Deadly Texas floods: What were the warnings?
Questions have been raised over extreme weather warnings in Texas, after heavy rain caused fatal flash floods along the Guadalupe River.
At least 51 people have died from the flooding in Texas, with an unknown number of people - including 27 girls from Camp Mystic in Kerr County - still missing.
As rescue teams continue to search for the missing, local and federal officials have come under fire over their flood preparations and about why those along the river weren't warned of the risks sooner.
What happened?
As much as 10ins (25cm) of heavy rain fell in just a few hours overnight in central Kerr County on Friday, causing the banks of the Guadalupe River to burst at around 4am local time.
Homes were washed out and vehicles swept away by the downpour - equivalent to months' worth of rain - while 27 girls staying at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the river, went missing when the fast-rising floodwaters hit.
The death toll stands at:
• At least 43 people, including 15 children and 28 adults, in Kerr County,
• One person in Kendall County,
• At least four people in Travis County,
• At least two in Burnet County,
• And one person in the city of San Angelo.
1:20
What flood warnings were there?
Private forecasting company AccuWeather said it and the National Weather Service (NWS) sent warnings about potential flash flooding hours before it began, urging people to move to higher ground and evacuate flood-prone areas.
The NWS also issued flash flood emergencies - a rare alert notifying of imminent danger - at 4.23am local time.
In a statement, AccuWeather said that "these warnings should have provided officials with ample time to evacuate camps such as Camp Mystic and get people to safety".
It also called Texas Hill County one of the most flash-flood-prone areas of the US because of its terrain and many water crossings.
However, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management Nim Kidd said that one NWS forecast earlier in the week had called for up to six inches of rain.
"It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw," he said.
3:35
Were they enough?
Locals have told various news agencies that while there had been phone alerts late into the night, forecasts headed into Friday evening did not predict the extreme conditions.
Christopher Flowers, who was staying at a friend's house along the river when the flooding started, told the Reuters news agency: "What they need is some kind of external system, like a tornado warning that tells people to get out now."
Kerrville resident Darryl Huffman told Sky's US partner network NBC News that he did not believe the storm would pose such danger before its arrival.
"I looked out the window and it was barely sprinkling outside," he said, "so I had no indication that the river was going to be right outside my driveway".
Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist at AccuWeather, said it appeared evacuations and other proactive measures could have been undertaken to reduce the risk of fatalities.
He said in a statement: "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."
Separately, the NWS's union told NBC News the agency's offices in central Texas were well-staffed and had issued timely warnings, "giving preliminary lead times of more than three hours before warning criteria were met".
What have officials said?
Local and federal officials have said they had not expected such an intense downpour of rain and insisted that no one saw the flood potential coming.
Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county's top elected official, said: "We know we get rain. We know the river rises. But nobody saw this coming."
"We have floods all the time. This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States," he said, adding: "We had no reason to believe this was going to be anything like what's happened here. None whatsoever."
Mr Kelly separately noted that while 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, "the public reeled at the cost".
At a news conference with the Texas governor, Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem said on Saturday that "everybody knows that the weather is extremely difficult to predict" before saying "we have all wanted more time and more warning and more alerts and more notification" from the NWS.
She said a "moderate" flood watch issued on Thursday by the NWS had not accurately predicted the extreme rainfall and said the Trump administration was working to upgrade the system.
Will forecasting get better?
While Ms Noem said technology for the NWS would be upgraded, the White House has previously been criticised after Donald Trump 's administration ordered 800 job cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - the parent organisation of the NWS.
A 30% cut to its budget is also in the pipeline, subject to approval by Congress.
Professor Costa Samaras, who worked on energy policy at the White House under President Joe Biden, said NOAA had been in the middle of developing new flood maps for neighbourhoods and that cuts to NOAA were "devastating".
