5 days ago
See how the Texas floods unfolded and why Camp Mystic was in a hazardous location
More than 120 people have died and at least 160 others are still missing after horrific floods struck central Texas over the July Fourth weekend. Heavy rainfall, rocky terrain, and the nearby Gulf climate combined to quickly turn the Guadalupe River into a destructive torrent across Kerr County and the Texas Hill Country.
The swath of land through which the Guadalupe passes – including Camp Mystic, where at least 27 children and counselors were killed – has earned the nickname "flash flood alley," and hundreds have died there over the years.
As the search for victims goes on, the question people are asking is: How could this happen?
It began with moisture from Tropical Storm Barry that drifted over Texas in the first few days of July, said Bob Fogarty, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio office. There, it collided with an upper-level low pressure system, which parked it in place.
A weather balloon launched by the weather service showed near-record moisture in the upper atmosphere, said Victor Murphy, a recently retired National Weather Service meteorologist in Texas. With enormous amount of moisture providing fuel, the winds served as the match that caused the storms to explode.
Alan Gerard, a recently retired storm specialist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told USA TODAY several factors converged in one of the worst possible flood locations to create a 'horrific' scenario that dropped up to 16 inches of rain over the larger region from July 3 to July 5.
Data from Floodbase, a flood tracking company shows how the deluge pulsed through the watershed for days, bringing death and destruction in its wake.
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Early on July 4, the Guadalupe River at Kerrville was flowing at 3 cubic feet per second. At that rate, it would fill an Olympic-size pool in eight hours. But soon after sunrise, 7:30 a.m., it was gushing at 134,000 cubic feet per second, a rate would fill the same pool in under a second.
The river height surged from less than 12 inches to more than 34 feet, the greatest recorded there since recordkeeping began in 1997.
That discharge was the second-highest ever recorded by the stream monitor, with data going back to mid-1986. But data between 6:15 a.m. and 7:30 a.m, around the time of the peak, hasn't been released − the event was so extreme that hydrologists from the U.S. Geological Survey are still reviewing it. Kerrville is on a list of sites where crews will be conducting what are called indirect measurements based on high-water marks, according to the USGS.
Terrain and timing were the biggest factors in the storms, according to Gerard and Murphy. "The whole area is very prone to slow-moving thunderstorms, especially in the summer months,' says Dan DePodwin, vice president of forecast operations at AccuWeather.
"The reason for that is the jet stream, a fast-moving river of air at about the level that planes fly, that moves northward in the summer," said DePodwin. And because of its proximity to the Gulf, the region gets "very high rainfall rates," most often during summer, adds Gerard.
Geology is another key factor that has earned flash flood alley its nickname. The Balcones Escarpment, running roughly parallel to Interstate 35, is a line of cliffs and steep hills created by a geologic fault, says Hatim Sharif, a hydrologist and civil engineer at the University of Texas, San Antonio.
Hill Country is a 'semi-arid area with soils that don't soak up much water, so the water sheets off quickly and the shallow creeks can rise fast,' Sharif says. Texas Public Radio reports that limestone in the area prevents rainwater from soaking into the ground. Instead, the water rushes into valleys.
All of these factors and more were present at Camp Mystic. "The terrain is complex or varied," DePodwin says. "So you get water channeling really quickly into narrow areas − in this case the river and river basin. That then obviously flows somewhere, in this case downhill and toward the camp."
Camp Mystic is a 700-acre private Christian summer camp for girls about 6 miles south of the town of Hunt in Kerr County. That's in Texas Hill Country, an 11-million-acre region of central-west Texas. Situated between the banks of the Guadalupe River and its Cypress Creek tributary, the camp had just begun its monthlong term for hundreds of girls.
The original camp sits alongside the Guadalupe River, and a second camp nearby opened near Cypress Lake in 2020. The camps are bisected by Cypress Creek. Among the 160 missing in the floods are five campers and a counselor from Camp Mystic, which counted at least 27 children and staff among the dead.
Many of the camp's structures exist within flood hazard areas defined by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and new buildings have been built within those boundaries over the years.
Over the course both of 30 years, these areas would have a 26% cumulative chance of flooding. Some are in an area known as a regulatory floodway, which must be kept unobstructed for water to move freely during a flood.
