At least 161 people missing in Kerr County in Texas
Abbott added that it is very likely more missing will be added to the list in the coming days, and urged people to report anyone they think is unaccounted for.General Thomas Suelzer from the Texas National Guard said search efforts include Chinook and Black Hawk helicopters with rescue hoists.He said there are 13 Black Hawk helicopters helping with search and rescue, including four that arrived from Arkansas. He added that authorities were also using reaper drones in the hunt for survivors. Responders from various agencies are working together on rescue efforts, including agents from border patrol, the FBI and the National Guard.More than 250 responders from various agencies have been assigned to the Kerrville area alone to help with search and rescue.Questions have been raised about whether authorities provided adequate flood warnings before the disaster, and why people were not evacuated earlier.Experts say there was a number of factors that contributed to the tragedy in Texas, including the extreme weather, the location of the holiday homes and timing.The governor, who had spent part of the day surveying the flood zone, said authorities had issued a storm warning and knew about a possible flash flood, but "didn't know the magnitude of the storm".No one knew it would lead to a "30-foot high tsunami wall of water", he said. The governor responded to a question about who was to "blame" for the enormous death toll, saying: "That's the word choice of losers."He made a sports analogy, saying American football teams make mistakes; champion teams are the ones who don't "point fingers".Most of the victims died in Kerr County, where the Guadalupe River was swollen by torrential downpours before daybreak on Friday, the July Fourth public holiday.Camp Mystic had earlier confirmed at least 27 girls and staff were among the dead.They said in a statement on Monday: "Our hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this unimaginable tragedy."President Donald Trump will travel to the flood-ravaged areas with First Lady Melania Trump on Friday.Separately, the National Weather Service on Tuesday evening declared a flash flood emergency and is advising residents of Ruidoso, in the state of New Mexico, to be on high alert as the village experiences intense flooding.A flood wave on the Rio Ruidoso has reached 15 feet (4.5m), the NWS in Albuquerque said in a post on X."Stay away from the river! Seek higher ground NOW!" they wrote.
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Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Fresh flooding hell as Oklahoma boys and girls club race to escape biblical torrent a week after Texas storm
Dozens of children were rushed to safety in knee-deep water as flash floods turned an Oklahoma street into a raging river. The Boys & Girls Club in Sallisaw, near the Arkansas border, was forced to evacuate Tuesday morning as heavy rain fell and flooded the River Valley. Nearly a foot of water seeped into the club, located on the town's Main Street, as a Biblical-style torrent pounded the area. Police, firefighters and clubhouse staff escorted the children out of the building, some having to be carried, and through the flooded street to their parents' cars. 'There were a lot of kids, terrified, screaming and crying,' Kayla Jean, whose 10-year-old son was among those evacuated, told Daily Mail. 'They hadn't ever experienced anything like this.' Jean says heavy rain fall hit the region unexpectedly Tuesday morning, with water levels 'dramatically' rising to 'extreme' levels in just a matter of minutes. The unprecedented downpour eerily mirrors the catastrophic flooding in Texas last week that saw the Guadalupe River swell more than 30ft in just 45 minutes before claiming the lives of more than 100 people, including dozens of children. Over 100 remain missing, sparking fears that the death toll will soon rise substantially. The situation in Sallisaw, thankfully, was handled swiftly and without tragedy. Roughly 50 children were taken from the clubhouse to safety, police told KHBS. More than a foot of water rushed into the Boys and Girls Club in Sallisaw Tuesday morning as torrential rain pummeled the River Valley. Jean, a photographer and mother-of-two, received a call around 9.48am informing her that staff had to 'evacuate and close the club due to flooding', she told Daily Mail. 'I didn't know the severity of it yet,' she explained, recalling how the water levels were so high that her boss didn't think her car would make the 10-minute drive. 'My boss told me "it's so bad you probably can't take your car." So my co-worker took me down in his lifted truck to get my son out.' She made it to the clubhouse within minutes of getting the call, but says during that time period 'those levels just increased dramatically'. 'I don't think we even had a full chance [of rain], it was a 30 to 40 per cent chance of rain that day. But when it started raining, it was heavy, the radar wasn't moving. It just stayed right over us - four to five inches came quickly,' she recalled. Jean made it to her son who she described as being 'scared' but 'awkwardly smiling through it'. 'I asked my son "were you scared?",' she recalled. 'He said, "Honestly, yeah, I've never seen anything like that".' She added: 'The staff at the Boys and Girls club was amazing. The city workers, electrical workers, police, firefighters, they were all amazing. They did a great job keeping kids calm.' Emma Taylor, 10, who was at the clubhouse before the evacuations claims that dozens of children were forced to stand on their chairs in an attempt to stay dry as the water poured in. The youngsters were eventually carried out of the club Tuesday morning after it became clear that the flooding was only going to get worse. 'They carried me all the way to my mom's car was…we had to walk all the way through the water,' Taylor told KHBS. The ten-year-old said her entire body, up to her chin, was 'soaking wet'. Taylor - like Jean's son - was shocked by the incident, telling the outlet: 'I was like, are you kidding me? This really had to happen.' But the adults in the little girl's community were relatively unfazed by the situation, alleging the roads get 'bad' in the village 'every time' there is heavy rainfall. 