Texas search teams face more rain as death toll surpasses 80
By Evan Garcia
A Christian girls' summer camp in central Texas said on Monday that at least 27 campers and counselors were among those who perished in the catastrophic flooding over the July 4 weekend, while emergency responders still searching for dozens of missing people faced the prospect of more heavy rains and thunderstorms.
The death toll from Friday's floods exceeds 80, and officials expect it to rise as search teams waded through mud-laden riverbanks and flew over the flood-stricken landscape, even as they still hope to find more survivors.
"This will be a rough week," Mayor Joe Herring Jr said at a briefing on Monday morning.
The vast majority of the victims - 48 adults and 27 children - died in Kerr County, where the Guadalupe River was transformed by pre-dawn torrential downpours into a raging torrent in less than an hour on Friday. The waters tore through Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old Christian girls' retreat on the banks of the river.
"Our hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this unimaginable tragedy," the camp said in a statement on Monday.
Ten girls and a camp counselor are still missing, officials said on Monday.
"Texas is grieving right now," U.S. Senator Ted Cruz said. "The pain, the shock of what has transpired these past few days has broken the heart of our state."
Richard "Dick" Eastland, 70, the co-owner and director of Camp Mystic, died trying to save the children at his camp during the flood, multiple media including the Austin American-Statesman reported.
Eastland and his wife Tweety Eastland have owned the camp since 1974, according to the camp's website.
"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," Eastland's grandson, George Eastland, wrote on Instagram.
In Hill Country, where the worst flooding occurred, 2 to 4 inches of more rain were expected to fall, with isolated areas getting up to 10 inches of rain, said Allison Santorelli, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.
Santorelli said that the potential new floods could be particularly dangerous because of the water-saturated soil and all the debris already in and around the river.
The weather service issued a flood watch through 7 p.m. on Monday in the region.
State emergency management officials had warned on Thursday, ahead of the July Fourth holiday, that parts of central Texas faced the possibility of flash floods based on National Weather Service forecasts.
CONFLUENCE OF DISASTER
But twice as much rain as was predicted ended up falling over two branches of the Guadalupe just upstream of the fork where they converge, sending all of that water racing into the single river channel where it slices through Kerrville, City Manager Dalton Rice said.
Rice and other public officials, including Governor Greg Abbott, said the circumstances of the flooding, and the adequacy of weather forecasts and warning systems, would be scrutinized once the immediate situation was brought under control.
In the meantime, search-and-rescue operations were continuing around the clock, with hundreds of emergency personnel on the ground contending with debris, mud and other challenges.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency was activated on Sunday and was deploying resources to Texas after President Donald Trump issued a major disaster declaration, the Department of Homeland Security said. U.S. Coast Guard helicopters and planes were aiding search and rescue efforts.
SCALING BACK FEDERAL DISASTER RESPONSE
Trump said on Sunday that he would visit the disaster scene, probably on Friday. He has previously outlined plans to scale back the federal government's role in responding to natural disasters, leaving states to shoulder more of the burden.
Some experts questioned whether cuts to the federal workforce by the Trump administration made it harder for officials to accurately predict the severity of the floods and issue appropriate warnings ahead of the storm.
Trump's administration has overseen thousands of job cuts at the National Weather Service's parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, leaving many weather offices understaffed, former NOAA director Rick Spinrad said.
Trump pushed back when asked on Sunday if federal government cuts hobbled the disaster response or left key job vacancies at the service.
"That water situation, that all is, and that was really the Biden setup," he said, referencing his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden. "But I wouldn't blame Biden for it, either. I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe."
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday asked a government watchdog to investigate whether budget cuts contributed to any delays or inaccuracy in forecasting the floods.
Cruz, a Republican, said there would be time to examine whether more could have been done to prevent the loss of life but that now was not the time for "partisan finger-pointing."
