Search teams scour Texas flood zone for dozens missing
The bulk of the death toll from Friday's flash floods was concentrated in the riverfront Hill Country Texas town of Kerrville, accounting for 68 of the dead, including 28 children, according to Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha.
The Guadalupe River, transformed by pre-dawn torrential downpours into a raging, killer torrent in less than hour, runs directly through Kerrville.
The loss of life there included an unspecified number of fatalities at the Camp Mystic summer camp, a Christian girls retreat on the banks of the Guadalupe where authorities reported two dozen children unaccounted for in the immediate aftermath of the flooding on Friday.
On Sunday, Leitha said search teams were still looking for 10 girls and one camp counsellor, but he did not specify the fate of others initially counted as missing.
As of late Sunday afternoon, state officials said 10 other flood-related fatalities were confirmed across four neighbouring south-central Texas counties, and that 41 other people were still listed as unaccounted for in the disaster beyond Kerr County.
Freeman Martin, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, predicted the death toll would rise further as floodwaters receded and the search gained momentum.
Authorities also warned that continued rainfall - even if lighter than Friday's deluge - could unleash additional flash floods because the landscape was so saturated.
State emergency management officials had warned on Thursday, before the July Fourth holiday, that parts of central Texas faced possible heavy showers and flash floods based on National Weather Service Forecasts.
But twice as much rain as predicted ended up falling over two branches of the Guadalupe just upstream from where they converge, sending all that water racing into the single river channel where it slices through Kerrville, according to City Manager Dalton Rice.
Rice and other public officials, including Governor Greg Abbott, vowed that the circumstances of the flooding, and the adequacy for weather forecasts and warning systems would be scrutinised once the immediate situation was brought under control.
In the meantime, the land and air search continues around the clock.
Officials said on Saturday that more than 850 people had been rescued, some clinging to trees, after a sudden storm dumped up to 38cm of rain across the region.
As well as the 68 lives lost in Kerr County, three died in Burnet County, one in Tom Green County, five in Travis County and one in Williamson County.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is sending resources to Texas after President Donald Trump issued a major disaster declaration.
Trump, who is expected to visit the disaster area this week, has previously outlined plans to scale back the federal government's role in responding to natural disasters, leaving more of the burden to the states.
Some experts questioned whether cuts to the federal workforce by the Trump administration, including to the agency that oversees the National Weather Service, led to a failure to accurately predict the severity of the floods and issue appropriate warnings.
Trump pushed back when asked on Sunday if federal government cuts hobbled the disaster response or left key job vacancies at the Weather Service under Trump's oversight.
"That water situation, that all is, and that was really the Biden set-up," he said referencing his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden.
"But I wouldn't blame Biden for it, either. I would just say this is 100-year catastrophe."
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