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Daily Mail
32 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Texas flood survivors search for the missing and sift through ruins as they ask why there were no warnings
The stench of death still hangs over the Guadalupe River, three days after the watercourse spectacularly burst its banks and flooded the small Texas towns of Ingram, Kerrville, Center Point, and Hunt early on Independence Day. T he tragedy has claimed at least 89 lives, while 41 people are still missing including 10 young girls from a Christian summer camp. Most of the victims were swept away in the early hours of Friday morning after the river rose 23ft in a matter of minutes. Alerts that should have woken them to the impending danger never arrived, with many in areas with no signal or with alarms that didn't sound. 'There were no warnings on my phone until about eight in the morning which is long after this happened,' said Jamie Flick, 48, who lives in Ingram. 'That's crazy. The best thing I can think of is that they just didn't expect this here, but we have a lot of smaller tributaries that run into the Guadalupe. 'If it rains up that way, you're gonna be hit here, right? We don't know why the warnings weren't here, but they just weren't. It's scary.' Flick was speaking to the Daily Mail while searching a local trailer park, upended by the floods, for missing pets. All around are the signs of desolation. Hidden among loblolly pines that once lined the river banks are the corpses of deer and other wildlife killed in the disaster, rotting in the 84F Texas heat. The reek of dead fish flipped out of the water adds to the stench which mingles gruesomely with the smell of smoke emanating from the bonfires of tumbled tree branches set by cleanup crews. Bridges, some caved in, are swarmed with rescue teams accompanied by cadaver dogs hunting desperately for any sign of life among the devastation. Once an oasis of rural peace, there is quiet no more. Sirens constantly blare as police teams and first responders screech past on Highway 39, the country road that connects Kerrville with Ingram and the tiny town of Hunt where 27 children lost their lives at Camp Mystic. Stories of near misses and death are everywhere. Flick tells of a friend from the same trailer park who woke in the small hours to find water pouring into her home. 'They got out through a back window,' Flick said. 'She was able to get out with her dog and her cat, they got stuck in a tree, her with her cat on her head. 'Her dog was on a harness, but she let him go at some point for whatever reason and couldn't get him back. Eventually a neighbor saved her and the cat.' Bambi Harrell, 62, spent Sunday helping friends pick up the shattered pieces of their lives, told Daily Mail she had never witnessed disaster of this scale in her 25 years in the area She added: 'They keep downplaying it, but I've never seen anything like this. They keep saying that 30 or 50 years ago, we had something like this. 'These trees are hundreds of years old, and they're uprooted and they're down. 'We've always had these huge trees, and the huge trees are gone now. So, it's nothing that's ever seen here before.' Flick is not alone in her assessment of the devastation wrought by the floods. Bambi Harrell, 62, who spent Sunday helping friends pick up the shattered pieces of their lives, said: 'I've lived here 25 years and I've seen a lot of flash flooding but nothing like this. 'We have some amazing first responders here that are going above and beyond.' She added: 'I thought I was prepared for this, but I was not. I've never seen anything like this. It's devastating.' Driving through Kerrville and the neighboring towns of Ingram and Center Point, the scale of the devastation quickly becomes clear. A road bridge across the river was partially caved in, while huge loblollies lie snapped in half like discarded toothpicks. Crushed cars are mangled on the Guadalupe's banks while upturned boats were scattered around – ripped from their moorings by the sheer force of the current. Elsewhere, homes are ripped up, including in River's Edge – a small leafy row of trailer homes just a few feet from the Guadalupe in Ingram. It was there that dad-of-two Julian Ryan, 27, died a hero after punching through a window so his family could escape – at the cost of almost severing his arm. Speaking to CBS affiliate KHOU in the aftermath, his devastated widow Christine Wilson said: 'It severed his artery in his arm and almost cut it clean off.' Julian Ryan, 27, is being hailed a hero after he used his final moments to save his family from the fast-moving waters. He died after punching through a window of their trailer home and severing his artery Inside Ryan's trailer, flood marks almost reached the ceiling while the family's furniture was tossed around like toys by the water Heartbreakingly, despite repeated 911 calls, Ryan could not be saved – telling his family, 'I'm sorry, I'm not going to make it. I love y'all.' Daily Mail photos of the trailer home show the catastrophic damage it suffered, with flood marks almost reaching the ceiling while the family's furniture was tossed around like toys. Mud is splattered up the inside walls while one side of the property was cracked and bent, with bits of the corrugated iron exterior ripped off. Other trailers in the neighborhood had been shifted off their foundations – with some landing three streets away. 