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
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Japan Times
3 hours ago
- Japan Times
Rescuers search for 160 missing Texas flood victims
Crews in central Texas are digging through massive piles of debris, overturned vehicles and shattered homes for a sixth day as the search continues for victims of flash floods that killed more than 100 people over the Fourth of July weekend. At least 160 people are still missing in Kerr Country, the hardest-hit area of the Texas Hill Country. Officials say no one has been found alive since July 4, when the deluge arrived in the predawn hours, tearing through a 100-kilometer stretch of the Guadalupe River packed with vacationers. The waters inundated storied summer camps including Camp Mystic, where at least 27 children and counselors died. Sheriff Larry Leitha said 2,100 people are involved in the response, and the death toll in Kerr County alone has reached 95. Authorities said they're concentrating their efforts in areas around the river that are choked with debris. Crews are using excavators and skid loaders to comb through heaps of trees, homes and wreckage in search of victims. More harrowing stories emerged from survivors, while demands grew for a fuller accounting of why more people didn't get advance warning of the risks even as the National Weather Service sent out urgent alerts. Authorities have resisted discussing the specifics of the local response in the lead-up to the floods, saying the focus needed to be on recovery efforts. Rena Bailey, 77, may have been saved by her habit of watching online storm maps when foul weather arrives. She was awake in the early morning hours of July 4 as thunderstorms pummeled her house in Hunt, Texas, monitoring the storm's progress. Her home — where she's lived since 1990 — is normally a short walk from the riverbank and is raised about six feet above ground level. "I went outside, and I noticed the water in the driveway was like about a foot high, and I thought, 'Hmm, that's weird, I've never seen that before.'' Bailey recalled in an interview. "Then, all of a sudden, it jumped up. And I saw the Hunt Store and heard it start to disintegrate. I saw the post office start to disintegrate, the office next to it and then this wall of water.' She said she woke her husband, and they watched the propane tanks from a gas station float past. As the water climbed in their house, she said her husband helped her out a window, and they climbed to higher ground. Flood-ravaged Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas, on Wednesday. Crews in central Texas are digging through massive piles of debris, overturned vehicles and shattered homes for a sixth day as the search continues for victims of flash floods that killed more than 100 people over the Fourth of July weekend. | Bloomberg She said she got a number of weather alerts about the risk of flooding but didn't act on them because the notices are fairly routine and the house had weathered many floods before. "I just wish we'd gotten a better idea of what was happening,' she said. Pressure for a detailed accounting of what happened are mounting. Questions are being asked about when weather forecasters first advised local officials about the potential for catastrophic flooding and what those officials did to spread the message. Irene and Lucas Brake are still searching for Lucas' parents, Joni Kay and Robert, who vanished during the floods. Irene and Lucas were staying at an RV park in Kerrville, while his parents had rented a nearby cabin for the holiday. Irene said she stepped outside early July 4 to find water up to her waist. She and Lucas managed to reach safety but later learned that the cabin where Joni Kay and Robert were staying was swept away in the flood. No one has heard from them since. Lucas has spent days walking the Guadalupe River looking for any sign of them. "We are doing our best to keep our heads high,' Irene said in an interview. The area had a history of deadly deluges and was known locally as "Flash Flood Alley.' It lacked public alarms or warning sirens, partly due to the expense required to set them up. Weather alerts were sent to mobile phones in the area, but service is spotty in a largely rural region. In total, at least 109 people have been confirmed dead across the state, and authorities say the toll is expected to rise. Additional storms around the state capital Austin on July 5 caused at least 14 deaths, with another dozen or so people still believed to be missing. Survivors told news outlets they were awakened by barking dogs, the glare of flashing rescue lights, or the pounding storm that kept them tossing and turning through the night. Some stepped out of bed into cold water on the floor or were jolted awake by neighbors pounding on doors. At Wednesday's press conference, Kerrville Community Services Officer Jonathan Lamb recounted rescue stories, including a patrol sergeant who used his loudspeaker to wake up residents before spending 13 hours wading through floodwaters with others to pull people from vehicles and off rooftops. In another case, a man used a garden hose as a safety line to save someone from a fast-moving current. "I know this tragedy — how horrific as it was — could have been so much worse,' said Lamb. Local officials have pushed back on suggestions they could have acted sooner to warn residents and visitors. They say the rural terrain, which includes low water crossings and single-lane bridges, could have left evacuees stranded on the road and in danger of being swept away. Children's belongings outside a cabin at Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas, on Wednesday | Bloomberg "There are rural areas that may experience extended response times, areas where cell service is spotty, where there are single-lane bridges, and low water crossings,' Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement. "Sometimes evacuation is not the safest choice; sometimes the safer choice is shelter-in-place. The Hill Country is not one-size-fits all.' He pledged a thorough investigation of what happened "to identify areas for improvement in our response protocols.' Abbott also ordered Texas flags to be lowered to half-staff Wednesday in memory of the victims. Abbott has also said lawmakers will address flood warning systems in a special session of the Texas legislature starting July 21, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said the state would find a way to pay for natural-disaster alarms for the area. AccuWeather estimated the disaster may have caused $18 billion to $22 billion in economic losses and property damage statewide. Texas is especially prone to natural catastrophes, partly because it's so big. In the past decade, Texas has been in the top 10 states for weather-related economic losses, according to National Weather Service records. From 2015 to 2024, 654 people died as a direct result of weather. Texas accounts for 31% of all damages caused by extreme weather in the U.S. during the last 10 years. Brandon Rothwell, 56, was volunteering in Hunt this week, helping cook food for victims and search-and-rescue crews at an outdoor grill. He grew up in Hunt and was in Kerrville when the floods struck, but far enough away from the river to be safe. "This storm was like a mini hurricane,' he said. "The river here is like a rock quarry in a way. There's a lot of rock and canyons. Water just came down.' He said the area is resilient, and predicted most of it would be rebuilt within six months. Neighbors are already working to help each other, he said. "Everyone pulled together with love,' he said. "We're Texans. That's what we do.'
