Texas river rises 30 feet in just 45 minutes, pictures show
From around 5:15pm to 5:20pm the murky waters can be seen sweeping over a road while completely engulfing the smaller trees and bushes its path. Over the next 20 minutes, the waters creep further up the narrow road as onlookers flee the devastating scene. After the full hour has passed, only two tree tops are left visible as the flood water surges through the area. One concerned viewer wrote on social media: 'Those making remarks regarding evacuations and warnings please take note: The video begins at 5:12. Stop the video at 5:18 and look at the water level. Where does one run to in 6 minutes?' Another added: 'Beyond insane to watch the levels rise on the timelapse'.
Officials in Kerr County have since warned the area near Johnson Creek and the Guadalupe River could rise by a further two feet due to incoming rain, as they announced a new wave of evacuations. Nim Kidd, Chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, advised Kerr County to brace for more of the deadly rains which have already claimed the lives of at least 80 people. 'There are unconfirmed at this point reports of additional water coming in. And as the governor mentioned, there's rain still falling on the area,' Kidd said at a press conference. 'We've got DPS aircraft that are flying up to try to find this wall of water right now, and the people in the reported areas, again, unconfirmed, that are on our communication systems.'
Locals in central Texas are being urged to scramble to higher ground following further flash flood warnings as a result of further rain falling on saturated ground. On July 6, Daily Mail revealed that Texas's Division of Emergency Management predicted the number of dead as a result of catastrophic flooding would top 100. In an email sent out Saturday, the state disaster office told partners the number of dead would surpass 100, two different sources confirmed to Daily Mail. The estimate of the dead is vastly different than the message state officials are projecting publicly, insisting that they are still searching for people who are alive, and refusing to say rescue efforts have shifted to recovery of remains. 'Our state assets and local partners are continuing to search for live victims,' Kidd told reporters at a press conference Saturday. 'Our hope and prayer is that there is still people alive that are out there.'
DNA testing will also be used to help identify the remains of the flood victims, a state source told Daily Mail. Families have been asked for blood draws or other records to help identify the bodies of loved ones who have been recovered. Relatives of the missing have started arriving in the Kerrville area from across the Lone Star State to provide investigators with DNA samples. More information has been emerging in recent hours about the victims, including those lost at Camp Mystic. At least five girls, aged between eight and nine, lost their lives in the flood after the summer camp was swept away on July 4. Beloved director of all-girl's Christian Camp Mystic, Richard 'Dick' Eastland, 70, also died while trying to save girls as a month's worth of rain dropped in a matter of minutes.
The youngest campers slept on low-laying 'flats' inside the camp's cabins, whereas older girls slept in cabins on higher ground, according to the NYT. Most of the missing girls are from the younger age bracket, who were sleeping just yards away from the banks of the Guadalupe River. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that some 750 girls had been staying at the camp when the floodwaters hit.
Some of those who are missing or died at Camp Mystic are connected to wealthy families in Highland Park. Known as the Beverly Hills of Dallas, Highland Park and neighboring Park Cities are home to many of missing girls who belong to prominent families. Some have ties to Highland Park United Methodist Church - whose most famous member is former President George W. Bush.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Debate erupts over role job cuts played in weather forecasts ahead of deadly Texas floods
Former federal officials and outside experts have warned for months that President Donald Trump's deep staffing cuts to the National Weather Service could endanger lives. After torrential rains and flash flooding struck Friday in the Texas Hill Country, the weather service came under fire from local officials who criticized what they described as inadequate forecasts, though most in the Republican-controlled state stopped sort of blaming Trump's cuts. Democrats, meanwhile, wasted little time in linking the staff reductions to the disaster, which is being blamed for the deaths of at least 80 people, including more than two dozen girls and counselors attending a summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River. The NWS office responsible for that region had five staffers on duty as thunderstorms formed over Texas Thursday evening, the usual number for an overnight shift when severe weather is expected. Current and former NWS officials defended the agency, pointing to urgent flash flood warnings issued in the pre-dawn hours before the river rose. 