Texas flooding rescue effort takes grimmest turn yet as death toll soars past 100

Daily Mail​

15 hours ago

Rescue efforts to find survivors in the aftermath of flash floods in Texas were shifting toward a recovery mission as hopes that anyone would be found alive began to fade.
As the death toll surpassed 100 amid fears of worsening weather, Governor Greg Abbott vowed to stop at nothing to find every single one of the dozens still unaccounted for.
But first responders have been confronted with the sobering reality that as the search enters a fifth day, finding survivors is growing increasingly unlikely.
National Association for Search and Rescue executive director Chris Boyer told the New York Times it is 'a very personal decision by that community and the community leaders about when to start discussing recovery.'
He added: 'You don't want to start using the word "recovery" too soon. But you also don't want to give false hope.'
He said that the reality is 'you've got to get to those folks quick,' in a flooding scenario. 'With floods, you don't typically find a lot of people alive.'
Officials confirmed 104 people had died in the Fourth of July holiday weekend tragedy, including 27 girls and counselors from the all-girls Christian Camp Mystic.
At least 10 campers and one 19-year-old counselor, Katherine Ferruzzo, remain unaccounted for as the camp urges Camp Mystic families to 'continue to pray.'
These families on Friday received an extraordinary note in the midst of the tragedy telling them 'if your daughter is not accounted for you have been notified,' the Wall Street Journal reported.
'If you have not been personally contacted then your daughter is accounted for.'
The once-in-a-generation deluge swept away cabins housing campers aged between eight and 10 which were situated closest to the Guadalupe River.
The river flooded and surged by up to 30 feet above its usual water level in the early hours of Friday as the girls slept, giving them no opportunity to save themselves.
The raging flash floods — among the nation's worst in decades — slammed into riverside camps and homes before daybreak, pulling sleeping people out of their cabins, tents and trailers and dragging them for miles past floating tree trunks and automobiles. Some survivors were found clinging to trees.
Piles of twisted trees sprinkled with mattresses, refrigerators, coolers and canoes now litter the riverbanks.
Search-and-rescue teams used heavy equipment near Kerrville to remove large branches while volunteers covered in mud sorted through chunks of debris, piece by piece.
According to Amy Hudson, a former camper and staff member who spent 14 years at Mystic beginning in 1980, staff were given pre-camp training where they were educated about flooding.
This training would take place at the beginning of each camp season, and she recalled the longtime maintenance man, the late J.C. Mattox, would stand watch during a storm to monitor the height of the river.
And while there has also been a risk of flooding during heavy rainfall in the rocky terrain surrounding the camp, it has rarely posed a significant threat to the camp or campers.
In 1932, Camp Mystic was forced to close temporarily when floods destroyed cottages at nearby camps, and in 1987 tragedy struck a nearby camp, killing 10 teenagers.
A year later, Camp Mystic delayed the arrival of four busloads full of campers after a bridge was flooded, but by 1990, owner Richard 'Dick' Eastland was praising the new safety measures put in place to counter the flood dangers.
The flood warning system at the time sent alerts to beepers during a crisis, and he said: 'With this new system, we should gain more time. The river is beautiful, but you have to respect it.'
The beloved 70-year-old 'camp dad' died trying to save the young girls in his care.
In fact, stories of minor floods and warnings have passed down through generations of campers as legends, lore and nostalgic memories of some of their favorite camp moments.
In 2018, Camp Mystic shared video of minor flooding at the site, captioned: 'A little flooding on the bridge today!! Rain days at camp are the best.'
One past attendee indicated the video was nostalgic, writing: 'I'll never forget when we got stuck on senior hill one year due to flooding and Criders had to bring all of senior hill hamburgers for lunch!'
Another added: 'Making me miss camp!'
A third said it reminded her of the devastation of the deadly Tropical Storm Amelia in 1978, recalling: 'I was in that flood of 78 too...senior hill was stranded and we had to boat over food to them! What an adventure!!
Another woman tagged three friends she once camped with, asking: 'Anyone want some cereal from the shed?' One of the women responded saying she 'still gets nightmares.'
Kerr County officials had contemplated in 2017 installing a flood warning system along the river's 'Flash Flood Alley' - but ultimately determined it was too expensive.
The county lost out on a bid for a $1million grant to fund the project, and despite having an annual budget of $67million, decided not to pay for it itself.
Then commissioner Tom Moser said 'it was probaby just, I had to say the word, priorities. Trying not to raise taxes.'
Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county's top elected official, said the flood warning system along the river would have functioned like a tornado warning siren.
It was considered before he was elected, but the idea never got off the ground because of the expense. 'We've looked into it before … The public reeled at the cost,' Kelly said.
Both Lainey Landry (left) and Wynne Naylor (right) tragically died while they were at the summer camp