The camp lost electricity in the early hours of July 4 as heavy rainfall knocked out power. At least 27 campers, some as young as 8, were swept away in the raging waters. According to The Washington Post, many of the girls from a cabin known as the Bubble Inn were lost. The Post reported water came in from two directions, the south fork of the Guadalupe River and from a creek nearby, which created a swirl around the Bubble and Twins cabins.
The camp has a storied history in the state, and it has hosted girls from some of Texas' most famous political families. About 700 children were at the camp when the floods struck, said Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Scott Ruskan, an aviation survival technician 3rd class stationed in Corpus Christi, saved 165 people from rising floodwaters in Kerr County, USA TODAY reported.
An MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew and an HC-144 Ocean Sentry Aircraft crew were launched from Air Station Corpus Christi, along with an Air Station Houston MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew to aid in rescue operations, the Coast Guard said.
The Coast Guard conducted 12 flights to the area and rescued 15 campers from Camp Mystic, the Guard said. The Texas Army and Air National Guard rescued at least 525 people from flooded areas, the Texas National Guard reported.
More than 360 people were evacuated by UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, the Guard said. Another 159 people were rescued by land.
A similar tragedy known as the Guadalupe River Flood struck Camp Mystic in July 1987. Ten teens died and 33 were injured when a bus and van carrying evacuees were stranded in floodwaters.
Flash flooding, 'a rapid rise of water along a stream or in a low-lying urban area,' is the leading storm-related killer in the United States, according to the National Weather Service. Why? 'Most people fail to realize the power of water,' the weather service says.
Six inches of rapidly moving water can knock you off your feet. According to water flowing at just 6 mph exerts the same force per unit area as air blowing at EF-5 tornado wind speeds. Water moving at 25 mph has the pressure equivalent of wind blowing at 790 mph, faster than the speed of sound.
One-fifth of all direct deaths in flash floods in the full years of 1996-2024 in the United States have been in Texas, a USA TODAY data analysis shows. These are the states with the highest number of fatalities among the 1,923 total deaths:
Texas reported 68 direct deaths from flash floods in 2017, which makes 2025 the deadliest year for flash flood deaths for the state in recent decades.
Of the 120 deaths in the July 4 storms, 96 were in Kerr County, where the toll includes at least 36 children, USA TODAY reported. Counties with reported fatalities:
Ten states, from Massachusetts to California, have sent specially trained teams – including swift-water rescue crews and trained FEMA personnel – to help with recovery, and two other states have crews on the way, USA TODAY reported.
Hopes of finding survivors have diminished with each passing day, county officials said July 10. Authorities say they haven't made a "live rescue" since the day of the flood. Gov. Greg Abbott has declared a disaster in 15 Texas counties.
Since the flood, many have wondered what could have been done to mitigate the loss of life. The timing of alerts and lack of sirens has been scrutinized. Reporting has shown that the the state's Division of Emergency Management denied Kerr County's requests a decade ago for a $1 million grant to improve its flood warning system.
But sirens and alerts are only part of a layered approach to flood warning and mitigation, DePodwin told USA TODAY:
"The questions that will have to be answered are: How can we ensure people receive warnings? What type of actions were taken or not taken by local emergency managers, by local officials, by organizers of events? What plans were in place ahead of time? What thought had been given to flood risks in different parts of Hill Country? A perfect weather forecast is only good if it inspires action."
CONTRIBUTING: Janet Loehrke, Suhail Bhat, Doyle Rice, Dinah Voyles Pulver, Rick Jervis, Eduardo Cuevas and Kathryn Palmer.
SOURCES: USA TODAY Network reporting and research; Reuters; National Weather Service; AccuWeather; Nearmap; FEMA; First Street.
Read more:
These Texas 'flash flood alley' towns have suffered most in horrific flooding
What Texas cities flooded? Here's where the most rain fell over the weekend
Warnings for deadly Texas flash flooding came with little time to act
Terrain and timing conspired to cause 'horrifying' Texas rainfall
With just word-of-mouth warning, a man raced 25 miles to save guests at his Texas RV park
This is a developing story which may be updated.