'It's just total devastation,' said neighbor Ray Lackey. Like Ryan's, his trailer home was wrecked in the flood and is now filled with mud that has destroyed most of his possessions – including irreplaceable photographs of his late father and sister. 'There are families that lost their lives, people who were killed that I know. It's hard. I lost everything and everybody here – and I mean everybody here – lost everything.' Lackey, a carpenter, was out of town when the flood hit but, with no insurance, he now faces an uphill battle to get his life back on track. 'Hopefully somebody will help us out somehow. I wish I would have had insurance, really, right?' he said. 'I never would have thought anything like this would have happened. The river has never come up. That's why I don't, and I've lived here for a good amount of time.' On nearby streets, houses still stood but were packed with smelly river mud while another property – which had been named Paradise by its distraught owner – was playing host to a phalanx of police vehicles. Meanwhile, the usually serene TX-39 highway that cuts through town had been turned into a snarl of cop cars and big rigs hauling specialist gear, such as air boats and cherry pickers equipped with tracks. 'Before this, this was just a beautiful, peaceful, lovely place,' said Lackey. 'It was very quiet. Nobody messed with nobody. 'Everybody helped out around here. And now everybody is kind of coming together. It helps having people like them around and now they're coming out to help.'
Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
Eight more deaths confirmed in Texas floods - bringing total to at least 90
At least 90 people have died in the flash floods that have left a trail of destruction across Texas, officials said. Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said on Monday that 75 bodies had been recovered from the area, which is seven more than the previous figure for the county. Sheriff Leitha said the number of dead includes 48 adults and 27 children. The total figure is seven higher than the 68 deaths that had earlier been confirmed in Kerr County. In a separate news conference in Williamson County, officials there said a second person had been confirmed dead in the area. One official warned that debris was posing a threat to rescuers out searching for bodies, adding: "The bodies that we're looking for could be hidden beneath 20ft of mud, trees and debris". An official also warned rescuers had to be wary of "snakes and skunks" in the water. He asked people to keep away from the floodwater. One death had earlier been confirmed in Tom Green, while there had been four fatalities in Burnet, six fatalities in Travis County and two in Kendall. Sheriff Leitha has said 15 of the 90 confirmed dead were still unidentified. In Kerr County, at least 27 deaths were confirmed after some of the worst flooding struck a girls' summer camp called Camp Mystic. Among those killed were campers as young as eight, a camp counsellor and the camp's director. At least 41 people are still missing in the state - including 10 girls from the camp. Texas Senator Ted Cruz spoke at the same news conference where the latest death figures were confirmed and said: "Texas is grieving right now, the pain, the shock of what has transpired these last few days has broken the heart of our state. "Those numbers [the number of dead] are continuing to go up... that's every parent's nightmare, every mum and dad." He said he had picked up his own daughter from a camp in the area last week. 3:25 Mr Cruz added: "Over the last several days, I've spoken to multiple parents, scared out of their minds. "There's still ten girls and one counsellor from Camp Mystic that are not accounted for. "And the pain and agony of not knowing your child's whereabouts, it's the worst thing imaginable." He added: "You know what I'd do? What I did when this happened? Just go hug your kids. "Because I've got to tell you, I hugged my girls with tears in my eyes." The flooding comes after the Trump administration made cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) - with Texas officials having criticised the weather service by claiming it failed to warn the public about the impending danger. Meanwhile, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer asked the Department of Commerce's acting inspector general on Monday to probe whether staffing vacancies at the NWS's San Antonio office contributed to "delays, gaps, or diminished accuracy" in forecasting the flooding. The NWS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mr Schumer's letter but earlier defended its forecasting and emergency management. Apparently referencing people who might claim the Trump administration's cuts played a role in worsening disaster, Mr Cruz said at the news conference: "I think