Texas floodwaters send trees crashing into river
Footage filmed on Saturday (5 July) shows uprooted trees lying in the middle of the river and more being torn from the banks and swept downstream.
Over 80 people, including 28 children, have died in the floods, which began when heavy rainfall in western Kerr County on Thursday (3 July) caused severe flooding along the Guadalupe River.
The search for survivors has entered its fourth day, with dozens still missing whilst forecasters have warned of another 10 inches of rain on Monday (7 July).
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Reuters
5 hours ago
- Reuters
Texas flood death toll rises to 131 as new storms loom
July 14 (Reuters) - 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. The advisory included Kerr County and other parts of Texas Hill Country along the Guadalupe still recovering from the July 4 flood disaster, which ravaged the county seat of Kerrville and a riverside Christian summer camp for girls in the nearby town of Hunt. Riverfront residents as well as search teams still combing the banks of the waterway were advised to seek higher ground until the latest danger had passed. The search for additional victims along the Guadalupe was likewise suspended due to flood concerns on Sunday. Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Monday said storms had claimed at least 131 lives in Texas since July 4, 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. About a third of the Kerr County fatalities are children, most of whom perished at Camp Mystic when floodwaters raged through the girls-only summer retreat before dawn on July 4. Authorities have not rescued anyone alive since the day of the floods, when more than a foot of rain fell in less than an hour in the heart of a region known as "flash flood alley," sending a deadly wall of water down the Guadalupe River basin. Abbott said state lawmakers would investigate the circumstances of the flooding, disaster preparedness and emergency response to the flooding at a special legislative session set to convene later this month. The high casualty toll, ranking as one of the deadliest U.S. flood events in decades, has raised questions about the lack of flash-flood warning sirens in Kerr County and vacancies left at National Weather Service offices amid staffing cuts under the Trump administration.
Telegraph
9 hours ago
- Telegraph
Camp Mystic boss did not evacuate children until hour after first flood warning
The owner of Camp Mystic has been accused of failing to evacuate campers until an hour after the first official alert warning of oncoming catastrophic Texas floods. Richard 'Dick' Eastland, the camp's executive director, did not immediately order an evacuation after the first text notification from the National Weather Service on July 4, the Washington Post reported. Eastland died trying to save girls from the devastating flooding, which claimed the lives of 27 campers and counsellors. At least 130 people have died in total. Cabins of some of the youngest girls staying in the camp just off the Guadalupe River were washed away in a matter of minutes. The camp is situated on the banks of the Guadalupe River, a well-studied, high-risk flood zone, according to mapped data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema). Some of the cabins were located in what is known as 'the floodway', with some low-lying cabins located on the 'flats' – just 225ft from the river bank. On the night of the disaster, the first 'life-threatening' flash flood alert from the National Weather Service was issued to all Kerr County residents in Texas at approximately 1.14am. The warning, which did not include an evacuation order, 'came fast' Richard Eastland Jr, Dick Eastland's son, told the newspaper. Eastland immediately notified some adults at the camp via walkie talkie, and ordered them to 'assess the situation' as it unfolded, according to the Washington Post. The camp's loud speaker system ran on electricity and was unusable during the chaos that followed. The girls staying at Camp Mystic were also generally not allowed access to their phones or other electronic devices, per 2025 summer policies and procedures. Eastland waited until 2.30am to begin evacuating campers, his family reportedly told the newspaper in a statement. He later died trying to evacuate the youngest campers from the scene. Counsellors in the cabins closest to the river had to deal with the unfolding tragedy as the river swelled some 26ft in the space of 45 minutes. Camp Mystic's Bubble Inn cabin, which was located less than 500ft from the river, was quickly swept away. No survivors have been reported. Jeff Carr, the Eastland family spokesman, told the newspaper that the family would be taking time to process the tragedy before making further comments. 'It will be important to go through this process and avoid sharing information on a piecemeal basis,' he said. Dick and Tweety Eastland are the third generation to own and run the Christian all-girls camp, which has remained in their family since 1939, according to the camp's website. It has a long history of flooding, according to reports. In 1987, following the deaths of 10 children at a nearby camp, Dick Eastland successfully pushed for a new flood warning system to be installed. However the system was said to have been shut down in 1999 as it had become 'unreliable' due to lack of repair and maintenance, local media reported. Kerr County officials have come under fire for their failure to install a new flood warning system in the area, having suggested such a measure would be too 'extravagant'. In a tribute to Dick Eastland on social media, George Eastland, his grandson, said: '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.' He added: 'Although he no longer walks this earth, his impact will never fade in the lives he touched.' Further heavy rain in Texas on Sunday temporarily paused the week-long search for victims, as storms damaged homes, stranded motorists and put some residents under evacuation orders.
