Search teams scour Texas flood zone for dozens missing; 78 confirmed dead
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 predawn 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 nearly century-old 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 counselor, 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, ahead of the July Fourth holiday, that parts of central Texas faced the possibility of heavy showers and 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, 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 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 a myriad of challenges. "It's hot, there's mud, they're moving debris, there's snakes," Martin said during a news briefing on Sunday.
Thomas Suelzar, adjutant general of the Texas Military Department, said airborne search assets included eight helicopters and a remotely piloted MQ-9 Reaper aircraft equipped with advanced sensors for surveillance and reconnaissance missions.
Officials said on Saturday that more than 850 people had been rescued, some clinging to trees, after a sudden storm dumped up to 38 cm of rain across the region, about 140 km northwest of San Antonio.
In addition to 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, according to Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
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. US Coast Guard helicopters and planes were aiding search and rescue efforts.
SCALING BACK FEDERAL DISASTER RESPONSE
Trump, who said on Sunday he would visit the disaster scene, probably this coming Friday, 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 themselves.
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 by 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 from the National Weather Service's parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, leaving many weather offices understaffed, former NOAA director Rick Spinrad said.
Ahead of Friday's floods, the Weather Service office near San Antonio, which oversees warnings issued in Kerr County, had one key vacancy - a warning coordination meteorologist, who is responsible for working with emergency managers and the public to ensure people know what to do when a disaster strikes.
The person who served in that role for decades was among hundreds of Weather Service employees who accepted early retirement offers and left the agency at the end of April, media reported.
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 setup," 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."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Emirates 24/7
2 days ago
- Emirates 24/7
Texas flood death toll rises to 131 as new storms loom
The official tally of storm-related deaths across Texas rose to 131 on Monday as authorities warned of yet another round of heavy rains 10 days after a Hill Country flash flood that transformed the Guadalupe River into a killer torrent. A National Weather Service flood watch forecasting heavy downpours of up to half a foot of rain was posted until Tuesday morning for a wide swath of central Texas extending from the Rio Grande east to San Antonio and Austin. Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Monday said storms had claimed at least 131 lives in Texas since 4th July, the bulk of those deaths in and around Kerrville, up from 120 reported on Friday. He said 97 people were still listed as missing in the greater Kerrville area, down from the 160-plus who authorities said were unaccounted for last week. Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.
Dubai Eye
09-07-2025
- Dubai Eye
Death toll from Texas flood hits triple-digits as tally of missing tops 180
The death toll from the July 4th flash flood that ravaged a swath of central Texas Hill Country rose on Tuesday to at least 109, many of them children, as search teams pressed on through mounds of mud-encrusted debris looking for scores of people still missing. According to figures released by Governor Gregg Abbott, authorities were seeking more than 180 people whose fate remained unknown four days after one of the deadliest US flood events in decades. The bulk of fatalities and the search for additional victims were concentrated in Kerr County and the county seat of Kerrville, a town of 25,000 residents transformed into a disaster zone when torrential rains struck the region early last Friday, flooding the Guadalupe River basin. The bodies of 94 flood victims, about a third of them children, have been recovered in Kerr County alone as of Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said at a late-afternoon news conference after touring the area by air. The Kerr County dead include 27 campers and counselors from Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old all-girls Christian summer retreat on the banks of the Guadalupe near the town of Hunt. The camp director also perished. Five girls and a camp counselor were still unaccounted for on Tuesday, Abbott said, along with another child not associated with the camp. As of Tuesday, 15 other flood-related fatalities had been confirmed across a swath of Texas Hill Country known as "flash flood alley," the governor said, bringing the overall tally of lives lost to 109. Reports from local sheriffs' and media have put the number of flood deaths outside Kerr County at 22. But authorities have said they were bracing for the death toll to climb as flood waters recede and the search for more victims gains momentum. Law enforcement agencies have compiled a list of 161 people "known to be missing" in Kerr County alone, Abbott said. The roster was checked against those who might be out of touch with loved ones or neighbors because they were away on vacation or out of town, according to the governor. 'FIND EVERY SINGLE PERSON' He said another 12 people were missing elsewhere across the flood zone as a whole, a sprawling area northwest of San Antonio. "We need to find every single person who is missing. That's job number one," Abbott said. On Tuesday, San Antonio-born country singer Pat Green disclosed on social media that his younger brother and sister-in-law and two of their children were among those "swept away in the Kerrville flood". Hindered by intermittent thunderstorms and showers, rescue teams from federal agencies, neighboring states and Mexico have joined local efforts to search for missing victims, though hopes of finding more survivors faded as time passed. The last victim found alive in Kerr County was last Friday. "The work is extremely treacherous, time-consuming," Lieutenant Colonel Ben Baker of the Texas Game Wardens said at a press conference. "It's dirty work. The water is still there." A water-soaked family photo album was among the personal belongings found in flood debris by Sandi Gilmer, 46, a US Army veteran and certified chaplain volunteering in the search operation along the Guadalupe at Hunt. "I don't know how many people in this album are alive or deceased," she said, flipping through images of two toddlers and a gray-haired man. "I didn't have the heart to step over it without picking it up and hoping to return it to a family member." MAKINGS OF A DISASTER More than a foot of rain fell in the region in less than an hour before dawn last Friday, sending a wall of water cascading down the Guadalupe that killed dozens of people and left mangled piles of debris, uprooted trees and overturned vehicles. Public officials have faced days of questions about whether they could have alerted people in flood-prone areas sooner. The state emergency management agency warned last Thursday, on the eve of the disaster, that parts of central Texas faced a flash floods threat, based on National Weather Service forecasts. But twice as much rain as 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 has said the outcome was unforeseen and unfolded in a matter of two hours, leaving too little time to conduct a precautionary mass evacuation without the risk of placing more people in harm's way. Scientists have said extreme flood events are growing more common as climate change creates warmer, wetter weather patterns in Texas and other parts of the country. At an earlier news briefing on Tuesday, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha rebuffed questions about the county's emergency operations and preparedness and declined to say who was ultimately in charge of monitoring weather alerts and issuing flood warnings or evacuation orders. He said his office began receiving emergency-911 calls between 4:00 am and 5:00 am on Friday, several hours after the local National Weather Service station issued a flash-flood alert. "We're in the process of trying to put (together) a timeline," Leitha said. Abbott said a special session of the Texas legislature would convene later this month to investigate the emergency response and provide funding for disaster relief.