'This was an exceptional service to come out first with the catastrophic flash flood warning and this shows the awareness of the meteorologists on shift at the NWS office,' said Brian LaMarre, who retired at the end of April as the meteorologist-in-charge of the NWS forecast office in Tampa, Florida. ″There is always the challenge of pinpointing extreme values, however, the fact the catastrophic warning was issued first showed the level of urgency.' Questions linger about level of coordination Questions remain, however, about the level of coordination and communication between NWS and local officials on the night of the disaster. The Trump administration has cut hundreds of jobs at NWS, with staffing down by at least 20% at nearly half of the 122 NWS field offices nationally and at least a half dozen no longer staffed 24 hours a day. Hundreds more experienced forecasters and senior managers were encouraged to retire early. The White House also has proposed slashing its parent agency's budget by 27% and eliminating federal research centers focused on studying the world's weather, climate and oceans. The website for the NWS office for Austin/San Antonio, which covers the region that includes hard-hit Kerr County, shows six of 27 positions are listed as vacant. The vacancies include a key manager responsible for issuing warnings and coordinating with local emergency management officials. An online resume for the employee who last held the job showed he left in April after more than 17 years, shortly after mass emails sent to employees urging them to retire early or face potential layoffs. Democrats on Monday pressed the Trump administration for details about the cuts. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded that the administration conduct an inquiry into whether staffing shortages contributed to 'the catastrophic loss of life' in Texas. Meanwhile, Trump said the job eliminations did not hamper any weather forecasting. The raging waters, he said Sunday, were 'a thing that happened in seconds. No one expected it. Nobody saw it.' Former officials warn that job cuts could hamper future forecasts Former federal officials and experts have said Trump's indiscriminate job reductions at NWS and other weather-related agencies will result in brain drain that imperils the federal government's ability to issue timely and accurate forecasts. Such predictions can save lives, particularly for those in the path of quick-moving storms. 'This situation is getting to the point where something could break,' said Louis Uccellini, a meteorologist who served as NWS director under three presidents, including during Trump's first term. 'The people are being tired out, working through the night and then being there during the day because the next shift is short staffed. Anything like that could create a situation in which important elements of forecasts and warnings are missed.' After returning to office in January, Trump issued a series of executive orders empowering the Department of Government Efficiency, initially led by mega-billionaire Elon Musk, to enact sweeping staff reductions and cancel contracts at federal agencies, bypassing significant Congressional oversight. Though Musk has now departed Washington and had a very public falling out with Trump, DOGE staffers he hired and the cuts he sought have largely remained, upending the lives of tens of thousands of federal employees. Cuts resulted from Republican effort to privatize duties of weather agencies The cuts follow a decade-long Republican effort to dismantle and privatize many of the duties of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency within the Commerce Department that includes the NWS. The reductions have come as Trump has handed top public posts to officials with ties to private companies that stand to profit from hobbling the taxpayer-funded system for predicting the weather. Project 2025, the conservative governing blueprint that Trump distanced himself from during the 2024 campaign but that he has broadly moved to enact once in office, calls for dismantling NOAA and further commercializing the weather service. Chronic staffing shortages have led a handful of offices to curtail the frequency of regional forecasts and weather balloon launches needed to collect atmospheric data. In April, the weather service abruptly ended translations of its forecasts and emergency alerts into languages other than English, including Spanish. The service was soon reinstated after public outcry. NOAA's main satellite operations center briefly appeared earlier this year on a list of surplus government real estate set to be sold. Trump's proposed budget also seeks to shutter key facilities for tracking climate change. The proposed cuts include the observatory atop the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii that for decades has documented the steady rise in plant-warming carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere from burning fossil fuels. On June 25, NOAA abruptly announced that the U.S. Department of Defense would no longer process or transmit data from three weather satellites experts said are crucial to accurately predicting the path and strength of hurricanes at sea. 'Removing data from the defense satellite is similar to removing another piece to the public safety puzzle for hurricane intensity forecasting,' said LaMarre, now a private consultant. 'The more pieces removed, the less clear the picture becomes which can reduce the quality of life-saving warnings.' Trump officials say they didn't fire meteorologists At a pair of Congressional hearings last month, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick called it 'fake news' that the Trump administration had axed any meteorologists, despite detailed reporting from The Associated Press and other media organizations that chronicled the layoffs. 