Dozens missing as Texas flash floods leave at least 43 dead
At least 43 people, including 15 children, have been confirmed dead following flash floods in central Texas, authorities said on Saturday as rescuers continued a frantic search for dozens more campers, vacationers and residents who were still missing.
The casualty toll will likely rise, authorities said, as localities beyond the main site of the disaster in Kerr County were affected by the flooding. A Travis County official said four people had died from the flooding there, with 13 unaccounted for, and officials reported another death in Kendall County.
Photo: Reuters
Some news organizations reported the death toll was already as high as 52. Reuters could not confirm that.
Officials said more than 850 people had been rescued, including some clinging to trees, after a sudden storm dumped up to 15 inches (38 cm) of rain in an area around the Guadalupe River, about 85 miles (140 km) northwest of San Antonio.
Among the missing were 27 girls from the Camp Mystic summer camp, Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice told a press conference on Saturday evening, and there may be others beyond that.
Rice said 27 people were known to be missing, but "we will not put a number on the other side because we just don't know."
The disaster unfolded rapidly on Friday morning as heavier-than-forecast rain drove river waters rapidly to as high as 29 feet (9 meters).
Photo: Reuters
"We know that the rivers rise, but nobody saw this coming," said Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the top local official in the region.
Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said 17 of the confirmed dead, including five children, had yet to be identified.
The National Weather Service said the flash flood emergency has largely ended for Kerr County, following thunderstorms that dumped more than a foot of rain. That is half of the total the region sees in a typical year. A flood watch was in effect until 7 p.m. for the broader region.
Kerr County sits in the Texas Hill Country, a rural area known for rugged terrain, historic towns and tourist attractions.
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said an unknown number of visitors had come to the area for an Independence Day celebration by the river.
'We don't know how many people were in tents on the side, in small trailers by the side, in rented homes by the side," he said on Fox News Live.
Photo: Reuters
'Complete shock'
Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old Christian girls camp, had 700 girls in residence at the time of the flood, according to Patrick.
A day after the disaster struck, the camp was a scene of devastation. Inside one cabin, mud lines indicating how high the water had risen were at least six feet from the floor. Bed frames, mattresses and personal belongings caked with mud were scattered inside. Some buildings had broken windows, one had a missing wall.
Another girls' camp in the area, Heart O' the Hills, said on its website that co-owner Jane Ragsdale had died in the flood but no campers had been present as it was between sessions.
In Comfort, a town about 40 miles down the river from Camp Mystic, huge trees, some over 60 feet tall, were pulled out and scattered around the river by the floods, with several blocking roads. While the main highway from San Antonio to affected areas remained mainly intact, some two-lane bridges were severely damaged by water.
A Reuters photographer saw around 10 cars - some with smashed windshields and doors - that had been swept away by flood waters and lay abandoned near the river.
Videos posted online showed bare concrete platforms where homes used to stand and piles of rubble along the banks of the river. Rescuers plucked residents from rooftops and trees, sometimes forming human chains to fetch people from the floodwater, local media reported.
President Donald Trump said he and his wife Melania were praying for the victims. "Our Brave First Responders are on site doing what they do best," he said on social media.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott told a press conference he had asked Trump to sign a disaster declaration, which would unlock federal aid for those affected. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Trump would honor that request.
Trump has previously outlined plans to scale back the federal government's role in responding to natural disasters, leaving states to shoulder more of the burden themselves.
The administration has cut thousands of jobs from the National Weather Service's parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, leaving many weather offices understaffed, said former NOAA director Rick Spinrad.
He said he did not know if those staff cuts factored into the lack of advance warning for the extreme Texas flooding, but said they would inevitably degrade the agency's ability to deliver accurate and timely forecasts.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also expressed condolences in a message on social media, saying Pakistan 'can fully understand the pain and suffering of the bereaved families' after recently experiencing similar flash floods in the country's northwest.
Deeply saddened by the loss of precious lives in the tragic flash floods in Texas, USA.
Hope the ongoing rescue efforts will be successful in saving more people from this natural calamity.