The Guardian
19 hours ago
- The Guardian
A deadly 1987 flood foreshadowed the Texas disaster. Survivors ask, ‘why didn't we learn?'
The rain was pouring down in Texas in the early morning hours of 17 July 1987. James Moore, a reporter for a local NBC news station, was stationed in Austin when his editors called and told him to grab his camera operator and head to Kerrville, a Hill Country town about 100 miles (160km) away. They'd heard reports of flash flooding on the Guadalupe River. 'We just jumped in the car when it was still dark … we knew there were going to be problems based on how much rain there was,' Moore said. En route, he got another call over the radio that told him to head instead for the small hamlet of Comfort, just 15 miles from Kerrville. 'They said: 'Hey, head up towards Comfort,'' Moore recalled. ''Something's happened.'' At about 7.45am, a caravan of buses had left a children's church camp at the Pot O' Gold Ranch as they tried to evacuate the Guadalupe's surging waters, which eventually rose nearly 30ft (9 meters) during the ferocious, slow-moving rainstorm. According to a report by the National Weather Service, a bus and a van had stalled on an overflowing river crossing. As kids rushed to escape the vehicles, they were hit by a massive wave of water – estimated to be a half mile wide – that swept away 43 people. Thirty-three of them were rescued, but 10 children drowned. Moore arrived at a scene of chaos. Helicopters clattered overhead as people scrambled in a frantic search for the injured and missing. Then he and his camera operator caught sight of something horrifying. 'We unfortunately found one of the bodies of the kids,' Moore said. 'All we saw was the legs under a brush pile and we alerted the authorities.' Nearly 40 years later, it felt like history repeating itself. Last week, in the early morning hours of 4 July, another flash flood hit the Guadalupe. This time, though, the wall of water was sizeably bigger, and came in the middle of the night and during one of the area's busiest holiday weekends. The death toll is now nearly 130 people with more than 160 still missing. The loss of life includes 27 campers and counselors from Camp Mystic, a girls' camp several miles upriver from Comfort. For many who lived through the tragedy in Comfort, they see the 1987 flood as a harbinger for what washed through Hill Country on the Fourth of July. '[The 1987 flood] was called the 'big one' back then. This is 100 times over what we experienced,' said Emily Davis. She was a 10-year-old at Camp Capers, another church camp up the road from the Pot O' Gold Ranch, when the 1987 flood hit. 'Why didn't they learn from this? Why wasn't there a better system?' After the Independence Day floods devastated Kerr county last week, Donald Trump described the scene as 'a 100-year catastrophe'. 'This was the thing that happened in seconds,' he added. 'Nobody expected it.' But Hill Country is no stranger to these disasters, and has even earned itself the moniker 'flash flood alley'. Its chalky limestone cliffs, winding waterways and dry rocky landscape have made it ground zero for some of the deadliest flash floods nationwide. Hill Country's proximity to the Gulf of Mexico and its ocean moisture have also made it a prime target for drenching thunderstorms. The US Geological Survey calculates that the Guadalupe has experienced noteworthy flash floods almost every decade since the 1930s. In 1998, it recorded a flood that surpassed even 500-year flood projections. Other rivers in Hill Country, including the Pedernales and Blanco, have also seen deadly flash floods. 'What makes Kerr county so beautiful, the reason why people want to go there … is literally the reason why it's so dangerous,' said Tom Di Liberto, a meteorologist who formerly worked at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) and is now with the non-profit Climate Central. 'The risk is always there.' During the 1987 floods, as in 2025, news reports and video footage captured a harrowing scene: the Guadalupe's surging muddy waters downing 100ft-tall cypress trees, as dead deer and the siding of houses rushed by. Helicopters circling overhead trying to rescue people clinging to the tops of trees, stranded in the middle of the river. Davis said that even though she was just a kid, she remembers the helicopters and army trucks swarming the area. She even took a photo of one of the helicopters above with her Le Clic camera. Camp Capers was up a hill, she said, so the children there were able to shelter in place. But, she said, the mood was tense. 