More than 160 people still missing days after deadly Texas floods
Four days after flash floods roared through several Texas counties, some in the middle of the night, hopes of finding survivors were fading — and Governor Greg Abbott warned that the list of those unaccounted for could rise further as the grim search continues.
"Just in the Kerr County area alone, there are 161 people who are known to be missing," he told reporters.
"There very likely could be more added to that list," he said, adding that the figure was based on people reported as unaccounted for by friends, relatives and neighbors.
Kerr County, part of a central Texas region known as "Flash Flood Alley," suffered the most damage, with at least 94 fatalities.
That includes at least 27 girls and counselors who were staying at a youth summer camp on the Guadalupe River when it burst its banks as the Fourth of July holiday began in the early hours of Friday.
Torrents of water swept through the camp, scouring cabins as hundreds of people slept.
Five campers and one counselor were still missing as of Tuesday evening, according to Abbot, as well as another child not associated with the camp.
"There's nothing more important in our hearts and minds than the people of this community, especially those who are still lost," Abbot said.
Elsewhere in the state, there have been at least 15 fatalities recorded so far, the governor added.
Ben Baker with the Texas Game Wardens said search and rescue efforts involving helicopters, drones and dogs were extremely difficult because of the water and mud.
"When we're trying to make these recoveries, these large piles can be very obstructive, and to get in deep into these piles, it's very hazardous," Baker said.
"It's extremely treacherous, time-consuming. It's dirty work, the water is still there."
In the town of Hunt, the epicenter of the disaster, recovery workers combed through piles of debris with helicopters flying overhead.
Javier Torres, 24, was digging through mud as he searched for the body of his grandmother, after having located the remains of his grandfather.
He also discovered the bodies of two children, apparently washed up by the river.
Officials warned of more heavy rain ahead that could affect the search — though Baker said it "won't deter" the efforts.
President Donald Trump is due to travel to Texas with First Lady Melania Trump on Friday, and credited his strong ties with Abbott, a Republican, as having helped the rescue effort.
"We brought in a lot of helicopters from all over... They were real pros, and they were responsible for pulling out a lot of people. And we got them there fast, and Texas had some good ones too, but the response has been incredible," Trump said.
Meanwhile, questions intensified over whether Trump's government funding cuts had weakened warning systems, and over the handling of the rescue operation.
During an at-times tense news conference, Baker skirted a question on the speed of the emergency response.
"Right now, this team up here is focused on bringing people home," he said.
Shel Winkley, a weather expert at the Climate Central research group, blamed the extent of the disaster on geography and exceptional drought, when dry soil absorbs less rainfall.
"This part of Texas, at least in the Kerr County flood specifically, was in an extreme to exceptional drought... We know that since May, temperatures have been above average," Winkley told reporters.
The organization's media director, Tom Di Liberto, said staffing shortages at the National Weather Service had contributed to the disaster.
"You can't necessarily replace that experience," he said.
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Japan Times
18 hours ago
- Japan Times
Misinformation from left and right sows confusion amid Texas floods
Following deadly floods in Texas, misinformation from both left- and right-wing users was roiling social media, with liberals baselessly blaming staffing cuts at U.S. weather agencies for flawed warning systems and conservatives ramping up conspiracy theories. The catastrophic floods over the weekend have left more than 100 people dead, including more than two dozen girls and counselors at a riverside summer camp, with rescuers racing Tuesday to search for dozens of people still missing. Multiple left-leaning accounts on the platform X peddled the unfounded claim that staffing cuts at the National Weather Service (NWS) by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration had "degraded" its forecasting ability. While the NWS, like other agencies, has experienced deep staffing and budget cuts under the Trump administration, experts say its forecasters rose to the challenge despite the constraints. "There have been claims that (weather agencies) did not foresee catastrophic (Texas) floods — but that's simply not true," Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, wrote on Bluesky. "This was undoubtedly an extreme event but messaging rapidly escalated beginning (around) 12 (hours) prior ... Locations that flooded catastrophically had at least 1-2+ hours of direct warning from NWS." There were 22 warnings from the NWS for Kerr County and the Kerrville area, which experienced the worst flooding, according to a CBS News analysis. "This truly was a sudden & massive event and occurred at worst possible time (middle of the night). But (the) problem, once again, was not a bad weather prediction: it was one of 'last mile' forecast/warning dissemination," Swain wrote. Meanwhile, right-wing conspiracy theorists on social media falsely claimed that the government caused the flooding through cloud seeding, an artificial technique that stimulates rainfall. Multiple experts have said that such weather-modification technologies were not responsible for the Texas floods. The false claim echoes past conspiracy theories, including claims that weather manipulation by the government caused Hurricane Milton — which struck Florida's Gulf Coast last year — and that cloud seeding efforts were behind last year's flooding in Dubai. "False claims from both the left and right have spread widely on social media following the catastrophic floods in Texas," Sarah Komar and Nicole Dirks from the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard wrote in a report that debunked several falsehoods. "When extreme weather events occur, conspiracy theories about humans creating or controlling them often soon follow." Following natural disasters, misinformation often surges across social media — fueled by accounts from across the political spectrum — as many platforms scale back content moderation and reduce their reliance on human fact-checkers. Traditional media outlets were not immune to misinformation swirling on the internet. "Like other disasters before it, the (Texas) floods had attracted fast-spreading misinformation and served as a warning about the vigilance required of journalists during emotionally charged news events," said the nonprofit media institute Poynter. Kerr County Lead, a local outlet, was forced to retract a false story about the miracle rescue of two girls who clung to a tree in the floods. The story first surfaced in social media posts that quickly went viral, but a local official said the reports were "100% inaccurate." "Like everyone, we wanted this story to be true, but it's a classic tale of misinformation that consumes all of us during a natural disaster," Louis Amestoy, Kerr County Lead's editor, wrote in a note to readers on Sunday. "Unfortunately, the story is not true and we are retracting it."
