Desperate search for Texas flood survivors intensifies: 'We will not stop.' Live updates

USA Today

8 hours ago

A desperate search for flood victims in Texas intensified Sunday after the Guadalupe River gushed over its banks in darkness days earlier, swallowing homes and vehicles and leaving a staggering toll of destruction.
At least 52 people have died in flooding triggered by unrelenting rain that drenched the Kerr County area, about 85 miles northwest of San Antonio, on Thursday night into Friday. Forty-three of the deaths ‒ 28 adults and 15 children ‒ were in the county, Sheriff Larry Leitha said.
Anguished parents waited for word through the weekend on the more than two dozen children still missing from Camp Mystic, a Christian girls' camp at the river's edge.
The National Weather Service said Kerr County, located in Texas Hill Country, was inundated by as much as 15 inches of rain triggered by intense thunderstorms − half of the total the region sees in a year. The Guadalupe River rose more than 26 feet in just 45 minutes, weather.com reported.
Crews have been working around the clock, scouring riverbanks littered with mangled trees and rubble. Rescuers have pulled residents from rooftops and found some survivors still clinging to trees.
"We will not stop until every single person is found," Leitha vowed.
A community ravaged: In Texas Hill Country, deluge leaves a heartbreaking toll
Rescue crews focus on missing campers
Rescue crews worked feverishly at the site of Camp Mystic. The camp had 700 girls in residence at the time of the flood, according to Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick.
As of late Saturday, there were 27 missing campers from the camp, Kerrville City Manager Manager Dalton Rice said.
Nick Sorter, a member of the volunteer rescue group United Cajun Navy, told CNN 'there was nowhere for these kids to go. The buildings were washed out, just carved out from the inside.'
Elinor Lester, 13, told the Associated Press the camp "was completely destroyed. A helicopter landed and started taking people away. It was really scary.'
'It wasn't slowing': Witness recalls a torrent of water
Tonia Fucci, a Pennsylvania resident visiting her grandmother for the Independence Day weekend, woke early Friday to the sound of heavy rain "coming down in buckets."
She heard something more ominous: loud, startling cracking noises.
"It's indescribable, the sounds, of how loud they were, which turned out to be ... the massive cypress trees that came down along the river," she told Reuters.
Fucci, who was staying near the Guadalupe River, filmed on her phone a torrent of muddy water flooding the road to her grandmother's house. She said she received National Weather alerts on her phone hours after the flood had already hit. She recalled residents running to their neighbors to help before rescue teams arrived.
"Something I've never seen before. You knew it was tragedy," Fucci said. "It wasn't slowing, it wasn't slowing. And debris and furniture and RVs were coming down the river."
Heartbreaking photos of devastation at camp
Photos inside the nearly century-old Camp Mystic revealed a horrifying picture of the devastation that unfolded.
Campers' bunkbeds were caked in mud; bed sheets, clothing and suitcases were jumbled about the rooms. One wall of a camp building had been ripped from the foundation.
One Camp Mystic camper, 8-year-old Sarah Marsh of Alabama, was confirmed among the dead, according to Mountain Brook, Alabama, Mayor Stewart Welch. Janie Hunt, 9, was also among the dead, The New York Times and CNN both reported. Other campers were also reported dead by news outlets.
A beloved camp among Texas families
Generations of Texas families sent their daughters to Camp Mystic, a place where they formed lifelong friendships, former camper Clair Cannon told USA TODAY. Cannon's mother and daughter both also attended.
Summer after summer, they'd take Highway 39 as it winds along the Guadalupe River until arriving at the grounds on the riverbank.
'What that area is like when it's in its prime − when it's not devastated like this − is probably one of the most serene and peaceful places that I've ever seen in my life,' said Cannon, a commercial and residential real estate agent in Dallas.
Another girls' camp a few miles away from Mystic, Heart O' the Hills, said on its website that co-owner Jane Ragsdale had died in the flood. The camp was not in session when the flooding hit, and officials said everyone else has been accounted for.
What caused the catastrophic flooding?
Texas Hill Country is no stranger to extreme flooding. In the rugged, rolling terrain it's known for, heavy rains collect quickly in its shallow streams and rivers that can burst into torrents like the deadly flood wave that swept along the Guadalupe River on July Fourth.
The Guadalupe has flooded more than a dozen times since 1978, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, but the Independence Day flood is among the worst in its history.
Several factors came together at once – in one of the worst possible locations – to create the 'horrifying' scenario that dropped up to 16 inches of rainfall in the larger region over July 3-5, said Alan Gerard, a recently retired storm specialist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Read more here.
− Dinah Voyles Pulver
How many people are still missing?
The sheriff's office in Kerr County said more than 800 people had been evacuated or rescued from the region as floodwaters receded over the weekend.
Rice said "hundreds" have been rescued, but the number of missing is still a question mark. 'Right now we're kind of looking at this in two ways,' Rice said. 'Call it the known missing, which is the 27 camp kids that are missing. We will not put a number on the other side because we just don't know.'
Patrick also said up to 500 rescue workers were searching for an unknown number of missing people, including some who had come to the area for an Independence Day celebration along the river.
'We don't know how many people were in tents on the side, in small trailers by the side, in rented homes by the side, because it was going to be the Fourth of July holiday," he said on Fox News Live.
San Angelo also swamped with floodwaters
The devastation extended beyond Kerrville. About 150 miles away, the community of San Angelo and surrounding Tom Green County were hit with a record-breaking 14 inches of rain.
Police discovered the body of Tanya Burwick, 62, on Saturday, several blocks from her SUV, which was engulfed in 12 feet of water during Friday's flood, San Angelo police said.
"Our hearts are heavy as we extend our deepest condolences to Ms. Burwick's family and loved ones during this incredibly difficult time," police said in the media release. "The San Angelo Police Department stands with the entire community in mourning this tragic loss."
− Trish Choate
Were there any warnings before the flooding?
The extreme flooding struck before dawn with little or no warning, Rice said, precluding authorities from issuing advance evacuation orders.
State emergency management officials had warned as early as Thursday that west and central Texas faced heavy rains and flash flood threats, citing National Weather Service forecasts ahead of the holiday weekend.
The forecasts, however, "did not predict the amount of rain that we saw," W. Nim Kidd, director of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, told a news conference Friday night.
Contributing: Jeanine Santucci; Mike Snider; Reuters