'We are fully staffed with forecasters and scientists,' Lutnick said June 4 before a Senate appropriations subcommittee. 'Under no circumstances am I going to let public safety or public forecasting be touched.' Despite a broad freeze on federal hiring directed by Trump, NOAA announced last month it would seek to fill more than 100 'mission-critical field positions,' as well as plug holes at some regional weather offices by reassigning staff. Those positions have not yet been publicly posted, though a NOAA spokesperson said Sunday they would be soon. Asked by AP how the NWS could simultaneously be fully staffed and still advertise 'mission critical positions' as open, Commerce spokesperson Kristen Eichamer said the 'National Hurricane Center is fully staffed to meet this season's demand, and any recruitment efforts are simply meant to deepen our talent pool.' 'The secretary is committed to providing Americans with the most accurate, up-to-date weather data by ensuring the National Weather Service is fully equipped with the personnel and technology it needs,' Eichamer said. 'For the first time, we are integrating technology that's more accurate and agile than ever before to achieve this goal, and with it the NWS is poised to deliver critical weather information to Americans.' Uccellini and the four prior NWS directors who served under Democratic and Republican presidents criticized the Trump cuts in an open letter issued in May; they said the administration's actions resulted in the departures of about 550 employees — an overall reduction of more than 10 percent. 'NWS staff will have an impossible task to continue its current level of services,' they wrote. 'Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life. We know that's a nightmare shared by those on the forecasting front lines – and by the people who depend on their efforts.' NOAA's budget for fiscal year 2024 was just under $6.4 billion, of which less than $1.4 billion went to NWS. Experts worry about forecasts for hurricanes While experts say it would be illegal for Trump to eliminate NOAA without Congressional approval, some former federal officials worry the cuts could result in a patchwork system where taxpayers finance the operation of satellites and collection of atmospheric data but are left to pay private services that would issue forecasts and severe weather warnings. That arrangement, critics say, could lead to delays or missed emergency alerts that, in turn, could result in avoidable deaths. D. James Baker, who served as NOAA's administrator during the Clinton administration, questioned whether private forecasting companies would provide the public with services that don't generate profits. 'Would they be interested in serving small communities in Maine, let's say?' Baker asked. 'Is there a business model that gets data to all citizens that need it? Will companies take on legal risks, share information with disaster management agencies, be held accountable as government agencies are? Simply cutting NOAA without identifying how the forecasts will continue to be provided is dangerous.' Though the National Hurricane Center in Miami has been largely spared staff reductions like those at regional NWS offices, some professionals who depend on federal forecasts and data greeted the June start of the tropical weather season with profound worry. In an unusual broadcast on June 3, longtime South Florida TV meteorologist John Morales warned his viewers that the Trump administration cuts meant he might not be able to provide as accurate forecasts for hurricanes as he had in years past. He cited staffing shortfalls of between 20% and 40% at NWS offices from Tampa to Key West and urged his NBC 6 audience in greater Miami to call their congressional representatives. 'What we are starting to see is that the quality of the forecasts is becoming degraded,' Morales said. 'And we may not know exactly how strong a hurricane is before it reaches the coastline.' ___
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Texas flood survivors search for the missing and sift through ruins as they ask why there were no warnings
The stench of death still hangs over the Guadalupe River, three days after the watercourse spectacularly burst its banks and flooded the small Texas towns of Ingram, Kerrville, Center Point, and Hunt early on Independence Day. T he tragedy has claimed at least 89 lives, while 41 people are still missing including 10 young girls from a Christian summer camp. Most of the victims were swept away in the early hours of Friday morning after the river rose 23ft in a matter of minutes. Alerts that should have woken them to the impending danger never arrived, with many in areas with no signal or with alarms that didn't sound. 'There were no warnings on my phone until about eight in the morning which is long after this happened,' said Jamie Flick, 48, who lives in Ingram. 'That's crazy. The best thing I can think of is that they just didn't expect this here, but we have a lot of smaller tributaries that run into the Guadalupe. 