Texas flood death toll exceeds 100 as recovery efforts intensify
Forecasters warn of additional flooding as rain persists, hampering rescue operations involving helicopters, boats, and search dogs. Authorities anticipate the number of casualties will rise further.
President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Texas on Friday, the White House confirmed, dismissing claims that budget cuts to weather agencies weakened disaster preparedness. 'Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie,' Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated.
The National Weather Service, despite reported staffing shortages, provided timely warnings before the floods, officials said. Trump called the disaster a '100-year catastrophe' that 'nobody expected.'
Kerr County, central Texas, suffered the heaviest losses, with 56 adults and 28 children confirmed dead. The victims include 27 from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp housing 750 people when floodwaters struck.
Senator Ted Cruz described the tragedy as a heartbreaking turn for what should have been a joyful summer tradition. Witnesses recounted terrifying scenes as the Guadalupe River surged 26 feet in 45 minutes, submerging cabins and trapping campers.
Volunteers, some personally connected to victims, aided in debris searches. 'We're helping the parents of two missing children,' said Louis Deppe, 62. 'Their last message was, 'We're being washed away.''
Flash floods are common in Texas, but climate change has intensified such extreme weather events. Recovery efforts remain ongoing as communities mourn the unprecedented loss.
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New Straits Times
14 hours ago
- New Straits Times
Hopes fade for Texas flood victims as death toll tops 96
KERRVILLE, Texas – Search teams plodded through muddy riverbanks and flew aircraft over a flood-ravaged central Texas landscape on Monday as hopes dimmed for finding more survivors among dozens still missing from a disaster that has claimed at least 96 lives, many of them children. Three days after a torrential predawn downpour transformed the Guadalupe River into a raging, killer torrent, a Christian girls' summer camp devastated by the flash flood confirmed that 27 campers and counsellors were among those who had perished. Ten girls and a camp counsellor were still unaccounted for, officials said on Monday, as search-and-rescue personnel faced the potential of more heavy rains and thunderstorms while clawing through tons of muck-laden debris. The bulk of the death toll from Friday's flooding was concentrated in and around the riverfront Hill Country town of Kerrville, including the ill-fated grounds of Camp Mystic. By Monday afternoon, the bodies of 84 flood victims – 56 adults and 28 children – were recovered in Kerr County, most of them in the county seat of Kerrville, according to the local sheriff. As of midday Sunday, state and local officials said 12 other flood-related fatalities had been confirmed across five neighbouring south-central Texas counties, and that 41 other people were still listed as missing outside Kerr County. The New York Times, one of numerous news media outlets publishing varying death tolls on Monday, reported that at least 104 people had been killed across the entire flood zone. 'ROUGH WEEK' AHEAD While authorities continued to hold out hope that some of the missing would turn up alive, the likelihood of finding more survivors diminished as time passed. "This will be a rough week," Mayor Joe Herring Jr said at a briefing on Monday morning. Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old Christian girls' retreat on the banks of the Guadalupe, was at the epicentre of the disaster. "Our hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this unimaginable tragedy," the camp said in a statement on Monday. Richard "Dick" Eastland, 70, Mystic's co-owner and director, died trying to save children at his camp from the flood, multiple media, including the Austin American-Statesman, reported. He and his wife, Tweety Eastland, have owned the camp since 1974, according to its website. "If he wasn't going to die of natural causes, this was the only other way, saving the girls that he so loved and cared for," Eastland's grandson, George Eastland, wrote on Instagram. MISHAP IN THE SKY Authorities lost one of their aviation assets on Monday when a privately operated drone collided in restricted airspace over the Kerr County flood zone with a search helicopter, forcing the chopper to make an emergency landing. No injuries were reported, but the aircraft was put out of commission, according to the Kerr County Sheriff's Office. National Weather Service forecasts on Monday predicted that up to 4 more inches of rain could douse Texas Hill Country, with isolated areas possibly receiving as much as 10 inches (25 cm). Allison Santorelli, a meteorologist with the NWS Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland, said the potential for renewed flooding was particularly heightened by the saturated condition of the soil and mounds of debris already strewn around the river channel. A flood watch was posted until 7 p.m. State emergency management officials had warned on Thursday, ahead of the July Fourth holiday, that parts of central Texas faced the possibility of flash floods based on National Weather Service forecasts. But twice as much rain as was predicted ended up falling over two branches of the Guadalupe just upstream of the fork where they converge, sending all of that water racing into the single river channel where it slices through Kerrville, City Manager Dalton Rice said. Rice said the outcome, the result of an unpredictable combination of circumstances, was unforeseen and unfolded in a matter of two hours. "Why didn't we evacuate? Well, evacuation is a delicate balance," he said in response to reporters' questions on Monday. "If you evacuate too late, you then risk putting buses, or cars, or vehicles or campers on roads into low-water areas, trying to get them out, which then can make it even more challenging." "It's very tough to make those calls, because what we also don't want to do is cry wolf." The chief meteorologist for commercial forecaster AccuWeather, Jonathan Porter, said authorities had ample time to move people to higher ground before the flood struck. Rice and other public officials, including Governor Greg Abbott, said the circumstances of the flooding, and the adequacy of weather forecasts and warning systems, would be scrutinised once the immediate situation was brought under control. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday asked a government watchdog to investigate whether budget cuts imposed by the Trump administration contributed to any delays or inaccuracy in forecasting the floods. US Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said there would be time to examine whether more could have been done to prevent the loss of life but that now was not the time for "partisan finger-pointing."
