over an hour later, at 5:20 a.m., the water level had risen dramatically and 'we almost weren't able to get out of the park,' he said. Rice also noted that the public can become desensitized to too many weather warnings. No county flood warning system Kelly said the county considered a flood warning system along the river that would have functioned like a tornado warning siren about six or seven years ago, before he was elected, but that the idea never got off the ground because of the expense. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'We've looked into it before … The public reeled at the cost,' Kelly said. He said he didn't know what kind of safety and evacuation plans the camps may have had. 'What I do know is the flood hit the camp first, and it came in the middle of the night. I don't know where the kids were,' he said. 'I don't know what kind of alarm systems they had. That will come out in time.' US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said Saturday it was difficult for forecasters to predict just how much rain would fall. She said the Trump administration would make it a priority to upgrade National Weather Service technology used to deliver warnings. 'We know that everyone wants more warning time, and that's why we're working to upgrade the technology that's been neglected for far too long to make sure families have as much advance notice as possible,' Noem said during a press conference with state and federal leaders. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Weather service had extra staffers The National Weather Service office in New Braunfels, which delivers forecasts for Austin, San Antonio and the surrounding areas, had extra staff on duty during the storms, Runyen said. Where the office would typically have two forecasters on duty during clear weather, they had up to five on staff. 'There were extra people in here that night, and that's typical in every weather service office — you staff up for an event and bring people in on overtime and hold people over,' Runyen said.