'I've lived here going on a little over six years, and it does every year when we get a significant amount of rain,' Taylor's next door neighbor Susan Jordan told the TV station. Jordan called on officials to invest in a 'better drainage' system so that flooding is no longer a common occurrence and 'kids don't have to be evacuated right next to a drainage ditch'. Jean, however, says the floods are not typical of the small, rural agricultural village that in 2020 recorded a population of just 8,510 people. 'We haven't ever had flooding to that capacity,' she told Daily Mail. 'There is a low point in our town that does get a lot of flooding - but it has never been this extreme. 'There are some road closures, when it rains heavy in that area of town, but not to the extent of having waist deep water in the Boys and Girls Club.' The unusual weather system saw the roads flood in a matter of minutes, but then the water levels 'went down tremendously, within a few hours', she said. The clubhouse was damaged by the flood. Jean says the facility is closed for the rest of the week while repairs are underway. Staff are hoping to reopen to Boys and Girls Club on Monday, she added. The flooding in Sallisaw came days after torrents of river water roared through several counties in the Hill Country region of Texas. More than 160 people still are believed to be missing and at least 115 have died in the floods, authorities said Wednesday. The large number of missing suggests that the full extent of the catastrophe is still unclear five days after the disaster. At least 115 have died in the Texas floods, including 27 young girls and counselors who were staying at Camp Mystic. People are pictured as they come to pick up items at the all-girls Christian summer camp in Hunt, Texas on Wednesday The deaths include at least 27 young girls and counselors who were staying at Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp along the Guadalupe River, when the river burst its banks and flooded the region in the early hours of Friday morning. Authorities and community members alike fear the confirmed death toll will continue to surge as hopes fade for finding survivors among the many reported still missing five days after the disaster. Meanwhile, monsoon rains in southern New Mexico also triggered flash flooding Tuesday and killed three people. The surge of rushing water was so intense that an entire house was swept downstream in a mountain village that is a popular summer retreat. A man, a 4-year-old girl and 7-year-old boy were swept away by floodwaters in the village of Ruidoso, about 130 miles southeast of Albuquerque.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
A Texas firefighter pleaded for an alert amid rising flood waters. It took an hour to go out
As floodwaters in Texas rose in the early morning of July 4, a local firefighter petitioned for an emergency alert to quickly be sent out, but local officials do not appear to have followed his request until about an hour later, according to leaked audio. The reported early-morning request raises questions about the timeline of events offered by local officials, who have said they had little advanced warning and no county system in place to alert residents about the floods, a disaster now responsible for at least 119 deaths, with even more still missing. According to audio obtained by KSAT, at 4:22am, a fireman with the Ingram Volunteer Fire Department reportedly called into emergency dispatch to warn that the Guadalupe River appeared to be rapidly overshooting its banks. Around that time, the river rose as much as 26 feet in 45 minutes, according to state officials. The firefighter urged officials to authorize a CodeRED alert, an emergency system that would send warning messages to the cellphones of people who had previously signed up for the service. 'The Guadalupe Schumacher sign is underwater on State Highway 39. Is there any way we can send a CodeRED out to our Hunt residents, asking them to find higher ground or stay home?' the firefighter asked, according to KSAT. A Kerr County Sheriff's Office dispatcher responded that the request would need approval from a supervisor. The earliest CodeRED alerts appear to have reached local residents about an hour later, according to multiple local media outlets, while some reported not getting their first CodeRED alert until after 10am. 'It should have been an immediate county-wide alert,' resident Louis Kocurek, who didn't get his first alert until after 10am, told Texas Public Radio. Questions have swirled over whether local, state, or federal officials could've done more to warn residents about the floods. Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha admonished reporters on Tuesday and said triggering alerts is 'not that easy.' 'There's a lot more to that [just pushing a button], and we've told you several times,' he added. He said the county's first priority is the ongoing search and rescue effort, but that analysis will be done to reconstruct the timeline for the emergency alerts. 'I believe those questions need to be answered to the family of the missed loved ones, to the public, you know, to the people that put me in this office,' he added on Wednesday. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has also pushed back against those seeking a culprit for the alleged delays, saying during a press conference on Tuesday that seeking to assign blame at this phase is 'the word choice of losers.' The Independent has contacted the Kerrville Police Department for comment. During a press briefing on Wednesday, Kerrville Police Community Services Officer Chief Jonathan Lamb described officers racing into action the morning of the flood, as residents of Hunt woke to find themselves 'trapped on an island.' 'He saw dozens of people trapped on roofs. He saw people trapped in swift-moving water,' Lamb said of one officer, adding that the department evacuated over 100 homes and rescued more than 200 people. Others have alleged the collection of children's summer camps along the river, which relied in part on word of mouth from camps upriver about potential floods, should've been more alert to the risk of floods in the area. 'That scares the hell out of me,' Russel Honoré, the a Army general who coordinated relief efforts after Hurricane Katrina, told The Wall Street Journal. 