Search teams scour Texas flood zone for dozens missing
The bulk of the death toll from Friday's flash floods was concentrated in the riverfront Hill Country Texas town of Kerrville, accounting for 68 of the dead, including 28 children, according to Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha.
The Guadalupe River, transformed by pre-dawn torrential downpours into a raging, killer torrent in less than hour, runs directly through Kerrville.
The loss of life there included an unspecified number of fatalities at the Camp Mystic summer camp, a Christian girls retreat on the banks of the Guadalupe where authorities reported two dozen children unaccounted for in the immediate aftermath of the flooding on Friday.
On Sunday, Leitha said search teams were still looking for 10 girls and one camp counsellor, but he did not specify the fate of others initially counted as missing.
As of late Sunday afternoon, state officials said 10 other flood-related fatalities were confirmed across four neighbouring south-central Texas counties, and that 41 other people were still listed as unaccounted for in the disaster beyond Kerr County.
Freeman Martin, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, predicted the death toll would rise further as floodwaters receded and the search gained momentum.
Authorities also warned that continued rainfall - even if lighter than Friday's deluge - could unleash additional flash floods because the landscape was so saturated.
State emergency management officials had warned on Thursday, before the July Fourth holiday, that parts of central Texas faced possible heavy showers and flash floods based on National Weather Service Forecasts.
But twice as much rain as predicted ended up falling over two branches of the Guadalupe just upstream from where they converge, sending all that water racing into the single river channel where it slices through Kerrville, according to City Manager Dalton Rice.
Rice and other public officials, including Governor Greg Abbott, vowed that the circumstances of the flooding, and the adequacy for weather forecasts and warning systems would be scrutinised once the immediate situation was brought under control.
In the meantime, the land and air search continues around the clock.
Officials said on Saturday that more than 850 people had been rescued, some clinging to trees, after a sudden storm dumped up to 38cm of rain across the region.
As well as the 68 lives lost in Kerr County, three died in Burnet County, one in Tom Green County, five in Travis County and one in Williamson County.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is sending resources to Texas after President Donald Trump issued a major disaster declaration.
Trump, who is expected to visit the disaster area this week, has previously outlined plans to scale back the federal government's role in responding to natural disasters, leaving more of the burden to the states.
Some experts questioned whether cuts to the federal workforce by the Trump administration, including to the agency that oversees the National Weather Service, led to a failure to accurately predict the severity of the floods and issue appropriate warnings.
Trump pushed back when asked on Sunday if federal government cuts hobbled the disaster response or left key job vacancies at the Weather Service under Trump's oversight.
"That water situation, that all is, and that was really the Biden set-up," he said referencing his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden.
"But I wouldn't blame Biden for it, either. I would just say this is 100-year catastrophe."
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The Age
10 hours ago
- The Age
‘Only a very evil person would ask': Trump lashes out at reporter while visiting Texas flood zone
'I'll tell you some other time,' Trump said on Tuesday, when asked by a reporter about FEMA. Before the most recent flooding, Kerr County declined to install an early-warning system after failing to secure state money to cover the cost. Lawrence Walker, 67, and a nearly three-decade veteran resident of Kerrville, said the county and state had not spent enough on disaster prevention, including an early-warning system. Asked about the quality of the government response, he said, 'It's been fine since the water was at 8 feet.' The Texas state legislature will convene in a special session later this month to investigate the flooding and provide disaster relief funding. Abbott has dismissed questions about whether anyone was to blame, calling that the 'word choice of losers.' Dozens still unaccounted for Search teams on Friday were still combing through muddy debris littering parts of the Hill Country in central Texas, looking for the dozens still listed as missing, but no survivors have been found since the day of the floods. Heavy rains sent a wall of water raging down the Guadalupe River early on July 4, causing the deadliest disaster of the Republican president's nearly six-month term in office. As sun poked through dark clouds on Friday morning, search crews in hard hats painstakingly walked inch-by-inch along the ruined banks of the river, marking damage and looking through wreckage. After the president arrived in Kerr County in the early afternoon, Trump, first lady Melania Trump and Texas Governor Greg