Critics said it may not have done the girls any good, particularly if they weren't educated about the warning sirens and how to respond.
Given the tragedy happened in the dead of night, questions have also been raised about whether the campers and their counselors would have awoken to the sound of the alarm.
The brave teenage Camp Mystic counselors who were running the operation when tragedy struck sprung into action as soon as it became clear that the floodwaters were rising at a rapid rate.
Paloma Puente, 19, who was enjoying her first summer as a counselor when she was alerted to the danger. She and some other counselors led 17 young girls, many of whom were terrified and screaming in the darkness, out of their cabin as it became inundated with water.
The group went 'through windows, through the chest high water,' a friend of Puente's recalled.
'Paloma didn't stop until she knew every single one of her girls was okay.'
And Holly Kate Hurley, 19, recalled the heartbreaking scene that followed as parents tried to reunite with their daughters.
'Seeing little girls run to their parents and just hug them and cry, and also just seeing some parents who were looking for their little girls and they weren't there... But, that's just a sight I don't think I'll ever forget,' she told Fox News.
'I was with my campers in the middle of the night, it was about 1.30 in the morning. And rain just kind of started coming through our windows. I woke my girls up, told them to close the windows and then the power just went out, all the fans turned off, running water didn't work,' she said.
She added: 'In the morning, they gathered all the counselors that were at Cyprus Lake and they told us that two of the cabins with the seven-year-old girls were wiped away and all these girls were missing.
'And we went back to our cabins and tried to keep up good spirits with these young girls. I think I was just in shock.'
Sixteen-year-old Callie McAlary said her first instinct as the waters began rising was to attach her nametag to the clothes she was wearing.
'You have kids running just trying to get to other cabins, trying to get to safety. In my head, I was saying if something does happen and I do get swept away at least I'll have my name on my body.'
A heartbreaking photo taken at the beginning of the week showed an entire cabin of girls and counselors who were washed away in the horrific floods.
The 13 girls and two counselors were staying in Camp Mystic's Bubble Inn cabin, which, alongside the Twins cabin, housed the youngest of the girls, aged eight to 10.
The cabins were less than 500 feet from the river and thus took in water from two directions - the Guadalupe river and a creek nearby, making the girls' escape particularly challenging.
Search efforts will continue until all of the remaining bodies have been recovered, Governor Abbott said.
'Texas will not stop until every missing person is found,' Abbott said in a statement. 'Texas is working tirelessly to assist local officials with recovery and rescue operations.'
He said the state had deployed over 1,750 personnel and 975 vehicles and pieces of equipment to assistin the rescue efforts. More than 20 different state agencies are collaborating across the flood-hit regions.
But he warned 'Texans should be weather aware.. Heavy rain continues to be a threat.'
He said the National Weather Service is forecasting heavy rain with the potential to cause flash flooding across already ravaged Central Texas and the Hill Country 'over the next couple of days.'
Authorities vowed that one of the next steps will be investigating whether enough warnings were issued and why some camps did not evacuate or move to higher ground in areas long vulnerable to flooding.
Former federal officials and experts had warned for months that Trump's deep staffing cuts to the National Weather Service could endanger lives.
The weather service came under fire from local officials who criticized what they described as inadequate forecasts, though most in the Republican-controlled state stopped short of blaming Trump's cuts.
Democrats, meanwhile, wasted little time in linking the staff reductions to the disaster. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer demanded that the administration conduct an inquiry into whether staffing shortages contributed to 'the catastrophic loss of life' in Texas.
The NWS office responsible for that region had five staffers on duty as thunderstorms formed over Texas Thursday evening, the usual number for an overnight shift when severe weather is expected.
Trump countered any suggestion his cuts were to blame, insisting the raging waters were 'a thing that happened in seconds. No one expected it. Nobody saw it.'
'This is a hundred-year catastrophe, and it's just so horrible to watch,' he said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt slammed Democrats trying to politicize the tragedy as rescue operations were still underway.
'Many Democrat-elected officials are trying to turn this into a political game, and it is not,' she said.
'This is a national tragedy, and the administration is treating it as such. Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie, and it serves no purpose during this time of national mourning.'
But Louis Uccellini, a meteorologist who served as NWS director under three presidents, including during Trump's first term, had previously warned: 'This situation is getting to the point where something could break.
'The people are being tired out, working through the night and then being there during the day because the next shift is short staffed. Anything like that could create a situation in which important elements of forecasts and warnings are missed.'