Having suffered a similar incident in north west Pakistan just a few days ago, we can… — Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) July 5, 2025
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Express Tribune
a day ago
- Express Tribune
Texas flood kills at least 109, with many missing after flash flooding
A drone view shows the Guadalupe River and damage from flooding near Camp Mystic, in Hunt, Texas, U.S. July 6, 2025. REUTERS/Evan Garcia The death toll from the July Fourth flash flood that ravaged a swath of central Texas Hill Country rose on Tuesday to at least 109, many of them children, as search teams pressed on through mounds of mud-encrusted debris looking for scores of people still missing. According to figures released by Governor Gregg Abbott, authorities were seeking more than 180 people whose fate remained unknown four days after one of the deadliest US flood events in decades. The bulk of fatalities and the search for additional victims were concentrated in Kerr County and the county seat of Kerrville, a town of 25,000 residents transformed into a disaster zone when torrential rains struck the region early last Friday, flooding the Guadalupe River basin. The bodies of 94 flood victims, about a third of them children, have been recovered in Kerr County alone as of Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said at a late-afternoon news conference after touring the area by air. The Kerr County dead include 27 campers and counselors from Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old all-girls Christian summer retreat on the banks of the Guadalupe near the town of Hunt. The camp director also perished. Five girls and a camp counselor were still unaccounted for on Tuesday, Abbott said, along with another child not associated with the camp. As of Tuesday, 15 other flood-related fatalities had been confirmed across a swath of Texas Hill Country known as "flash flood alley," the governor said, bringing the overall tally of lives lost to 109. Reports from local sheriffs' and media have put the number of flood deaths outside Kerr County at 22. But authorities have said they were bracing for the death toll to climb as flood waters recede and the search for more victims gains momentum. Law enforcement agencies have compiled a list of 161 people "known to be missing" in Kerr County alone, Abbott said. The roster was checked against those who might be out of touch with loved ones or neighbors because they were away on vacation or out of town, according to the governor. 'Find every single person' He said another 12 people were missing elsewhere across the flood zone as a whole, a sprawling area northwest of San Antonio. "We need to find every single person who is missing. That's job number one," Abbott said. On Tuesday, San Antonio-born country singer Pat Green disclosed on social media that his younger brother and sister-in-law and two of their children were among those "swept away in the Kerrville flood." Hindered by intermittent thunderstorms and showers, rescue teams from federal agencies, neighboring states and Mexico have joined local efforts to search for missing victims, though hopes of finding more survivors faded as time passed. The last victim found alive in Kerr County was last Friday. "The work is extremely treacherous, time-consuming," Lieutenant Colonel Ben Baker of the Texas Game Wardens said at a press conference. "It's dirty work. The water is still there." A water-soaked family photo album was among the personal belongings found in flood debris by Sandi Gilmer, 46, a US Army veteran and certified chaplain volunteering in the search operation along the Guadalupe at Hunt. "I don't know how many people in this album are alive or deceased," she said, flipping through images of two toddlers and a gray-haired man. "I didn't have the heart to step over it without picking it up and hoping to return it to a family member." Makings of a disaster More than a foot of rain fell in the region in less than an hour before dawn last Friday, sending a wall of water cascading down the Guadalupe that killed dozens of people and left mangled piles of debris, uprooted trees and overturned vehicles. Public officials have faced days of questions about whether they could have alerted people in flood-prone areas sooner. The state emergency management agency warned last Thursday, on the eve of the disaster, that parts of central Texas faced a flash floods threat, based on National Weather Service forecasts. But twice as much rain as 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 has said the outcome was unforeseen and unfolded in a matter of two hours, leaving too little time to conduct a precautionary mass evacuation without the risk of placing more people in harm's way. Scientists have said extreme flood events are growing more common as climate change creates warmer, wetter weather patterns in Texas and other parts of the country. At an earlier news briefing on Tuesday, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha rebuffed questions about the county's emergency operations and preparedness and declined to say who was ultimately in charge of monitoring weather alerts and issuing flood warnings or evacuation orders. He said his office began receiving emergency-911 calls between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Friday, several hours after the local National Weather Service station issued a flash-flood alert. "We're in the process of trying to put (together) a timeline," Leitha said. Abbott said a special session of the Texas legislature would convene later this month to investigate the emergency response and provide funding for disaster relief.