ARN News Center
09-07-2025
- ARN News Center
Death toll from Texas flood hits triple-digits as tally of missing tops 180
The death toll from the July 4th flash flood that ravaged a swath of central Texas Hill Country rose on Tuesday to at least 109, many of them children, as search teams pressed on through mounds of mud-encrusted debris looking for scores of people still missing. According to figures released by Governor Gregg Abbott, authorities were seeking more than 180 people whose fate remained unknown four days after one of the deadliest US flood events in decades. The bulk of fatalities and the search for additional victims were concentrated in Kerr County and the county seat of Kerrville, a town of 25,000 residents transformed into a disaster zone when torrential rains struck the region early last Friday, flooding the Guadalupe River basin. The bodies of 94 flood victims, about a third of them children, have been recovered in Kerr County alone as of Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said at a late-afternoon news conference after touring the area by air. The Kerr County dead include 27 campers and counselors from Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old all-girls Christian summer retreat on the banks of the Guadalupe near the town of Hunt. The camp director also perished. Five girls and a camp counselor were still unaccounted for on Tuesday, Abbott said, along with another child not associated with the camp. As of Tuesday, 15 other flood-related fatalities had been confirmed across a swath of Texas Hill Country known as "flash flood alley," the governor said, bringing the overall tally of lives lost to 109. Reports from local sheriffs' and media have put the number of flood deaths outside Kerr County at 22. But authorities have said they were bracing for the death toll to climb as flood waters recede and the search for more victims gains momentum. Law enforcement agencies have compiled a list of 161 people "known to be missing" in Kerr County alone, Abbott said. The roster was checked against those who might be out of touch with loved ones or neighbors because they were away on vacation or out of town, according to the governor. 'FIND EVERY SINGLE PERSON' He said another 12 people were missing elsewhere across the flood zone as a whole, a sprawling area northwest of San Antonio. "We need to find every single person who is missing. That's job number one," Abbott said. On Tuesday, San Antonio-born country singer Pat Green disclosed on social media that his younger brother and sister-in-law and two of their children were among those "swept away in the Kerrville flood". Hindered by intermittent thunderstorms and showers, rescue teams from federal agencies, neighboring states and Mexico have joined local efforts to search for missing victims, though hopes of finding more survivors faded as time passed. The last victim found alive in Kerr County was last Friday. "The work is extremely treacherous, time-consuming," Lieutenant Colonel Ben Baker of the Texas Game Wardens said at a press conference. "It's dirty work. The water is still there." A water-soaked family photo album was among the personal belongings found in flood debris by Sandi Gilmer, 46, a US Army veteran and certified chaplain volunteering in the search operation along the Guadalupe at Hunt. "I don't know how many people in this album are alive or deceased," she said, flipping through images of two toddlers and a gray-haired man. "I didn't have the heart to step over it without picking it up and hoping to return it to a family member." MAKINGS OF A DISASTER More than a foot of rain fell in the region in less than an hour before dawn last Friday, sending a wall of water cascading down the Guadalupe that killed dozens of people and left mangled piles of debris, uprooted trees and overturned vehicles. Public officials have faced days of questions about whether they could have alerted people in flood-prone areas sooner. The state emergency management agency warned last Thursday, on the eve of the disaster, that parts of central Texas faced a flash floods threat, based on National Weather Service forecasts. But twice as much rain as 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 has said the outcome was unforeseen and unfolded in a matter of two hours, leaving too little time to conduct a precautionary mass evacuation without the risk of placing more people in harm's way. Scientists have said extreme flood events are growing more common as climate change creates warmer, wetter weather patterns in Texas and other parts of the country. At an earlier news briefing on Tuesday, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha rebuffed questions about the county's emergency operations and preparedness and declined to say who was ultimately in charge of monitoring weather alerts and issuing flood warnings or evacuation orders. He said his office began receiving emergency-911 calls between 4:00 am and 5:00 am on Friday, several hours after the local National Weather Service station issued a flash-flood alert. "We're in the process of trying to put (together) a timeline," Leitha said. Abbott said a special session of the Texas legislature would convene later this month to investigate the emergency response and provide funding for disaster relief.