Abbott drove to an area near the river, where Trump received a briefing from first responders amid debris left in the wake of the flood. The county is located in what is known as 'flash flood alley,' a region that has seen some of the country's deadliest floods. More than a foot of rain fell in less than an hour on July 4. Flood gauges showed the river's height rose from about a foot to 34 feet (10.4 meters) in a matter of hours, cascading over its banks and sweeping away trees and structures in its path. Kerr County officials say more than 160 people remain unaccounted for, although experts say that the number of people reported missing in the wake of disasters is often inflated. The dead include at least 36 children, many of whom were campers at the nearly century-old Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer retreat on the banks of the river. Jon Moreno, 71, a longtime Kerrville resident whose property on high ground was spared, praised the government response - local and federal. He has heard the debate about what more could have been done - including sirens - but said he did not think it would have made much difference, given people's desire to build along the flood-prone riverbanks. Loading 'It's unavoidable,' he said. 'All those people along the river - I wouldn't want to live there ... It's too dangerous.' At Stripes, a gas station in Kerrville, the building was tagged in large white letters, accusing 'Trump's Big Beautiful Bill' of cutting 'our emergency funding.' The president's massive legislative package, which cut taxes and spending, won approval from the Republican-controlled Congress last week and was signed into law by Trump on the same day that the flooding hit Texas.
Sydney Morning Herald
10 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘Only a very evil person would ask': Trump lashes out at reporter while visiting Texas flood zone
'I'll tell you some other time,' Trump said on Tuesday, when asked by a reporter about FEMA. Before the most recent flooding, Kerr County declined to install an early-warning system after failing to secure state money to cover the cost. Lawrence Walker, 67, and a nearly three-decade veteran resident of Kerrville, said the county and state had not spent enough on disaster prevention, including an early-warning system. Asked about the quality of the government response, he said, 'It's been fine since the water was at 8 feet.' The Texas state legislature will convene in a special session later this month to investigate the flooding and provide disaster relief funding. Abbott has dismissed questions about whether anyone was to blame, calling that the 'word choice of losers.' Dozens still unaccounted for Search teams on Friday were still combing through muddy debris littering parts of the Hill Country in central Texas, looking for the dozens still listed as missing, but no survivors have been found since the day of the floods. Heavy rains sent a wall of water raging down the Guadalupe River early on July 4, causing the deadliest disaster of the Republican president's nearly six-month term in office. As sun poked through dark clouds on Friday morning, search crews in hard hats painstakingly walked inch-by-inch along the ruined banks of the river, marking damage and looking through wreckage. After the president arrived in Kerr County in the early afternoon, Trump, first lady Melania Trump and Texas Governor Greg Abbott drove to an area near the river, where Trump received a briefing from first responders amid debris left in the wake of the flood. The county is located in what is known as 'flash flood alley,' a region that has seen some of the country's deadliest floods. More than a foot of rain fell in less than an hour on July 4. Flood gauges showed the river's height rose from about a foot to 34 feet (10.4 meters) in a matter of hours, cascading over its banks and sweeping away trees and structures in its path. Kerr County officials say more than 160 people remain unaccounted for, although experts say that the number of people reported missing in the wake of disasters is often inflated. The dead include at least 36 children, many of whom were campers at the nearly century-old Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer retreat on the banks of the river. Jon Moreno, 71, a longtime Kerrville resident whose property on high ground was spared, praised the government response - local and federal. He has heard the debate about what more could have been done - including sirens - but said he did not think it would have made much difference, given people's desire to build along the flood-prone riverbanks. Loading 'It's unavoidable,' he said. 'All those people along the river - I wouldn't want to live there ... It's too dangerous.' At Stripes, a gas station in Kerrville, the building was tagged in large white letters, accusing 'Trump's Big Beautiful Bill' of cutting 'our emergency funding.' The president's massive legislative package, which cut taxes and spending, won approval from the Republican-controlled Congress last week and was signed into law by Trump on the same day that the flooding hit Texas.
West Australian
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Trump arrives in Texas to survey flood damage
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