Texas floods latest: At least 104 dead as search for victims continues amid new weather warnings
It's the latest in a series of extreme weather events that have killed at least 104 people in the region since late last week.
Dozens more people remain missing. Hundreds of local and state responders, dive teams, helicopters, drones, and volunteers on horseback are combing the area.
A Christian summer camp said Monday that 27 girls and staff members had been killed in the disaster along the Guadalupe River.
'Our hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this unimaginable tragedy,' Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp, said in a statement on its website.
The disaster dates back to the early hours of July 4, when heavy rainfall in western Kerr County caused the Guadalupe River to swell almost 24 feet in under an hour.
Texas state lawmaker regrets voting against disaster response bill after floods
Amid questions about whether emergency systems could've done more to warn residents of central Texas about last week's flood, one state lawmaker says he regrets voting against an emergency preparedness bill earlier this year.
The legislation, House Bill 13, would have established a statewide plan to improve Texas's disaster alert systems, as well as provided grants to buy new communications equipment and installing infrastructure like radio towers.
'I can tell you in hindsight, watching what it takes to deal with a disaster like this, my vote would probably be different now,' Representative Wes Virdell told Texas Tribune.
Texas officials feared for riverbank camps. A warning system was rejected
Camp Mystic, the Christian girl's camp, reported that 27 campers and staffers had been killed in last week's flash flooding
Josh Marcus8 July 2025 04:00
Drone collision grounds rescue helicopter
City officials in Kerrville are warning residents not to use their drones until the search and rescue operations in the area are complete, after a collision with a drone in restricted airspace temporarily grounded an emergency helicopter flight.
'The helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing, and a critical piece of response equipment is now out of service until further notice. This was entirely preventable,' the city said in a statement on Facebook.
'When you fly a drone in restricted areas, you're not just breaking the law -- you're putting first responders, emergency crews, and the public at serious risk,' the statement continued.
Josh Marcus8 July 2025 03:00
WATCH: San Antonio holds candlelight vigil for victims of deadly Texas floods
Josh Marcus8 July 2025 02:54
'She did all she could to save the lives of the girls in her cabin'
A group of 11 are still missing from Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp hit hard by the central Texas floods last week.
That includes Katherine Ferruzzo, 19, a counselor at the camp and an incoming student at the University of Texas.
'Katherine has a fierce and loving spirit, and we have no doubt she did all she could to save the lives of the girls in her cabin,' her family told The New York Times.
Texas camp confirms flood deaths of 27 girls and staff in 'unimaginable tragedy'
Josh Marcus8 July 2025 02:01
Mayor in hard-hit city of Kerrville never got direct warning about floods
Scrutiny is mounting over whether officials did enough to alert the public before deadly floods hit central Texas last week.
Joe Herring, Jr., the mayor of hard-hit Kerrville, told CNN he never got a flood notification or an individual warning from government forecasters before the disaster struck.
The first time he learned the extent of the threat was early Friday morning, when the city's emergency manager called him to say a park had been flooded, Herring told CNN.
"It all happened upriver at the worst possible place. And I think everyone in Kerrville, everyone in Kerr County, wishes to God we had some way to warn them. To warn those people. I've lost two friends. We loved them and they're gone," he said. "You know they're gone. Everyone here, if we could've warned them, we would have done so. And we didn't even have a warning. We did not know."
Josh Marcus8 July 2025 01:30
Photos: Texas state troopers assist in recovery effort
The Texas Department of Public Safety was one of numerous agencies who sent personnel to central Texas to assist with recovery efforts after devastating floods late last week killed over 100 people.
Josh Marcus8 July 2025 01:00
Netanyahu offers prayers for Texas ahead of Trump meeting in Washington
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is among the world leaders who have offered prayers and condolences after the devastating floods in central Texas.
'My wife Sara and I and all of Israel are praying for the Great State of Texas,' the US ally wrote on X. 'Israel knows disaster—we've lived through war, fire, and flood. Dear friends, we stand with you!'
Netanyahu is slated to dine with President Trump in Washington on Monday.
Bel Trew had this preview of what's at stake in the meeting.
A glimmer of hope in Gaza? Inside the fragile push for an Israel ceasefire deal
After months of deadlock, talks resume this week over Trump's 60-day ceasefire proposal – with Netanyahu in Washington, Bel Trew examines whether this time is any different
Josh Marcus8 July 2025 00:40
Rescue teams from Florida, Pennsylvania, Mexico to assist in Texas flood recovery
Rescue teams from far and wide are assisting Texas in the aftermath of deadly flooding late last week.
Crews from Florida, Pennsylvania, and even Mexico have been sent to join in the response effort.
Josh Marcus8 July 2025 00:20
Series of obstacles may have stopped Texas weather warnings from reaching population
As first responders work to rescue the living and recover the dead from last week's flooding in central Texas, officials and experts are scrutinizing whether more could've been done to warn the public about the Friday floods, potentially averting some of the more than 100 deaths that followed.
A review from NBC Dallas-Fort Worth found that National Weather Service alerts went out about the coming floods in Kerr County on Thursday, about 12 hours before the floods actually hit.