Japan Today
8 hours ago
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Crews comb flood-stricken central Texas for missing people
FILE PHOTO: A drone picture shows damage in Camp Mystic, following flooding on the Guadalupe River, in Hunt, Texas, U.S. July 6, 2025. REUTERS/Evan Garcia/File Photo By Jane Ross Search teams persisted in sifting through mounds of debris in Texas Hill Country on Wednesday as hopes of finding more survivors dimmed five days after flash floods tore through the region, killing at least 119 people, including many children. As of Tuesday evening, there were more than 170 people still unaccounted for, according to figures provided by Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Searchers have not found anyone alive since Friday. Most of the fatalities and missing people were in Kerr County. The county seat, Kerrville, was devastated when torrential rains lashed the area early on Friday, July 4, dropping more than a foot of rain in less than an hour and swelling the Guadalupe River to a height of nearly 30 feet (9 meters). The death toll in Kerr County was 95 as of Wednesday morning, Sheriff Larry Leitha told reporters at a briefing, including three dozen children. That figure includes at least 27 campers and counselors from Camp Mystic, a Christian girls' summer retreat on the banks of the Guadalupe. Authorities have warned that the death toll will likely keep rising as floodwaters recede. Elsewhere on Tuesday, three people died in New Mexico, two of them young children, when a flash flood swept through the village of Ruidoso in mountains around 135 miles (217 km) southeast of Albuquerque, the state's largest city. The flooding was sparked by heavy rain that fell on wildfire burn scars, causing a rapid runoff of water that saw the Rio Ruidoso River rise to a record 20 feet, five feet higher than its previous historical high, the village said in a statement. Scientists say climate change has made extreme flood events more frequent and damaging by creating warmer, wetter weather patterns. Public officials in Texas have faced days of questions about whether they could have warned people sooner, giving them time to move to higher ground ahead of the raging floodwaters. At Wednesday's briefing, the sheriff was again pressed to address questions about how long it took for officials to respond to "Code Red" alerts about the flash flooding during the early hours of July 4. He declined to respond directly, saying his focus was on finding the missing victims and that a full analysis of what went wrong with the response would come later. "We will answer those questions," he said. "I can't tell you when - a week or two, okay? We're going to get to them. We're not trying to deflect them." Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice has said the amount of rainfall exceeded predictions and fell so fast that there was not enough time to order evacuations without further endangering people. Abbott said on Tuesday that the Texas legislature would convene a special session later this month to investigate the emergency response and provide funding for disaster relief. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Japan Times
a day ago
- Japan Times
Misinformation from left and right sows confusion amid Texas floods
Following deadly floods in Texas, misinformation from both left- and right-wing users was roiling social media, with liberals baselessly blaming staffing cuts at U.S. weather agencies for flawed warning systems and conservatives ramping up conspiracy theories. The catastrophic floods over the weekend have left more than 100 people dead, including more than two dozen girls and counselors at a riverside summer camp, with rescuers racing Tuesday to search for dozens of people still missing. Multiple left-leaning accounts on the platform X peddled the unfounded claim that staffing cuts at the National Weather Service (NWS) by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration had "degraded" its forecasting ability. While the NWS, like other agencies, has experienced deep staffing and budget cuts under the Trump administration, experts say its forecasters rose to the challenge despite the constraints. "There have been claims that (weather agencies) did not foresee catastrophic (Texas) floods — but that's simply not true," Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, wrote on Bluesky. "This was undoubtedly an extreme event but messaging rapidly escalated beginning (around) 12 (hours) prior ... Locations that flooded catastrophically had at least 1-2+ hours of direct warning from NWS." There were 22 warnings from the NWS for Kerr County and the Kerrville area, which experienced the worst flooding, according to a CBS News analysis. "This truly was a sudden & massive event and occurred at worst possible time (middle of the night). But (the) problem, once again, was not a bad weather prediction: it was one of 'last mile' forecast/warning dissemination," Swain wrote. Meanwhile, right-wing conspiracy theorists on social media falsely claimed that the government caused the flooding through cloud seeding, an artificial technique that stimulates rainfall. Multiple experts have said that such weather-modification technologies were not responsible for the Texas floods. The false claim echoes past conspiracy theories, including claims that weather manipulation by the government caused Hurricane Milton — which struck Florida's Gulf Coast last year — and that cloud seeding efforts were behind last year's flooding in Dubai. "False claims from both the left and right have spread widely on social media following the catastrophic floods in Texas," Sarah Komar and Nicole Dirks from the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard wrote in a report that debunked several falsehoods. "When extreme weather events occur, conspiracy theories about humans creating or controlling them often soon follow." Following natural disasters, misinformation often surges across social media — fueled by accounts from across the political spectrum — as many platforms scale back content moderation and reduce their reliance on human fact-checkers. Traditional media outlets were not immune to misinformation swirling on the internet. "Like other disasters before it, the (Texas) floods had attracted fast-spreading misinformation and served as a warning about the vigilance required of journalists during emotionally charged news events," said the nonprofit media institute Poynter. Kerr County Lead, a local outlet, was forced to retract a false story about the miracle rescue of two girls who clung to a tree in the floods. The story first surfaced in social media posts that quickly went viral, but a local official said the reports were "100% inaccurate." "Like everyone, we wanted this story to be true, but it's a classic tale of misinformation that consumes all of us during a natural disaster," Louis Amestoy, Kerr County Lead's editor, wrote in a note to readers on Sunday. "Unfortunately, the story is not true and we are retracting it."
