Flooding Danger Remains Severe in Texas with Over 80 Fatalities

The threat of life-threatening floods remained high in central Texas on Monday due to anticipated rainfall, despite ongoing search efforts for those missing after a holiday weekend deluge that claimed the lives of at least 82 individuals, including children attending summer camps. Officials have indicated that the death toll is likely to increase.

In Kerr County, residents started the process of clearing mud and retrieving whatever belongings they could from their wrecked homes, sharing stories of close calls from the swiftly rising floodwaters late Friday.

Reagan Brown recounted that his parents, who are in their 80s, successfully moved to higher ground when floodwaters engulfed their home in Hunt. Upon discovering their 92-year-old neighbor was stuck in her attic, they returned to save her.

“Then they were able to reach their toolshed up higher ground, and neighbors throughout the early morning began to show up at their toolshed, and they all rode it out together,” Brown said.

A few miles away, rescuers maneuvering through challenging terrain filled with snakes continued their search for the missing, including 10 girls and a counselor from Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp that sustained massive damage.

Gov. Greg Abbott said 41 people were unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.

In the Hill Country area, home to several summer camps, searchers have found the bodies of 68 people, including 28 children, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said.

Ten other deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, according to local officials.

The governor warned that additional rounds of heavy rains lasting into Tuesday could produce more dangerous flooding, especially in places already saturated.

Families were allowed to look around the camp beginning Sunday morning. One girl walked out of a building carrying a large bell. A man whose daughter was rescued from a cabin on the highest point in the camp walked a riverbank, looking in clumps of trees and under big rocks.

One family left with a blue footlocker. A teenage girl had tears running down her face as they slowly drove away and she gazed through the open window at the wreckage.

Searching the disaster zone

Nearby crews operating heavy equipment pulled tree trunks and tangled branches from the river. With each passing hour, the outlook of finding more survivors became even more bleak.

Volunteers and some families of the missing came to the disaster zone and searched despite being asked not to do so.

Authorities faced growing questions about whether enough warnings were issued in an area long vulnerable to flooding and whether enough preparations were made.

President Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration Sunday for Kerr County and said he would likely visit Friday: “I would have done it today, but we’d just be in their way.”

“It’s a horrible thing that took place, absolutely horrible,” he told reporters.

Prayers in Texas — and from the Vatican

Abbott vowed that authorities will work around the clock and said new areas were being searched as the water receded. He declared Sunday a day of prayer for the state.

In Rome, Pope Leo XIV offered special prayers for those touched by the disaster. The first American pope spoke in English at the end of his Sunday noon blessing, saying, “I would like to express sincere condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones, in particular their daughters who were in summer camp, in the disaster caused by the flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas in the United States. We pray for them.”

Desperate refuge and trees and attics

Survivors shared terrifying stories of being swept away and clinging to trees as rampaging floodwaters carried trees and cars past them. Others fled to attics, praying the water wouldn’t reach them.

At Camp Mystic, a cabin full of girls held onto a rope strung by rescuers as they walked across a bridge with water whipping around their legs.

Among those confirmed dead were an 8-year-old girl from Mountain Brook, Alabama, who was at Camp Mystic, and the director of another camp up the road.

Two school-age sisters from Dallas were missing after their cabin was swept away. Their parents were staying in a different cabin and were safe, but the girls’ grandparents were unaccounted for.

Warnings came before the disaster

On Thursday the National Weather Service advised of potential flooding and then sent out a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours of Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies — a rare alert notifying of imminent danger.

Authorities and elected officials have said they did not expect such an intense downpour, the equivalent of months’ worth of rain for the area.

Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said authorities are committed to a full review of the emergency response.

Trump, asked whether he was still planning to phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said that was something “we can talk about later, but right now we are busy working.” He has said he wants to overhaul if not completely eliminate FEMA and sharply criticized its performance.

Trump also was asked whether he planned to rehire any of the federal meteorologists who were fired this year as part of widespread government spending cuts.

“I would think not. This was a thing that happened in seconds. Nobody expected it. Nobody saw it. Very talented people there, and they didn’t see it,” the president said.