this is not a time for partisan finger-pointing and attacks." Dalton Rice, the city manager of Kerrville in Kerr County, was asked whether evacuation warnings could have been issued earlier. He said: "It's very tough to make those calls because we also don't want to cry wolf. "You know, we want to make sure that we activated [it] at the right time." He added: "We had first responders getting swept away, responding to the first areas of rainfall. That's how quick it happened. "They were driving to these areas and one of them got swept off the road." Texas Game Wardens had arrived at Camp Mystic on Friday afternoon and began evacuating campers. A rope was tied so girls could hang on as they walked across a bridge, the floodwaters rushing around their knees. Elinor Lester, 13, said she was evacuated with her cabinmates by helicopter after wading through floodwaters. She recalled startling awake around 1:30am as thunder crackled and water pelted the cabin windows. Ms Lester was among the older girls housed on elevated ground known as Senior Hill. Cabins housing the younger campers, who can start attending at age eight, are situated along the riverbanks and were the first to flood, she said. "The camp was completely destroyed," she said. "It was really scary." Her mother, Elizabeth Lester, said her son was nearby at Camp La Junta and also escaped. A counsellor there woke up to find water rising in the cabin, opened a window and helped the boys swim out. 1:04 Camp La Junta and nearby Camp Waldemar said in Instagram posts that all campers and staff were safe. It comes after Texas agriculture minister Sid Miller told Fox News that cattle and livestock were found on the "tops of trees" in the state due to a "26ft wall of water". More heavy rain is expected in the region over the next two days, with flood alerts in place until 7pm local time today. US President Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration yesterday and says he will "probably" visit Texas on Friday. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Here is where the flash flooding has hit Texas
Maps show the extent of the devastating flash flooding in central Texas, which has left 95 people dead and over 40 more missing. The Guadalupe River surged to nearly 35 feet in Comfort, Texas, on Friday, rising by 20 feet in roughly 95 minutes. Maps revealed that nearby Kerr County was disproportionately impacted, with authorities announcing in a Monday press conference that 75 people had been killed, including 48 adults and 27 children. In Austin, a dozen people were also killed in associated flooding, and 14 remain unaccounted for, according to My San Antonio. Three people were reported to have died in Burnett County, two in Williamson County, one in Tom Green County, and two more in Kendall County, KXAN reported. In Kerr County, search and rescue operations were continuing but first responders were running into technical challenges. There were also power outages, and 40 downed power lines. Officials said 10 girls from Camp Mystic – a Christian girls' summer camp – and one counselor remained missing. The camp reported Monday that 27 members had been killed. 'That's every parents' nightmare,' Republican Sen. Ted Cruz told reporters. Responding to a question about an emergency warning system, Cruz said there had always been a risk of flooding along the river and that everyone would evacuate people if they could go back in time. 'Evacuation is a delicate balance,' said Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice at the same press conference. 'Because if you evacuate too late, you then risk putting buses or cars or vehicles or campers on roads into low-water areas trying to get them out, which then can make it even more challenging. Because these flash floods happen very quickly.' He noted that first responders had been swept off the road while trying to help. City leadership and local forecasters have been the subject of intense scrutiny regarding emergency response, including over the timing of alerts and how information from the National Weather Service was disseminated on Friday morning. Forecasters had warned about a 'particularly dangerous situation,' with between five and 10 inches falling in south-central Kerr County over a period of just three to six hours. Other meteorologists and former National Weather Service employees have defended the actions of the San Antonio, Austin, and San Angelo offices. But, officials have repeatedly said there was more rain than had been predicted. 'The original forecast that we received Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3-6 inches of rain in the Concho Valley and 4-8 inches in the Hill Country,' Texas Emergency Management Chief W. Nim Kidd told reporters last week. 'The amount of rain that fell at this specific location was never in any of those forecasts.' Flood watches and warnings remained in effect throughout the day on Monday near the Rio Grande River. 'There remains a threat of flash flooding from slow moving heavy rains overnight and through the day on Monday somewhere over the watch area,' the City of Kerrville warned on Facebook.
