Death toll in central Texas flash floods rises to 82 as sheriff says 10 campers remain missing
Kerrville (Texas) (AP): Families sifted through waterlogged debris Sunday and stepped inside empty cabins at Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp ripped apart by flash floods that washed homes off their foundations and killed at least 82 people in central Texas.
Rescuers maneuvering through challenging terrain, high waters and snakes including water moccasins continued their desperate search for the missing, including 10 girls and a counselor from the camp. For the first time since the storms began pounding Texas, Governor Greg Abbott said there were 41 people confirmed to be unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.
In Kerr County, home to Camp Mystic and other youth camps in the Texas Hill Country, searchers have found the bodies of 68 people, including 28 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha said in the afternoon.
He pledged to keep searching until “everybody is found” from Friday's flash floods. Ten other deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, according to local officials. The death toll is certain to rise over the next few days, said Col. Freeman Martin of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The governor warned that additional rounds of heavy rains lasting into Tuesday could produce more life-threatening flooding, especially in places already saturated. As he spoke at a news conference in Austin, emergency alerts lit up mobile phones in Kerr County that warned of “High confidence of river flooding" and a loudspeaker near Camp Mystic urged people to leave. Minutes later, however, authorities on the scene said there was no risk.
Families were allowed to look around the camp beginning Sunday morning. One girl walked out of a building carrying a large bell. A man, who said his 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.
A woman and a teenage girl, both wearing rubber waders, briefly went inside one of the cabins, which stood next to a pile of soaked mattresses, a storage trunk and clothes. At one point, the pair doubled over, sobbing before they embraced.
One family left with a blue footlocker. A teenage girl had tears running down her face looking out the open window, gazing at the wreckage as they slowly drove away.
Searching the disaster zone
While the families saw the devastation for the first time, nearby crews operating heavy equipment pulled tree trunks and tangled branches from the water as they searched the river.
With each passing hour, the outlook of finding more survivors became even more bleak. Volunteers and some families of the missing who drove to the disaster zone searched the riverbanks 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, activating the Federal Emergency Management Agency to Texas.
The president said he would likely visit Friday. “I would have done it today, but we'd just be in their way,” he told reporters before boarding Air Force One back to Washington after spending the weekend at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. “It's a horrible thing that took place, absolutely horrible.”
The destructive, fast-moving waters rose 26 feet (8 meters) on the river in only 45 minutes before daybreak Friday, washing away homes and vehicles. The danger was not over as flash flood watches remained in effect and more rain fell in central Texas on Sunday.
Searchers used helicopters, boats and drones to look for victims and to rescue people stranded in trees and from camps isolated by washed-out roads. Officials said more than 850 people were rescued in the first 36 hours.
Prayers in Texas — and from the Vatican
Governor Greg 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.
"I urge every Texan to join me in prayer this Sunday — for the lives lost, for those still missing, for the recovery of our communities, and for the safety of those on the front lines,” he said in a statement.
In Rome, Pope Leo XIV offered special prayers for those touched by the disaster. History's first American pope spoke in English at the end of his Sunday noon blessing, “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.”
The hills along the Guadalupe River are dotted with century-old youth camps and campgrounds where generations of families have come to swim and enjoy the outdoors. The area is especially popular around the Independence Day holiday, making it more difficult to know how many are missing.
Harrowing escapes from floodwaters
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 inside their homes, 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.
Locals know the Hill Country as “ flash flood alley” but the flooding in the middle of the night caught many campers and residents by surprise even though there were warnings.
Warnings came before the disaster
The National Weather Service on Thursday 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.
At the Mo-Ranch Camp in the community of Hunt, officials had been monitoring the weather and opted to move several hundred campers and attendees at a church youth conference to higher ground. At nearby Camps Rio Vista and Sierra Vista, organizers also had mentioned on social media that they were watching the weather the day before ending their second summer session Thursday.
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, including how the public was alerted to the storm threat.
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 previously said he wants to overhaul if not completely eliminate FEMA and has been sharply critical of 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 reductions.
“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.
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NATO, others turn down US call for help in Hormuz: Trump
Washington (PTI): President Donald Trump on Tuesday said NATO and most of US' other allies have rejected his calls to help secure the Strait of Hormuz as the war with Iran entered the third week.
In a social media post, Trump asserted that Iran’s military has been “decimated” and he no longer felt the need for assistance from NATO countries or anyone else.
Last week, Trump had sought help from European nations and others who depend on oil supplies transiting from the Hormuz Strait to safeguard the critical waterway.
“The United States has been informed by most of our NATO “Allies” that they don’t want to get involved with our Military Operation against the Terrorist Regime of Iran, in the Middle East, this, despite the fact that almost every Country strongly agreed with what we are doing, and that Iran cannot, in any way, shape, or form, be allowed to have a Nuclear Weapon,” the US President said in a post on Truth Social.
Iran's attacks on Gulf nations and its grip on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil is transported, have sparked increasing concerns of a global energy crisis and are unnerving the world economy.
“I am not surprised by their action, however, because I always considered NATO, where we spend Hundreds of Billions of Dollars per year protecting these same Countries, to be a one-way street — We will protect them, but they will do nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need,” Trump said.
He said Australia, Japan and South Korea too have turned down his call for help.
“Fortunately, we have decimated Iran’s Military – Their Navy is gone, their Air Force is gone, their Anti-Aircraft and Radar is gone and perhaps, most importantly, their Leaders, at virtually every level, are gone, never to threaten us, our Middle Eastern Allies, or the World, again,” Trump said.
He said that given the scale of recent military successes, the US no longer "need" or desires assistance from NATO countries, adding that it never relied on such support in the first place.
Speaking as President of the United States, the "most powerful" country in the world, "we do not need" help from anyone, Trump said.
The West Asia conflict began on February 28 when the US-Israeli combine conducted airstrikes on Iran.
The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, has effectively been shut following the US and Israel attack on Iran and Tehran's sweeping retaliation.
However, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had said that from Tehran's "perspective", the strait is "open". "It is only closed to Iran's enemies, to those who carried out unjust aggression against our country and to their allies.”
Earlier in the day, a second Indian-flagged LPG tanker, Nanda Devi, reached the country after safely sailing from the war-hit Strait of Hormuz. On Monday, the first ship, Shivalik, reached Mundra port in Gujarat.
As of now, 22 Indian vessels remain on the west side and two on the east side of the strait.
Indian authorities are in constant touch with all the relevant stakeholders in the region to secure the safe passage of the remaining ships, officials said.