Business Recorder
a day ago
- Business Recorder
Death toll from Texas flood hits triple-digits as tally of missing tops 180
KERRVILLE: The death toll from the July Fourth flash flood that ravaged a swath of central Texas Hill Country rose on Tuesday to at least 109, many of them children, as search teams pressed on through mounds of mud-encrusted debris looking for scores of people still missing. According to figures released by Governor Gregg Abbott, authorities were seeking more than 180 people whose fate remained unknown four days after one of the deadliest U.S. flood events in decades. The bulk of fatalities and the search for additional victims were concentrated in Kerr County and the county seat of Kerrville, a town of 25,000 residents transformed into a disaster zone when torrential rains struck the region early last Friday, flooding the Guadalupe River basin. The bodies of 94 flood victims, about a third of them children, have been recovered in Kerr County alone as of Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said at a late-afternoon news conference after touring the area by air. The Kerr County dead include 27 campers and counselors from Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old all-girls Christian summer retreat on the banks of the Guadalupe near the town of Hunt. The camp director also perished. Five girls and a camp counselor were still unaccounted for on Tuesday, Abbott said, along with another child not associated with the camp. As of Tuesday, 15 other flood-related fatalities had been confirmed across a swath of Texas Hill Country known as 'flash flood alley,' the governor said, bringing the overall tally of lives lost to 109. Reports from local sheriffs' and media have put the number of flood deaths outside Kerr County at 22. But authorities have said they were bracing for the death toll to climb as flood waters recede and the search for more victims gains momentum. Law enforcement agencies have compiled a list of 161 people 'known to be missing' in Kerr County alone, Abbott said. The roster was checked against those who might be out of touch with loved ones or neighbors because they were away on vacation or out of town, according to the governor. 'Find every single person' He said another 12 people were missing elsewhere across the flood zone as a whole, a sprawling area northwest of San Antonio. 'We need to find every single person who is missing. That's job number one,' Abbott said. On Tuesday, San Antonio-born country singer Pat Green disclosed on social media that his younger brother and sister-in-law and two of their children were among those 'swept away in the Kerrville flood.' Hindered by intermittent thunderstorms and showers, rescue teams from federal agencies, neighboring states and Mexico have joined local efforts to search for missing victims, though hopes of finding more survivors faded as time passed. The last victim found alive in Kerr County was last Friday. 'The work is extremely treacherous, time-consuming,' Lieutenant Colonel Ben Baker of the Texas Game Wardens said at a press conference. 'It's dirty work. The water is still there.' A water-soaked family photo album was among the personal belongings found in flood debris by Sandi Gilmer, 46, a U.S. Army veteran and certified chaplain volunteering in the search operation along the Guadalupe at Hunt. 'I don't know how many people in this album are alive or deceased,' she said, flipping through images of two toddlers and a gray-haired man. 'I didn't have the heart to step over it without picking it up and hoping to return it to a family member.' Making of a disaster More than a foot of rain fell in the region in less than an hour before dawn last Friday, sending a wall of water cascading down the Guadalupe that killed dozens of people and left mangled piles of debris, uprooted trees and overturned vehicles. Public officials have faced days of questions about whether they could have alerted people in flood-prone areas sooner. The state emergency management agency warned last Thursday, on the eve of the disaster, that parts of central Texas faced a flash floods threat, based on National Weather Service forecasts. Texas flood witness recalls furniture, trees and RVs swept down river But twice as much rain as 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 has said the outcome was unforeseen and unfolded in a matter of two hours, leaving too little time to conduct a precautionary mass evacuation without the risk of placing more people in harm's way. Scientists have said extreme flood events are growing more common as climate change creates warmer, wetter weather patterns in Texas and other parts of the country. At an earlier news briefing on Tuesday, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha rebuffed questions about the county's emergency operations and preparedness and declined to say who was ultimately in charge of monitoring weather alerts and issuing flood warnings or evacuation orders. He said his office began receiving emergency-911 calls between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Friday, several hours after the local National Weather Service station issued a flash-flood alert. 'We're in the process of trying to put (together) a timeline,' Leitha said. Abbott said a special session of the Texas legislature would convene later this month to investigate the emergency response and provide funding for disaster relief.
Express Tribune
a day ago
- Express Tribune
Eight killed, dozens missing in Nepal floods
A member of the Nepalese army airlifts people stranded during the flood at Bhotekoshi river, Nepal, July 8, 2025. PHOTO: REUTERS At least eight people were killed and over two dozen were missing after the Bhote Koshi River flooded, washing away the "Friendship Bridge" that links China and Nepal, officials said on Tuesday. There had been no heavy rainfall in the immediate area of the river in the preceding 24 hours, but weather forecasting experts said the flood might have been the result of an overflowing glacial lake in Tibet, where torrential rain had fallen. Police had recovered eight bodies, none of whom had been identified so far, Nepal Police spokesperson Binod Ghimire told Reuters. He said 57 people were rescued. Search and rescue operations were continuing, Nepali Army spokesperson Raja Ram Basnet said. At least 20 people were missing in Nepal, while China's official Xinhua news agency said 11 people were unaccounted for on the Chinese side of the mountainous border region. Trade between Nepal and China was disrupted because of the bridge's destruction, officials said. In Nepal, the missing included six Chinese workers and three police personnel, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority (NDRRMA) said on X. The missing Chinese nationals were working at the Inland Container Depot being constructed with Chinese assistance about 80 km (50 miles) north of capital Kathmandu, said Arjun Paudel, a senior administrative official of Rasuwa district. "The river also swept away some containers with goods imported from China... There is a big loss (of property) and we are collecting details," he told Reuters. Nepal's weather forecasting department said it was working with Sentinel Asia - an international initiative that uses space-based technology to support disaster management in the Asia-Pacific region - to determine the cause of the flooding.
