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At least 51 dead in Texas floods as search for missing girls reaches third day

At least 51 dead in Texas floods as search for missing girls reaches third day

Globe and Mail2 days ago
The grueling, desperate search for 27 missing girls stretched into a third day on Sunday after raging floodwaters surged into a summer camp as rescuers maneuvered through challenging terrain, while Texans were asked to pray that any survivors would be found.
At least 51 people, including 15 children, were killed, with most of the deaths coming in Kerr County in the state's Hill Country. Besides the 43 dead in Kerr County, four deaths were reported in Travis, three in Burnet and 1 in Kendall.
Rescuers dealt with broken trees, overturned cars and muck-filled debris in a difficult task to find survivors. Authorities still have not said how many people were missing beyond the children from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County where most of the dead were recovered.
The destructive, fast-moving waters rose eight metres on the river in only 45 minutes before daybreak Friday, washing away homes and vehicles. The danger was not over as at least one flash flood warning remained in effect in central Texas on Sunday.
Searchers used helicopters, boats and drones to look for victims and to rescue people stranded in trees and from camps isolated by washed-out roads.
Governor Greg Abbott vowed that authorities will work around the clock and said new areas were being searched as the water receded. He declared Sunday a day of prayer for the state.
'I urge every Texan to join me in prayer this Sunday – for the lives lost, for those still missing, for the recovery of our communities, and for the safety of those on the front lines,' he said in a statement.
Pope Leo XIV offered special prayers for those touched by the disaster. History's first American pope spoke in English at the end of his Sunday noon blessing, 'I would like to express sincere condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones, in particular their daughters who were in summer camp, in the disaster caused by the flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas in the United States. We pray for them.'
Authorities were coming under scrutiny over whether the camps and residents in places long vulnerable to flooding received proper warning and whether enough preparations were made.
The hills along the Guadalupe River are dotted with century-old youth camps and campgrounds where generations of families have come to swim and enjoy the outdoors. The area is especially popular around the Independence Day holiday, making it more difficult to know how many are missing.
'We don't even want to begin to estimate at this time,' Kerrville city manager Dalton Rice said earlier.
'The camp was completely destroyed,' said Elinor Lester, 13, one of hundreds of campers. 'A helicopter landed and started taking people away. It was really scary.'
The raging storm, fueled by massive amounts of moisture, woke up her cabin just after midnight Friday. When rescuers arrived, they tied a rope for the girls to hold as they walked across a bridge with water whipping around their legs, she said.
Frantic parents and families posted photos of missing loved ones and pleas for information.
Among those confirmed dead were an eight-year-old girl from Mountain Brook, Alabama, who was at Camp Mystic, and the director of another camp up the road.
The flooding in the middle of the night caught many residents, campers and officials by surprise.
AccuWeather said the private forecasting company and the National Weather Service sent warnings about potential flash flooding hours beforehand.
'These warnings should have provided officials with ample time to evacuate camps such as Camp Mystic and get people to safety,' AccuWeather said in a statement. It called the Hill Country one of the most flash-flood-prone areas of the U.S. because of its terrain and many water crossings.
At the Mo-Ranch Camp in the community of Hunt, officials had been monitoring the weather and opted to move several hundred campers and attendees at a church youth conference to higher ground. At nearby Camps Rio Vista and Sierra Vista, organizers also had mentioned on social media that they were watching the weather the day before ending their second summer session Thursday.
Authorities and elected officials have said they did not expect such an intense downpour, the equivalent of months' worth of rain for the area.
U.S. Representative Chip Roy, whose district includes the ravaged area, called it a once-in-a-century flood and acknowledged that there would be second-guessing and finger-pointing as people look for someone to blame.
Search crews faced harsh conditions while 'looking in every possible location,' Rice said.
Officials said more than 850 people were rescued in the last 36 hours, with heroic efforts at the camps to save children.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrived and pledged that the Trump administration would use all available resources. Coast Guard helicopters and planes were assisting to ensure operations continued even in darkness.
One reunification center at an elementary school was mostly quiet after taking in hundreds of evacuees the day before.
'We still have people coming here looking for their loved ones. We've had a little success, but not much,' said Bobby Templeton, superintendent of Ingram Independent School District.
In Ingram, Erin Burgess awoke to thunder and rain in the middle of the night. Only 20 minutes later, water poured into her home, she said, describing an agonizing hour clinging to a tree with her teen son.
'My son and I floated to a tree where we hung onto it, and my boyfriend and my dog floated away. He was lost for a while, but we found them,' she said.
Barry Adelman said water pushed everyone in his three-story house into the attic, including his 94-year-old grandmother and 9-year-old grandson.
'I was having to look at my grandson in the face and tell him everything was going to be OK, but inside I was scared to death,' he said.
'When it rains, water doesn't soak into the soil,' said Austin Dickson, CEO of the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country, which was collecting donations. 'It rushes down the hill.'
The weekend forecast had called for rain, with a flood watch upgraded to a warning overnight Friday for at least 30,000 people.
'We know we get rains. We know the river rises. But nobody saw this coming,' said Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county's chief elected official.
The county had considered a flood warning system on the river similar to a tornado warning siren about six or seven years ago, but Kelly said the idea never got off the ground and the cost would have been an issue.
Kelly said he was heartbroken seeing body bags at the funeral home and the devastation on the ground during a helicopter tour.
'The rescue has gone as well as can be expected. It's getting time now for the recovery,' he said. 'And that's going to be a long, toilsome task for us.'
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Texas flood deaths leave some asking whether weather service cuts played role in tragedy
Texas flood deaths leave some asking whether weather service cuts played role in tragedy