'We were told that 10 didn't make it,' Davis said. 'It just became very haunted and eerie. I wanted nothing to do with that river.' The day was marked by a series of awful events. One 14-year-old girl in the Guadalupe grabbed a rope hanging from a helicopter but was unable to hang on long enough and fell to her death. Another girl caught in the river's waves kept trying to grab a helicopter rope, but lost strength and was swept away. A teenager, John Bankston Jr, worked to save the younger kids when the camp bus stalled, carrying them on his back to dry land. He was in the river when the wall of water hit. Bankston was the only person whose body was never recovered. Moore, the local reporter, said his TV station sent out a helicopter and they helped search for people. 'We were flying up and down the river looking for survivors,' Moore said. 'Later in the day, John Bankston Sr got in the helicopter and we flew him up and down the river for hours looking for his son.' 'I covered a lot of horrific stuff, from the Branch Davidians and earthquakes and hurricanes and Oklahoma City,' said Moore, who is now an author. 'And this one has haunted me, just because of the kids.' That year, the Texas water commission's flood management unit made a dedication to the children who lost their lives in Comfort. 'When something like this occurs, we must all look into ourselves to see if we are doing all we can to prevent such a tragic loss of life,' read the dedication, written by Roy Sedwick, then state coordinator for the unit. Sedwick wrote that he was resolved to promote public awareness and flood warnings in Texas, 'so that future generations will be safe from the ravages of flash floods'. The National Weather Service's storm report from the 1987 flood in Comfort paints more unsettling parallels with last week's tragedy. Up to 11.5in (29cm) of rain fell near the small hamlet of Hunt that day, causing the river to surge 29ft. A massive flood wave emerged and travelled down the Guadalupe to Comfort. During the recent floods in Kerr county, an estimated 12in of rain fell in a matter of hours during another heavy, slow-moving thunderstorm. This time, Hunt was the hardest hit, with the Guadalupe River again rising dozens of feet and setting a record-high crest of at least 37.5ft at its peak, according to the US Geological Survey. Many people along the river were given little to no warning. The National Weather Service issued 22 alerts through the night and into the next day. But in the rural area, where cell service can be spotty, many residents said they didn't get the alerts or they came too late, after the flash flood hit. No alerts were sent by Kerr county's local government officials. Other parts of Hill Country, such as in Comal county and on the Pedernales River, have siren systems. When high flood waters trigger the system, they blare 'air raid' sirens giving notice to evacuate and get to high ground. In Comfort, the 1987 tragedy still casts a shadow over the town. But on 4 July, the hamlet avoided much of the disaster that hit neighboring communities. Comfort recently worked to scrape together enough money to expand its own emergency warning system and installed sirens that are set off during floods. Over the last year, the volunteer fire department sounded the alarm every day at noon, so residents could learn to recognize the long flat tone. So, when the raging Guadalupe waters once again rushed toward Comfort over the holiday weekend, sirens echoed throughout the town. This time, the volunteer fire department confirmed, all residents evacuated in time and there was no loss of life. Kerr county, meanwhile, had been looking at installing a flood siren system for the past decade. But the plan got mired in political infighting and ultimately stalled when the county was presented with a $1m price tag. Earlier this year, state lawmakers introduced a house bill to fund early warning systems across Texas that could have included siren towers along the Guadalupe. And even though the bill overwhelmingly passed in the house, it died in the senate. In the aftermath of the 4 July catastrophe, the state says it will now fund such a system. While it's impossible to say whether such a warning system would have changed the outcome, given the massive expanse of Kerr county, experts say these types of weather events are going to keep happening and intensifying, so communities need to be prepared. 'This is a conversation for the entire country when it comes to areas that are prone to flash floods,' said the meteorologist Di Liberto. 'Are we doing enough as a society to warn people?'
