Death toll from Texas floods reaches 78; Trump plans visit
Larry Leitha, sheriff of Kerr County in Texas Hill Country, said 68 people had died in flooding in his county, the epicenter of the flooding, among them 28 children.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, speaking at a press conference on Sunday afternoon, said another 10 had died elsewhere in Texas and confirmed 41 were missing.
President Donald Trump sent his condolences to the victims and said he would probably visit the area on Friday. His administration had been in touch with Abbott, he added.
'It's a horrible thing that took place, absolutely horrible. So we say, God bless all of the people that have gone through so much, and God bless, God bless the state of Texas,' he told reporters as he left New Jersey.
Among the most devastating impacts of the flooding occurred at Camp Mystic summer camp, a nearly century-old Christian girls camp where 10 Camp Mystic campers and one counselor were still missing, according to Leitha.
'It was nothing short of horrific to see what those young children went through,' said Abbott, who noted he toured the area on Saturday and pledged to continue efforts to locate the missing.
The flooding occurred after the nearby Guadalupe River broke its banks after torrential rain fell in the central Texas area on Friday, the U.S. Independence Day holiday.
Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd said the destruction killed three people in Burnet County, one in Tom Green County, five in Travis County and one in Williamson County.
'You will see the death toll rise today and tomorrow,' said Freeman Martin, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, also speaking on Sunday.
Officials said on Saturday that more than 850 people had been rescued, including some clinging to trees, after a sudden storm dumped up to 15 inches (38 cm) of rain across the region, about 85 miles (140 km) northwest of San Antonio.
Kidd said he was receiving unconfirmed reports of 'an additional wall of water' flowing down some of the creeks in the Guadalupe Rivershed, as rain continued to fall on soil in the region already saturated from Friday's rains.
'We're evacuating parts of the river right now because we are worried about another wall of river coming down in those areas,' he said, referencing volunteers from outside the area seeking to help locate victims.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency was activated on Sunday and is deploying resources to first responders in Texas after 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 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.
Death toll from Texas floods reaches 59, including 21 children
Spinrad said he did not know if those staff cuts factored into the lack of advance warning for the extreme Texas flooding, but that they would inevitably degrade the agency's ability to deliver accurate and timely forecasts.
Trump pushed back when asked on Sunday if federal government cuts hobbled the disaster response or left key job vacancies at the National 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.'
He declined to answer a question about FEMA, saying only 'They're busy working, so we'll leave it at that,' Trump said.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who oversees FEMA and NOAA, said a 'moderate' flood watch issued on Thursday by the National Weather Service had not accurately predicted the extreme rainfall and said the Trump administration was working to upgrade the system.
Joaquin Castro, a Democratic U.S. congressman from Texas, told CNN's 'State of the Union' program that fewer personnel at the weather service could be dangerous.
'When you have flash flooding, there's a risk that if you don't have the personnel … to do that analysis, do the predictions in the best way, it could lead to tragedy,' Castro said.
'Complete devastation'
Katharine Somerville, a counselor on the Cypress Lake side of Camp Mystic, on higher ground than the Guadalupe River side, said her 13-year-old campers were scared as their cabins sustained damage and lost power in the middle of the night.
'Our cabins at the tippity top of hills were completely flooded with water. I mean, y'all have seen the complete devastation, we never even imagined that this could happen,' Somerville said in an interview on Fox News on Sunday.
Somerville said the campers in her care were put on military trucks and evacuated, and that all were safe.
The disaster unfolded rapidly on Friday morning as heavier-than-forecast rain drove river waters rapidly to as high as 29 feet (9 meters).
A day after the disaster struck, the summer camp, where 700 girls were in residence at the time of the flooding, was a scene of devastation. Inside one cabin, mud lines indicating how high the water had risen were at least six feet (1.83 m) from the floor.
Bed frames, mattresses and personal belongings caked with mud were scattered inside. Some buildings had broken windows, one had a missing wall.
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Express Tribune
4 days ago
- Express Tribune
Texas flood kills at least 109, with many missing after flash flooding
A drone view shows the Guadalupe River and damage from flooding near Camp Mystic, in Hunt, Texas, U.S. July 6, 2025. REUTERS/Evan Garcia The death toll from the July Fourth 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 a.m. and 5 a.m. 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.