CBC

time5 hours ago

  • CBC

Texas flood deaths leave some asking whether weather service cuts played role in tragedy

Social Sharing Former federal officials and outside experts have warned for months that U.S. President Donald Trump's deep staffing cuts to the U.S. National Weather Service (NWS) could endanger lives. After torrential rains and flash flooding struck in Texas on Friday, 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, which has killed scores of people. The NWS office responsible for that region had five staffers on duty as thunderstorms formed over Texas on Thursday evening, the usual number for an overnight shift when severe weather is expected. Current and former NWS officials defended the agency, pointing to urgent flash flood warnings issued in the pre-dawn hours before the river rose. "This was an exceptional service to come out first with the catastrophic flash flood warning and this shows the awareness of the meteorologists on shift at the NWS office," said Brian LaMarre, who retired at the end of April as the meteorologist-in-charge of the NWS forecast office in Tampa, Fla. ″There is always the challenge of pinpointing extreme values, however, the fact the catastrophic warning was issued first showed the level of urgency." Lingering questions Questions remain, however, about the level of co-ordination and communication between NWS and local officials on the night of the disaster. The Trump administration has cut hundreds of jobs at NWS, with staffing down by at least 20 per cent at nearly half of the 122 NWS field offices nationally and at least a half dozen no longer staffed 24 hours a day. Hundreds more experienced forecasters and senior managers were encouraged to retire early. The White House also has proposed slashing its parent agency's budget by 27 per cent and eliminating federal research centres focused on studying the world's weather, climate and oceans. The website for the NWS office for Austin/San Antonio, which covers the region that includes hard-hit Kerr County, shows six of 27 positions are listed as vacant. The vacancies include a key manager responsible for issuing warnings and co-ordinating with local emergency management officials. Democrats on Monday pressed the Trump administration for details about the cuts. U.S. 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. Meanwhile, Trump said the job cuts did not hamper any weather forecasting. The raging waters, he said Sunday, were "a thing that happened in seconds. No one expected it. Nobody saw it." Ex-officials see ongoing risks Former federal officials and experts have said Trump's indiscriminate job reductions at NWS and other weather-related agencies will result in brain drain that imperils the federal government's ability to issue timely and accurate forecasts. Such predictions can save lives, particularly for those in the path of quick-moving storms. "This situation is getting to the point where something could break," said Louis Uccellini, a meteorologist who served as NWS director under three U.S. presidents, including during Trump's first term. "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." After returning to office in January, Trump issued a series of executive orders empowering the Department of Government Efficiency, initially led by billionaire Elon Musk, to enact sweeping staff reductions and cancel contracts at federal agencies, bypassing significant Congressional oversight. Though Musk has now departed Washington and had a very public falling-out with Trump, DOGE staffers he hired and the cuts he sought have largely remained. The cuts follow a decade-long Republican effort to dismantle and privatize many of the duties of U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency within the U.S. Commerce Department that includes the NWS. The reductions have come as Trump has handed top public posts to officials with ties to private companies that stand to profit from hobbling the taxpayer-funded system for predicting the weather. Project 2025, the conservative governing blueprint that Trump distanced himself from during the 2024 campaign but that he has broadly moved to enact once in office, calls for dismantling NOAA and further commercializing the weather service. WATCH | 'It's been a nightmare': Woman in central Texas describes 'wall of water' that inundated town 4 hours ago Duration 5:54 At a pair of Congressional hearings last month, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick called it "fake news" that the Trump administration had axed any meteorologists, despite detailed reporting from The Associated Press and other media organizations that chronicled the layoffs. Despite a broad freeze on federal hiring directed by Trump, NOAA announced last month it would seek to fill more than 100 "mission-critical field positions," as well as plug holes at some regional weather offices by reassigning staff. Those positions have not yet been publicly posted, though a NOAA spokesperson said Sunday they would be soon.

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