Texas braces for more flash floods as rescuers search for survivors

Mint

2 days ago

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."
The current flood warnings would remain in effect until at least 7 p.m. local time, the weather service said.Most of the 82 fatalities so far were recorded in Kerr County, along the Guadalupe River basin. Of the 68 dead in Kerr County, 40 were adults and 28 were children, according to the Kerr County Sheriff's Office.
Another 14 fatalities were recorded in other flood-hit counties.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott urged central Texans to be 'extraordinarily cautious" on roads and alert to evacuation warnings for the next 24 to 48 hours because of flash flood risks.
The area was crowded with families and campers preparing to enjoy the July Fourth holiday when pounding rain brought about catastrophic flash floods just before dawn Friday. Homes were wiped out and vehicles, RVs and summer cabins were carried away by the raging waters.
A warning for potential flash flooding in parts of Central Texas was issued Thursday afternoon by the National Weather Service.
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.
'The entire time I was out here, there were camper trailers and all kinds of things hitting those trees in the dark," Moore said, pointing to broken cypress trees. 'I could hear two people somewhere over here hollering for help and there was nothing you could do. It was horrible."
Tammy Moore said they called 911 when they realized their street was no longer passable. The operator said that if the water rose too high, they should get on the roof and await rescue.
The water halted just a few feet up their yard and no one on their street was hurt. George Moore said that people are blaming the city but he is unhappy with the weather alerts, which come too frequently to know what to take seriously. 'They say a flash flood warning. Well, you get 15 of them and you're going, 'OK, right.'"
On Sunday, search-and-rescue crews in helicopters flew low over the river, where massive trees were snapped in half or toppled in huge piles like dominoes, debris tangled in their limbs.
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 [e-mail], Gareth Vipers at [e-mail] and Collin Eaton at [e-mail]