'If it rains up that way, you're gonna be hit here, right? We don't know why the warnings weren't here, but they just weren't. It's scary.' Flick was speaking to the Daily Mail while searching a local trailer park, upended by the floods, for missing pets. All around are the signs of desolation. Hidden among loblolly pines that once lined the river banks are the corpses of deer and other wildlife killed in the disaster, rotting in the 84F Texas heat. The reek of dead fish flipped out of the water adds to the stench which mingles gruesomely with the smell of smoke emanating from the bonfires of tumbled tree branches set by cleanup crews. Bridges, some caved in, are swarmed with rescue teams accompanied by cadaver dogs hunting desperately for any sign of life among the devastation. Once an oasis of rural peace, there is quiet no more. Sirens constantly blare as police teams and first responders screech past on Highway 39, the country road that connects Kerrville with Ingram and the tiny town of Hunt where 27 children lost their lives at Camp Mystic. Stories of near misses and death are everywhere. Flick tells of a friend from the same trailer park who woke in the small hours to find water pouring into her home. 'They got out through a back window,' Flick said. 'She was able to get out with her dog and her cat, they got stuck in a tree, her with her cat on her head. 'Her dog was on a harness, but she let him go at some point for whatever reason and couldn't get him back. Eventually a neighbor saved her and the cat.' Bambi Harrell, 62, spent Sunday helping friends pick up the shattered pieces of their lives, told Daily Mail she had never witnessed disaster of this scale in her 25 years in the area She added: 'They keep downplaying it, but I've never seen anything like this. They keep saying that 30 or 50 years ago, we had something like this. 'These trees are hundreds of years old, and they're uprooted and they're down. 'We've always had these huge trees, and the huge trees are gone now. So, it's nothing that's ever seen here before.' Flick is not alone in her assessment of the devastation wrought by the floods. Bambi Harrell, 62, who spent Sunday helping friends pick up the shattered pieces of their lives, said: 'I've lived here 25 years and I've seen a lot of flash flooding but nothing like this. 'We have some amazing first responders here that are going above and beyond.' She added: 'I thought I was prepared for this, but I was not. I've never seen anything like this. It's devastating.' Driving through Kerrville and the neighboring towns of Ingram and Center Point, the scale of the devastation quickly becomes clear. A road bridge across the river was partially caved in, while huge loblollies lie snapped in half like discarded toothpicks. Crushed cars are mangled on the Guadalupe's banks while upturned boats were scattered around – ripped from their moorings by the sheer force of the current. Elsewhere, homes are ripped up, including in River's Edge – a small leafy row of trailer homes just a few feet from the Guadalupe in Ingram. It was there that dad-of-two Julian Ryan, 27, died a hero after punching through a window so his family could escape – at the cost of almost severing his arm. Speaking to CBS affiliate KHOU in the aftermath, his devastated widow Christine Wilson said: 'It severed his artery in his arm and almost cut it clean off.' Julian Ryan, 27, is being hailed a hero after he used his final moments to save his family from the fast-moving waters. He died after punching through a window of their trailer home and severing his artery Inside Ryan's trailer, flood marks almost reached the ceiling while the family's furniture was tossed around like toys by the water Heartbreakingly, despite repeated 911 calls, Ryan could not be saved – telling his family, 'I'm sorry, I'm not going to make it. I love y'all.' Daily Mail photos of the trailer home show the catastrophic damage it suffered, with flood marks almost reaching the ceiling while the family's furniture was tossed around like toys. Mud is splattered up the inside walls while one side of the property was cracked and bent, with bits of the corrugated iron exterior ripped off. Other trailers in the neighborhood had been shifted off their foundations – with some landing three streets away. 'It's just total devastation,' said neighbor Ray Lackey. Like Ryan's, his trailer home was wrecked in the flood and is now filled with mud that has destroyed most of his possessions – including irreplaceable photographs of his late father and sister. 'There are families that lost their lives, people who were killed that I know. It's hard. I lost everything and everybody here – and I mean everybody here – lost everything.' Lackey, a carpenter, was out of town when the flood hit but, with no insurance, he now faces an uphill battle to get his life back on track. 'Hopefully somebody will help us out somehow. I wish I would have had insurance, really, right?' he said. 'I never would have thought anything like this would have happened. The river has never come up. That's why I don't, and I've lived here for a good amount of time.' On nearby streets, houses still stood but were packed with smelly river mud while another property – which had been named Paradise by its distraught owner – was playing host to a phalanx of police vehicles. Meanwhile, the usually serene TX-39 highway that cuts through town had been turned into a snarl of cop cars and big rigs hauling specialist gear, such as air boats and cherry pickers equipped with tracks. 'Before this, this was just a beautiful, peaceful, lovely place,' said Lackey. 'It was very quiet. Nobody messed with nobody. 'Everybody helped out around here. And now everybody is kind of coming together. It helps having people like them around and now they're coming out to help.'