'The National Weather Service office did everything they should do from everything I can tell,' Jeff Masters, a former hurricane scientist with the NOAA Hurricane Hunters, told USA Today.
Nonetheless, the county lacks weather sirens, and making matters worse, a lack of cell phone coverage and weather radios in the area may have further prevented such warnings from reaching residents.
What's more, numerous summer camps are in the area, some of which don't allow children to carry cell phones.
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said on Monday that flood-warning sirens could've saved lives in communities near the swollen Guadalupe River, and promised the state will 'step up' and help pay for such infrastructure to be in place by next summer.
Texas officials feared for riverbank camps. A warning system was rejected
Josh Marcus8 July 2025 00:00
PHOTOS: Rescues and repairs continue after Texas floods
Josh Marcus
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BreakingNews.ie
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- BreakingNews.ie
Texas governor says more than 160 people still missing after deadly floods
The governor of the US state of Texas has said at least 161 people are still missing days after flash floods killed more than 100 people across central areas. Greg Abbott spoke at a news conference after taking a helicopter tour of the affected area. Advertisement He said many of those who are not accounted for were staying in state's Hill Country, but did not register at a camp or hotel.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Dad tried to kayak in Texas floods to save his young daughters, whose last texts were ‘I love you'
The Texas father of two girls who died holding hands during the catastrophic floods as he tried to kayak to them has revealed their final words. 'I love you,' the pre-teens wrote in a text. R.J. and Annie Harber spent the Fourth of July at their one-bedroom cabin in Casa Bonita near Hunt, Texas, which they've owned since 2020. Their daughters, Blair, 13, and Brooke, 11, stayed with their grandparents, Mike and Charlene Harber, in a cabin closer to the lake. R.J. told the Wall Street Journal that he was awakened by pounding rain, thunder and lightning around 3:30 a.m. on the holiday. He woke Annie after feeling floodwater in their cabin and seeing water rushing in through the door. Unable to open it, they escaped through a window with water already up to Annie's neck and fled to higher ground. They knocked on two nearby families' doors and woke them, too. R.J. borrowed a kayak, a life vest, and a flashlight to reach the cabin where his daughters and parents were staying, but a swell knocked him into a post halfway there. 'I shined a flashlight out there, and I could see it was white water, and I've kayaked enough to know that that was gonna be impossible,' R.J. told the outlet. He saw that an entire cabin had broken loose from its foundation and was lodged against the side of the cabin where his daughters and parents were staying. 'There were cars floating at me and trees floating at me. I knew if I took even one stroke further, it was gonna be a death sentence,' he said. R.J. made the heartbreaking decision to go back to Annie and the other families. All of them made it to a home on higher ground where another family let them in around 3:45 a.m., the Journal reported. When RJ checked his phone, he discovered that Brooke had texted him at 3:30 a.m. It read 'I love you.' Annie also received texts from both daughters saying 'I love you,' and their other grandfather in Michigan received one that said 'Love you' and a photo of him with the girls. The Harbers and others waited in the dark all night, hearing terrifying noises they later realized were cabins being torn from their foundations. At sunrise, R.J. returned to find most of the community's cabins destroyed, including the one where his daughter and their grandparents had stayed, which had been completely washed away. Kerr County, Texas, has become the center for disastrous floods that hit the state over the weekend. More than 100 people have died and emergency crews have done more than 400 rescues. Blair and Brooke's bodies were found about 12 miles from the cabin. According to a GoFundMe started for the girls' funeral costs, the grandparents have yet to be found. The girls' aunt, Jennifer Harber, wrote, 'They were believers, and one of their favorite classes was religion. Blair and I had a conversation about God and heaven two weeks earlier. They had their rosaries with them.' The GoFundMe has raised over $290,000, surpassing its $275,000 goal. R.J. told the Journal that the family frequently visited their cabin to kayak, fish and play. 'Unfortunately, all those great memories are now a bad memory,' he said.