Nikkei Asia
18 hours ago
- Nikkei Asia
More than 160 still missing; over 100 dead in Texas floods
HUNT, Texas (AP) -- More than 160 people are still believed to be missing in Texas days after flash floods killed over 100 people during the July Fourth weekend, the state's governor said Tuesday. The huge jump in the number unaccounted for -- roughly three times higher than previously said -- came after authorities set up a hotline for families to call. Those reported missing are in Kerr County, where most of the victims have been recovered so far, Gov. Greg Abbott said. Many were likely visiting or staying in the state's Hill Country during the holiday but did not register at a camp or hotel, he said during a news conference. The county's lowlands along the Guadalupe River are filled with youth camps and campgrounds, including Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 campers and counselors died. Officials said Tuesday that five campers and one counselor have still not been found. Search-and-rescue teams are using heavy equipment to untangle and peel away layers of trees, unearth large rocks in riverbanks and move massive piles of debris that stretch for miles in the search for the missing people. Crews in airboats, helicopters and on horseback along with hundreds of volunteers are part of one of the largest search operations in Texas history. The flash flood is the deadliest from inland flooding in the U.S. since Colorado's Big Thompson Canyon flood on July 31, 1976, killed 144 people, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist with Yale Climate Connections. That flood surged through a narrow canyon packed with people on a holiday weekend, Colorado's centennial celebration. Public officials in charge of locating the victims are facing intensifying questions about who was in charge of monitoring the weather and warning that floodwaters were barreling toward camps and homes. The Republican governor, who took a helicopter tour of the disaster zone, dismissed a question about who was to blame for the deaths, saying, "That's the word choice of losers." "Every football team makes mistakes," he said. "The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who's to blame. The championship teams are the ones who say, 'Don't worry about it, man, we got this. We're going to make sure that we go score again and we're going to win this game.' The way winners talk is not to point fingers." Abbott promised that the search for victims will not stop until everyone is found. He also said President Donald Trump has pledged to provide whatever relief Texas needs to recover. Trump plans to visit the state Friday. Outside the cabins at Camp Mystic where the girls had slept, mud-splattered blankets and pillows were scattered on a grassy hill that slopes toward the river. Also in the debris were pink, purple and blue luggage decorated with stickers. Among those who died at the camp were a second grader who loved pink sparkles and bows, a 19-year-old counselor who enjoyed mentoring young girls and the camp's 75-year-old director. The flash floods erupted before daybreak Friday after massive rains sent water speeding down hills into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet (8 meters) in less than an hour. The wall of water overwhelmed people in cabins, tents and trailers along the river's edge. Some survivors were found clinging to trees. Some campers had to swim out of cabin windows to safety while others held onto a rope as they made their way to higher ground. Time-lapse videos showed how floodwaters covered roads in a matter of minutes. Although it's difficult to attribute a single weather event to climate change, experts say a warming atmosphere and oceans make catastrophic storms more likely. Questions mounted about what, if any, actions local officials took to warn campers and residents who were spending the July Fourth weekend in the scenic area long known to locals as "flash flood alley." Leaders in Kerr county, where searchers have found about 90 bodies, said their first priority is recovering victims, not reviewing what happened in the hours before the flash floods. "Right now, this team up here is focused on bringing people home," Lt. Col. Ben Baker of the Texas Game Wardens, said during a sometimes tense news conference. Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county's chief elected official, said in the hours after the devastation that the county does not have a warning system. Generations of families in the Hill Country have known the dangers. A 1987 flood forced the evacuation of a youth camp in the town of Comfort and swamped buses and vans. Ten teenagers were killed. Local leaders have talked for years about the need for a warning system. Kerr County sought a nearly $1 million grant eight years ago for such a system, but the request was turned down by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Local residents balked at footing the bill themselves, Kelly said. Four days have passed since anyone was found alive in the aftermath of the floods in Kerr County, officials said Tuesday. The bodies of 30 children were among those that have been recovered in the county, which is home to Camp Mystic and several other summer camps, the sheriff said. The devastation spread across several hundred miles in central Texas all the way to just outside the capital of Austin. Aidan Duncan escaped just in time after hearing the muffled blare of a megaphone urging residents to evacuate Riverside RV Park in the Hill Country town of Ingram. All his belongings - a mattress, sports cards, his pet parakeet's bird cage - now sit caked in mud in front of his home. "What's going on right now, it hurts," the 17-year-old said. "I literally cried so hard." Along the banks of the Guadalupe, 91-year-old Charles Hanson, a resident at a senior living center, was sweeping up wood and piling pieces of concrete and stone, remnants from a playground structure. He wanted to help clean up on behalf of his neighbors who can't get out. "We'll make do with the best we got," he said.
NHK
18 hours ago
- NHK
Over 160 missing in Texas flooding
Over 160 people are missing in a single county in the US state of Texas, which was hit by devastating flooding last week. After visiting the area on Tuesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott told reporters that the death toll in the state had risen to 109. He also said 161 people are known to be missing in Kerr County alone, which suffered the worst damage. Heavy rain began in the early hours of Friday, inundating an area along the Guadalupe River. Authorities said the river rose by about 10 meters in two hours. The flooding caused massive devastation, sweeping away numerous people, including children attending a summer camp along the river. Local authorities are facing scrutiny for not having flood warning sirens in place along the river. Commenting on the situation, the governor said, "We're going to address every aspect of this storm to make sure that we're going to have in place the systems that are needed to prevent deadly flooding events like this in the future." President Donald Trump is expected to visit the affected area on Friday.