Sky News
2 hours ago
- Sky News
Eight more deaths confirmed in Texas floods - bringing total to at least 90
At least 90 people have died in the flash floods that have left a trail of destruction across Texas, officials said. Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said on Monday that 75 bodies had been recovered from the area, which is seven more than the previous figure for the county. Sheriff Leitha said the number of dead includes 48 adults and 27 children. The total figure is seven higher than the 68 deaths that had earlier been confirmed in Kerr County. In a separate news conference in Williamson County, officials there said a second person had been confirmed dead in the area. One official warned that debris was posing a threat to rescuers out searching for bodies, adding: "The bodies that we're looking for could be hidden beneath 20ft of mud, trees and debris". An official also warned rescuers had to be wary of "snakes and skunks" in the water. He asked people to keep away from the floodwater. One death had earlier been confirmed in Tom Green, while there had been four fatalities in Burnet, six fatalities in Travis County and two in Kendall. Sheriff Leitha has said 15 of the 90 confirmed dead were still unidentified. In Kerr County, at least 27 deaths were confirmed after some of the worst flooding struck a girls' summer camp called Camp Mystic. Among those killed were campers as young as eight, a camp counsellor and the camp's director. At least 41 people are still missing in the state - including 10 girls from the camp. Texas Senator Ted Cruz spoke at the same news conference where the latest death figures were confirmed and said: "Texas is grieving right now, the pain, the shock of what has transpired these last few days has broken the heart of our state. "Those numbers [the number of dead] are continuing to go up... that's every parent's nightmare, every mum and dad." He said he had picked up his own daughter from a camp in the area last week. 3:25 Mr Cruz added: "Over the last several days, I've spoken to multiple parents, scared out of their minds. "There's still ten girls and one counsellor from Camp Mystic that are not accounted for. "And the pain and agony of not knowing your child's whereabouts, it's the worst thing imaginable." He added: "You know what I'd do? What I did when this happened? Just go hug your kids. "Because I've got to tell you, I hugged my girls with tears in my eyes." The flooding comes after the Trump administration made cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) - with Texas officials having criticised the weather service by claiming it failed to warn the public about the impending danger. Meanwhile, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer asked the Department of Commerce's acting inspector general on Monday to probe whether staffing vacancies at the NWS's San Antonio office contributed to "delays, gaps, or diminished accuracy" in forecasting the flooding. The NWS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mr Schumer's letter but earlier defended its forecasting and emergency management. Apparently referencing people who might claim the Trump administration's cuts played a role in worsening disaster, Mr Cruz said at the news conference: "I think this is not a time for partisan finger-pointing and attacks." Dalton Rice, the city manager of Kerrville in Kerr County, was asked whether evacuation warnings could have been issued earlier. He said: "It's very tough to make those calls because we also don't want to cry wolf. "You know, we want to make sure that we activated [it] at the right time." He added: "We had first responders getting swept away, responding to the first areas of rainfall. That's how quick it happened. "They were driving to these areas and one of them got swept off the road." Texas Game Wardens had arrived at Camp Mystic on Friday afternoon and began evacuating campers. A rope was tied so girls could hang on as they walked across a bridge, the floodwaters rushing around their knees. Elinor Lester, 13, said she was evacuated with her cabinmates by helicopter after wading through floodwaters. She recalled startling awake around 1:30am as thunder crackled and water pelted the cabin windows. Ms Lester was among the older girls housed on elevated ground known as Senior Hill. Cabins housing the younger campers, who can start attending at age eight, are situated along the riverbanks and were the first to flood, she said. "The camp was completely destroyed," she said. "It was really scary." Her mother, Elizabeth Lester, said her son was nearby at Camp La Junta and also escaped. A counsellor there woke up to find water rising in the cabin, opened a window and helped the boys swim out. 1:04 Camp La Junta and nearby Camp Waldemar said in Instagram posts that all campers and staff were safe. It comes after Texas agriculture minister Sid Miller told Fox News that cattle and livestock were found on the "tops of trees" in the state due to a "26ft wall of water". More heavy rain is expected in the region over the next two days, with flood alerts in place until 7pm local time today. US President Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration yesterday and says he will "probably" visit Texas on Friday. Please refresh the page for the fullest version.