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Texas sheriff who predicted floods says lives could have been saved
Floodwaters were receding in Texas on Saturday as federal, state and local officials gathered to assess the damage and call for prayer. The rescue workers did a phenomenal job and Texans were working together to help their fellow men, they said. 'Nobody saw this coming,' declared Rob Kelly, the head of Kerr County's local government, depicting the disaster as an unpredictable tragedy. But one retired Texas sheriff knew that was not entirely true. Rusty Hierholzer, who spent 40 years working in Kerr County sheriff's office, warned a decade ago of the need for better alarm systems, similar to tsunami sirens. 'Unfortunately, people don't realize that we are in flash flood alley,' Hierholzer (pictured center), who retired in 2020 after 20 years in the job, told the Daily Mail in an exclusive interview. He had moved to Kerr County as a teenager in 1975, graduated high school, and volunteered as a horse wrangler at the Heart O' the Hills summer camp before joining the sheriff's office. He recalled the flash floods of 1987 – that killed 10 teenagers at the Pot O' Gold Christian Camp in nearby Comfort, Texas – when he was sheriff. He's still haunted by the memory of having 'spent hours in helicopters pulling kids out of trees here [in] our summer camps'. On Friday, Hierholzer's friend Jane Ragsdale, the director and co-owner of Heart O' the Hills camp, was killed along with at least 27 other children at nearby Camp Mystic. Hierholzer said he lost several friends. From 2016 onwards, he and several county commissioners pushed for the installation of early-warning sirens, alerting residents as the Guadalupe River, which runs from Kerr County to the San Antonio Bay on the Gulf Coast, rose. Their calls were ignored, while the neighboring counties of Kendall and Comal have installed warning sirens. Kerr County, 100 miles northwest of San Antonio, sits on limestone bedrock making the region particularly susceptible to catastrophic floods. Rain totals over the last several days ranged from more than six inches in nearby Sisterdale to upwards of 20 inches in Bertram, further north. In 2016, county leaders and the Upper Guadalupe River Authority (UGRA) commissioned a flood risk study and two years later bid for a $1 million FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant. The proposal included rain and river gauges, public alert infrastructure, and local sirens. But the bid was denied. A second effort in 2020 and a third in 2023 also failed – and local officials balked at the costs of sirens costing between $10,000 and $50,000 each. 'It was probably just, I hate to say the word, priorities,' Tom Moser, a former member of the county commission, told the Wall Street Journal. 'Trying not to raise taxes. We just didn't implement a sophisticated system that gave an early warning system. That's what was needed and is needed.' Kelly, the Kerr County judge, who leads the county commission, told the New York Times: 'We've looked into it before. The public reeled at the cost. Taxpayers won't pay for it.' Asked by the paper if residents might reconsider now, Kelly replied: 'I don't know.' Hierholzer is reluctant to criticize his successors while the rescue efforts are ongoing, and the death toll still rising. 'This is not the time to critique, or come down on all the first responders,' he said. But, he added, the moment will come. 'After all this is over, they will have an 'after the incident accident request' and look at all this stuff. That's what we've always done, every time there was a fire or floods or whatever. We'd look and see what we could do better.' Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, was asked during a news conference on Saturday whether the fact that many did not receive cell phone warnings until 7 am on Friday – two hours after the waters peaked – was a 'fundamental failure of the federal government's responsibility to keep people safe.' Noem said the technology was 'ancient' and that Trump's team was working to update it. 'We know that everyone wants more warning time, and that's why we're working to upgrade the technology that's been neglected for far too long to make sure families have as much advance notice as possible,' she said. Even so, Hierholzer admits he doesn't know if warning sirens would have saved lives. 'If we'd had alarms, sometimes there is no way you can evacuate people out of the zone,' he said. 'How are you going to get all of them out safely? That was always a big concern for us: are you making people safer by telling them to stay or go? And what happened in the floods of '87 was that the workers at the church camp tried to get the kids out of the area, but their bus broke down, and they were swept away.' Maria Tapia, a 64-year-old property manager, would certainly have appreciated more warning. When she went to bed at around 10pm on Thursday night in her single-story home 300ft from the Guadalupe River it was not even raining. 'I sleep very lightly, and I was woken up by the thunder,' she told the Daily Mail. 'Then the really, really heavy rain. It sounded like little stones were pelting my window. My husband woke up and I got out of bed to turn on the light, and the water was already half a foot deep.' She and Felipe quickly got dressed. As they did so, the water rose rapidly. Within 10 minutes it was above their knees. 'We tried to get out of the house but the doors were jammed. It was terrifying. Felipe had to use all his body weight to slam the door and open it to let us out, and then the screen to the porch was jammed shut so he had to kick it down so we could escape. The lights went out soon after and Felipe thought of trying to get in our truck, but the water was coming too fast so we ran up the hill to our neighbors because we could see they still had light. 'It was terrifying,' she adds, choking back tears. 'I kept on thinking: I'm never going to see my grandchildren again.' Returning to her home on Saturday, she found the interior thick with mud and branches. Water had reached the ceiling, and furniture was smashed and strewn into the yard. She was frantic with worry about their two cats, Sylvester and Baby, and their four-month-old sheepdog puppy, Milo - but on returning home found the animals sitting on the roof. 'I've seen flooding before, but never anything like that. It was just monstrous.' Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, has ordered state politicians to return to Austin for a special session on July 21, saying it was 'the way to respond to what happened in Kerrville'. A bill to fund warning systems, House Bill 13, was debated in the state House in April, but never made it to a full vote. Some speculated that the bill could be revived, although Abbott would not comment on their plans. Wes Virdell, a representative whose constituency includes Kerr County, was among those to vote against HB13 in the House. He has spent much of the past two days aiding rescue efforts, but told The Texas Tribune he'd now be in favor of the bill. 'I can tell you in hindsight, watching what it takes to deal with a disaster like this, my vote would probably be different now,' he said. Hierholzer now says all he can do is offer his help. He had texted his successor, Larry Leither, but did not want to get in the way. 'The main thing they need now is for people to stay away,' said Hierholzer. 'First responders can't get to the area if there are sightseers wanting to see all the stuff. That's always a problem: please stay away and let them do their jobs.' He added that Leither 'has his hands full right now', recalling his own time leading the emergency response, and dealing with such heartbreaking scenes. 'He's seeing things he shouldn't have to,' Hierholzer added.
