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Search ops for dozens of girls missing from summer camp continue as flash floods batter Texas

Search ops for dozens of girls missing from summer camp continue as flash floods batter Texas

Hindustan Times2 days ago
Crews searched through the dark early Saturday for two dozen children from a girls camp and many others still missing after a wall of water rushed down a river in the Texas Hill Country during a powerful storm that killed at least 24 people. The death toll was certain to rise. 'Rescue teams, helicopters and drones were being used, with some people being rescued from trees,' said Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.(Eric Gay/ AP)
The destructive fast-moving waters along the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet (8 meters) in just 45 minutes before dawn Friday, washing away homes and vehicles. The danger was not over as more heavy rains were expected Saturday and flash flood warnings and flood watches remained in effect for parts of central Texas.
Searchers used helicopters and dronefs to look for victims and rescue people stranded. The total number of missing was not known but one sheriff said about 24 of them were girls who had been attending Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the river.
Frantic parents and families posted photos of missing loved ones and pleas for information.
'The camp was completely destroyed,' said Elinor Lester, 13, one of hundreds of campers at Camp Mystic. 'A helicopter landed and started taking people away. It was really scary.'
A raging storm woke up her cabin just after midnight Friday, and when rescuers arrived, they tied a rope for the girls to hold as they walked across a bridge with floodwaters whipping around their legs, she said.
At a news conference late Friday, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said 24 people were confirmed dead. Authorities said about 240 people had been recued.
The flooding in the middle of the night on the Fourth of July holiday caught many residents, campers and officials by surprise. Officials defended their preparations for severe weather and their response but said they had not expected such an intense downpour that was, in effect, the equivalent of months' worth of rain for the area.
One National Weather Service forecast this week had called for only between three and six inches (76 to 152 millimeters) of rain, said Nim Kidd, the chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
'It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw,' he said.
Helicopters, drones used in frantic search for missing
One river gauge near Camp Mystic recorded a 22 foot rise (6.7 meters) in about two hours, said Bob Fogarty, meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Austin/San Antonio office. The gauge failed after recording a level of 29 and a half feet (9 meters).
'The water's moving so fast, you're not going to recognize how bad it is until it's on top of you,' Fogarty said.
On the Kerr County sheriff's office Facebook page, people posted pictures of loved ones and begged for help finding them.
At least 400 people were on the ground helping in the response, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said. Rescue teams, helicopters and drones were being used, with some people being rescued from trees.
'Pitch black wall of death'
In Ingram, Erin Burgess woke to thunder and rain in the middle of the night Friday. Just 20 minutes later, water was pouring into her home directly across from the river, she said. She described an agonizing hour clinging to a tree and waiting for the water to recede enough to walk up the hill to a neighbor's home.
'My son and I floated to a tree where we hung onto it, and my boyfriend and my dog floated away. He was lost for a while, but we found them,' she said.
Of her 19-year-old son, Burgess said: 'Thankfully he's over 6 feet tall. That's the only thing that saved me, was hanging on to him.'
Matthew Stone, 44, of Kerrville, said police came knocking on doors but that he had received no warning on his phone.
'We got no emergency alert. There was nothing," Stone said. Then "a pitch black wall of death.'
'I was scared to death'
At a reunification center set up in Ingram, families cried and cheered as loved ones got off vehicles loaded with evacuees. Two soldiers carried an older woman who could not get down a ladder. Behind her, a woman clutched a small white dog.
Later, a girl in a white 'Camp Mystic' T-shirt and white socks stood in a puddle, sobbing in her mother's arms.
Barry Adelman, 54, said water pushed everyone in his three-story house into the attic, including his 94-year-old grandmother and 9-year-old grandson. The water started coming through the attic floor before finally receding.
'I was horrified,' he said. 'I was having to look at my grandson in the face and tell him everything was going to be OK, but inside I was scared to death.'
'No one knew this kind of flood was coming'
The forecast had called for rain, with a flood watch upgraded to a warning overnight for at least 30,000 people.
The lieutenant governor noted that the potential for heavy rain and flooding covered a large area.
'Everything was done to give them a heads up that you could have heavy rain, and we're not exactly sure where it's going to land," Patrick said. "Obviously as it got dark last night, we got into the wee morning of the hours, that's when the storm started to zero in.'
Asked about how people were notified in Kerr County so that they could get to safety, Judge Rob Kelly, the county's chief elected official, said: 'We do not have a warning system.'
When reporters pushed on why more precautions weren't taken, Kelly said: 'Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming.'
Popular tourism area prone to flooding
The area is known as 'flash flood alley' because of the hills' thin layer of soil, said Austin Dickson, CEO of the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country, which was collecting donations to help nonprofits responding to the disaster.
'When it rains, water doesn't soak into the soil,' Dickson said. 'It rushes down the hill.'
River tourism industry is a key part of the Hill Country economy. Well-known, century-old summer camps bring in kids from all over the country, Dickson said.
'It's generally a very tranquil river with really beautiful clear blue water that people have been attracted to for generations,' Dickson said.
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Texas flood: 27 children and counselors killed at Camp Mystic, several people still missing. Here's all you need to know
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Camp Mystic 'grieving the loss' of 27 campers and counselors following catastrophic Texas floods
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Representative AI image KERRVILLE, Texas: Camp Mystic says it is "grieving the loss" of 27 campers and counselors as the search continued Monday for victims of catastrophic Texas flooding over the Fourth of July holiday weekend. The statement adds another layer of heartbreak to the devastating flooding that sent a wall of water through the century-old summer camp. "We have been in communication with local and state authorities who are tirelessly deploying extensive resources to search for our missing girls," the camp said in a statement posted on its website. "We are deeply grateful for the outpouring of support from community, first responders, and officials at every level." With more rain on the way, the risk of life-threatening flooding was still high in central Texas on Monday even as crews search urgently for the missing following a holiday weekend deluge that killed more than 80 people. Officials said the death toll was sure to rise. Residents of Kerr County began clearing mud and salvaging what they could from their demolished properties as they recounted harrowing escapes from rapidly rising floodwaters late Friday. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like 4BHK+Family Lounge+Utility room at 4.49Cr (All Incl)* ATS Triumph, Gurgaon Book Now Reagan Brown said his parents, in their 80s, managed to escape uphill as water inundated their home in the town of Hunt. When the couple learned that their 92-year-old neighbor was trapped in her attic, they went back and rescued 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 those from Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp that sustained massive damage. On Sunday afternoon, more than two days after the floods tore through the camp, authorities had said that some of the girls and a counselor had still not been found. Gov. Greg Abbott said Sunday that 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. 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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.