Business Recorder
4 days ago
- Business Recorder
Death toll from Texas flood hits triple-digits as tally of missing tops 180
KERRVILLE: The death toll from the July Fourth 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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.' Making 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. Texas flood witness recalls furniture, trees and RVs swept down river 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 a.m. and 5 a.m. 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.
Express Tribune
5 days ago
- Express Tribune
Death toll hits 96 in Texas flash floods, campers still missing
Boerne Search and Rescue teams navigate upstream in an inflatable boat on the flooded Guadalupe River on July 4, 2025 in Comfort, Texas. Heavy rainfall caused flooding along the Guadalupe River in central Texas with multiple fatalities reported. PHOTO: AFP Search teams plodded through muddy riverbanks and flew aircraft over flood-ravaged central Texas on Monday as hopes dimmed of finding survivors among dozens still missing from a disaster that has claimed at least 96 lives, many of them children. Three days after a torrential predawn downpour transformed the Guadalupe River into a raging, killer torrent, a Christian girls' summer camp devastated by the flash flood confirmed that 27 campers and counselors were among those who had perished. Ten girls and a camp counselor were still unaccounted for, officials said on Monday, as search-and-rescue personnel faced the potential of more heavy rains and thunderstorms while clawing through tons of muck-laden debris. The bulk of the death toll from Friday's calamity was concentrated in and around the riverfront town of Kerrville and the grounds of Camp Mystic, situated in a swath of Texas Hill Country known as "flash flood alley." By Monday afternoon, the bodies of 84 flood victims - 56 adults and 28 children - were recovered in Kerr County, most of them in the county seat of Kerrville, according to the local sheriff. As of midday Sunday, state and local officials said 12 other flood-related fatalities had been confirmed across five neighboring south-central Texas counties, and that 41 other people were still listed as missing outside Kerr County. The New York Times, one of numerous news media outlets publishing varying death tolls, reported that at least 104 people had been killed across the entire flood zone. Debate also intensified over questions about how state and local officials reacted to weather alerts forecasting the possibility of a flash flood and the lack of an early warning siren system that might have mitigated the disaster. On Monday, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick vowed that the state would "step up" to pay for installing a flash-flood warning system in Kerrville by next summer if local governments "can't afford it." "There should have been sirens," Patrick said in a Fox News interview. "Had we had sirens here along this possible that we would have saved some lives." Rough week ahead While authorities continued to hold out hope that some of the missing would turn up alive, the likelihood of finding more survivors diminished as time passed. "This will be a rough week," Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring Jr said at a briefing on Monday morning. Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old Christian girls' retreat on the banks of the Guadalupe was at the epicenter of the disaster. "Our hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this unimaginable tragedy," the camp said in a statement on Monday. Richard "Dick" Eastland, 70, Mystic's co-owner and director, died trying to save children at his camp from the flood, local news media reported. He and his wife, Tweety Eastland, have owned the camp since 1974, according to its 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. Mishaps in the sky Authorities lost one of their aviation assets on Monday when a privately operated drone collided in restricted airspace over the Kerr County flood zone with a search helicopter, forcing the chopper to make an emergency landing. No injuries were reported, but the aircraft was put out of commission, according to the Kerr County Sheriff's Office. National Weather Service forecasts on Monday predicted that up to 4 more inches of rain could douse the Texas Hill Country, with isolated areas possibly receiving as much as 10 inches (25 cm). Officials said the region remained especially vulnerable to renewed flooding due to the saturated condition of the soil and mounds of debris already strewn around the river channel. State emergency management officials had warned on Thursday, ahead of the July 4 holiday, that parts of central Texas faced the possibility of flash floods based on National Weather Service forecasts. 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 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. Authorities in flood-prone areas like the Guadalupe River basin also must balance the odds of misjudging a catastrophe against not wanting to "cry wolf," he said. Still, a team of European scientists said climate change has helped fuel warmer, wetter weather patterns that make extreme rain and flood events more likely. "Events of this kind are no longer exceptional in a warming world," said Davide Faranda, of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). "Climate change loads the dice toward more frequent and more intense floods." The Houston Chronicle and New York Times reported that Kerr County officials had considered installing a flood-warning system about eight years ago but dropped the effort as too costly after failing to secure a $1 million grant to fund the project.