Malay Mail
16 hours ago
- Malay Mail
Texas flood death toll tops 100, including 27 girls and summer camp staff
TEXAS, July 8 — The death toll from catastrophic flooding in Texas rose to more than 100 yesterday, as rescuers continued their grim search for people swept away by torrents of water. Among the dead were at least 27 girls and counselors who were staying at a youth summer camp on a river when disaster struck over the Fourth of July holiday weekend. Forecasters have warned of more flooding as rain falls on saturated ground, complicating recovery efforts involving helicopters, boats and dogs, as the number of victims is expected to rise still. President Donald Trump is planning to visit Texas on Friday, the White House said, as it slammed critics claiming his cuts to weather agencies had weakened warning systems. 'Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie, and it serves no purpose during this time of national mourning,' Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday. She said the National Weather Service, which The New York Times reported had several key roles in Texas unfilled before the floods, issued 'timely and precise forecasts and warnings.' Trump has described the floods that struck in the early hours of Friday as a '100-year catastrophe' that 'nobody expected.' The president, who previously said disaster relief should be handled at the state level, has signed a major disaster declaration, activating fresh federal funds and freeing up resources. Tragedy Kerr County in central Texas has been hardest hit of the counties devastated by the floods, with 56 adults and 28 children killed, according to the local sheriff's office. They include the 27 who had been staying at Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian camp that was housing about 750 people when the floodwaters struck. Camps are a beloved tradition in the long US summer holidays, with children often staying in woods, parks and other rural areas. Texas Senator Ted Cruz described them as a chance to make 'lifetime friends—and then suddenly it turns to tragedy.' In a terrifying display of nature's power, the rain-swollen waters of the Guadalupe River reached treetops and the roofs of cabins as girls at the camp slept. Blankets, teddy bears and other belongings were caked in mud. Windows in the cabins were shattered, apparently by the force of the water. Volunteers were helping search through debris from the river, with some motivated by personal connections to the victims. 'We're helping the parents of two of the missing children,' Louis Deppe, 62, told AFP. 'The last message they got was 'We're being washed away,' and the phone went dead.' Months' worth of rain fell in a matter of hours on Thursday night into Friday, and rain has continued in bouts since then. The Guadalupe surged around 26 feet (eight meters) -- more than a two-story building—in just 45 minutes. Flash floods, which occur when the ground is unable to absorb torrential rainfall, are not unusual in this region of south and central Texas, known colloquially as 'Flash Flood Alley.' Human-driven climate change has made extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and heat waves more frequent and more intense in recent years. — AFP
The Sun
16 hours ago
- The Sun
Texas flood death toll exceeds 100 as recovery efforts intensify
HUNT: The death toll from devastating floods in Texas has climbed past 100 as recovery teams continue searching for victims swept away by raging waters. Among the deceased are 27 girls and counselors from a summer camp overwhelmed by the disaster during the Fourth of July weekend. Forecasters warn of additional flooding as rain persists, hampering rescue operations involving helicopters, boats, and search dogs. Authorities anticipate the number of casualties will rise further. President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Texas on Friday, the White House confirmed, dismissing claims that budget cuts to weather agencies weakened disaster preparedness. 'Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie,' Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated. The National Weather Service, despite reported staffing shortages, provided timely warnings before the floods, officials said. Trump called the disaster a '100-year catastrophe' that 'nobody expected.' Kerr County, central Texas, suffered the heaviest losses, with 56 adults and 28 children confirmed dead. The victims include 27 from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp housing 750 people when floodwaters struck. Senator Ted Cruz described the tragedy as a heartbreaking turn for what should have been a joyful summer tradition. Witnesses recounted terrifying scenes as the Guadalupe River surged 26 feet in 45 minutes, submerging cabins and trapping campers. Volunteers, some personally connected to victims, aided in debris searches. 'We're helping the parents of two missing children,' said Louis Deppe, 62. 'Their last message was, 'We're being washed away.'' Flash floods are common in Texas, but climate change has intensified such extreme weather events. Recovery efforts remain ongoing as communities mourn the unprecedented loss.