Texas braces for more flash floods as rescuers search for survivors
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KERRVILLE, Texas—Parts of Texas devastated by flash floods that left at least 82 dead over the holiday weekend were braced for more heavy rains as forecasters extended flood warnings through Monday evening. Search and rescue operations continued into the early hours, with an unknown number of people still missing. At a summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River in the state's Hill Country, nearly a dozen girls remained unaccounted for. Rescuers combing the swollen banks of the river were holding out hope that survivors might still be found, but bad weather interrupted ground-and-air operations Sunday. Some areas could expect up to 10 inches of rain Monday, the National Weather Service said.'There remains a threat of flash flooding from slow-moving heavy rains overnight and through the day on Monday," the weather service said. 'Rainfall rates will be very intense in the heaviest showers and storms." 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By the early hours of Friday, after a storm system had stalled over the area and dumped far more rain than had been forecast, the weather service warned of imminent flash floods in the area around Camp Mystic. A wave of water surged through the river, with the worst of the flooding near the camp happening between about 4 a.m. and 4:30 a.m., according to a flood gauge. U.S. Border Patrol officers search through debris along the Guadalupe River. Further downstream in Kerrville, the river rose almost 35 feet in the early hours. Sirens went off in a neighboring county, but Kerr County didn't have an outdoor warning system. Kerrville resident George Moore woke up around 4 a.m. on Friday to the noise of weather alerts. He went outside to pull in a deer feeder and chairs along the banks of the river, where water was rising fast. He woke up his wife, Tammy, and they joined others on the street who were going house to house to wake people up. 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Across Kerrville, churches and schools have become makeshift shelters and hubs for families looking for loved ones. Big parking lots have become staging areas for rescue crews and utility trucks, with mobile showers, laundry facilities and food trucks. In the parking lot of the Kerrville Walmart late Sunday afternoon, Kellye Badon gathered with family and friends as they wrapped up day three of the search for her daughter, Joyce Catherine Badon, a 21-year-old student at Savannah College of Art and Design. Joyce Catherine and three friends—Ella Cahill, Aidan Heartfield and Reese Manchaca—were swept from the porch of a home in Hunt, an unincorporated community west of the city, around 4 a.m. on Friday, Kellye Badon said. Just before it happened, Heartfield had called his father and said that water was rising and their cars had washed away. They couldn't get into the attic. At some point, he handed the phone to Joyce Catherine, who spoke briefly to Heartfield's father and told him suddenly, 'They're gone. The current." Joyce Catherine added, 'Tell my mom and dad I love them," her mother recounted, breaking into tears. 'And she was gone," Kellye Badon said. 'What has been disappointing to us is there have not been directions about what to do about people who were not Mystic campers," Badon said. 'We have not received guidance." Lacking that, the Badons and other families have organized a roughly 50-member team of their own. The only thing left of the house is the foundation, but they have mapped the area and gather early each morning to search a seven-mile stretch. It is the kind of unofficial effort that authorities have discouraged, but the Badons say they are determined to look until they find their daughter and her friends. 'She is a strong person," Badon said. 'That is why I am optimistic she is holding on." The current flood warnings will remain in effect through Monday evening. Write to Jennifer Hiller at Gareth Vipers at and Collin Eaton at

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