'There have been floods there before.' State and local officials have blamed federal emergency managers for what they said were inadequate forecasts and warnings, while others have questioned if Trump administration's deep staffing cuts to the National Weather Service played a role. 'The original forecast that we received Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3-6 inches of rain in the Concho Valley and 4-8 inches in the Hill Country,' Texas Emergency Management Chief W. Nim Kidd told reporters last week. 'The amount of rain that fell at this specific location was never in any of those forecasts.' On July 3, a day before the floods, the National Weather Service issued a flood watch for portions of central Texas, warnings that escalated by that evening to a determination that flash flooding was likely across the region. At 1:14am, the service issued a 'life-threatening flash flooding' warning for Kerrville, where much of the devastation has been concentrated, triggering a separate cellphone alert system. That alert was issued more than three hours before the first reports of flooding came in, an agency spokesperson told The Independent. Emergency experts have lauded the efforts of federal forecasters. '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,' Brian LaMarre, former meteorologist-in-charge of the NWS forecast office in Tampa, Florida, told The Associated Press. County officials have also come under scrutiny for not taking up a previously discussed proposal to install emergency weather sirens in the area around the river.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
How the Texas flood disaster was almost inevitable
By On a normal day, the Guadalupe River runs lazily through the scenic hills of Kerr County, Texas – past campsites where families sunbathe on its banks, fish for trout, or float gently downstream. But in the early hours of July 4, after a torrential downpour, a black wall of water swept down the valley, tearing through everything in its path and leaving more than 100 people – including at least 27 camp counselors and children – dead. As rescuers and emergency services comb the destruction for bodies days later and families try to find their loved ones and salvage their homes – it seems at first glance like the floods were the worst kind of freak natural tragedy. But now, experts have told the Daily Mail it was anything but a 'freak' event – in fact, they say the very features which make the river so scenic on a good day, made the disaster almost inevitable. 'They call this area of Texas flash flood alley,' Nicholas Pinter, a professor of Applied Geosciences at UC Davis, told the Daily Mail, 'I can't think of a place more susceptible to flash flooding in the country.' Pinter said the floods happened thanks to a 'cursed' combination of 'meteorology, topography and geology' in the area. First came the torrential rain, pushed inland from the Gulf of Mexico. 'When these types of events happen you get a lot of moisture coming inland from the Gulf, it rises as it moves across Texas and then you get a lot of rain,' Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M, Andrew Dessler told the Daily Mail. Over ten times the average monthly rainfall fell in the area over the weekend with some places seeing 20 inches in just a few hours on July 4. Then, the hills and valleys which make the area so beautiful meant that all that rainwater was funneled into one place. 'If Houston got 12 inches of rain, it would have literally no effect, it's very flat so it would all spread out and they have very good infrastructure for handling it,' Dessler said. 'But if you dump water over hills, like in this area, the water runs down the hills into these low valleys and then gets concentrated there, and runs into the rivers and the rivers rise rapidly,' he added. To make matters worse, the area's geology means that the water flowed particularly quickly. There is only a thin layer of soil on top of a bedrock layer of limestone and it can't absorb very much water. Pinter explained, 'Limestone creates fissures and caves underground which the rainwater funnels into. It essentially creates big pipes of water which then run out straight into the rivers at a very fast pace.' A drought in the weeks before meant the ground was even harder and less absorbent than it might otherwise have been, meaning water could run straight off it into the rivers. 'It's the worst case scenario there of any place,' Pinter said. The combination of the rainfall, steep hills and geology meant the Guadalupe river overflowed within seconds. 'It rose more than a full story of water within 15 minutes,' Pinter said, 'It was lethal and terrifying.' The floodwater crested at a record breaking 37.5 feet – a horrifying wall of water that, at its peak, moved with a force greater than the average flowrate across Niagara Falls. Within ten hours the river's pace had surged from 10 cubic feet per second to 120,000. Despite weather forecasts predicting the rain and issuing flood warnings, this happened so quickly in the middle of the night that those sleeping on the banks of the river had no time to escape. 'If you look, about eight hours before they forecast there was going to be a lot of rain and flooding, and then three hours before they said the Guadalupe was rising rapidly and that people should take action,' Dessler said. 'But it was the middle of the night,' he added, 'and the warnings from the weather service didn't get to the people in harm's way. That's where the breakdown was.' Dessler warns that with climate change, flash floods like this are going to grow more and more common. 'Climate Change is juicing these storms,' he said, explaining that warmer weather means there is more water in the air and more heavy rain, 'it's loading the dice to give us more of these events.' 'We have to be prepared for these kinds of events to happen more frequently, because they are going to happen more frequently,' he added. For those living in at–risk areas, like Kerr County, Dessler recommends planning ahead. 'They need to have a weather radar, and they have to have a plan for what happens if the weather service says they're going to have a lot of rain upstream,' he said. 'For things you can't get out of harm's way, you need to build infrastructure – if you have a hospital you have to build flood infrastructure around it, and all these things are very expensive,' he added.
