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The places where deadly Texas floodwaters have killed at least 70 people

The places where deadly Texas floodwaters have killed at least 70 people

Al Arabiya12 hours ago
Search teams are using helicopters, boats, and drones to look for victims in flash floods that have torn across central Texas since the start of the July Fourth weekend.
At least 70 people have died, and many more are still missing, including at least 11 girls from a summer camp. At the center of the tragedy is the scenic Texas Hill Country, where volunteers and some families of the missing have searched the riverbanks despite being asked not to do so. Authorities in surrounding areas closer to Austin, the state capital, have also recovered victims from floodwaters. Here's a look at the known toll of dead and missing.
Texas Hill Country: Flash floods striking with the force to rip away concrete slabs and giant trees tore across Guadalupe River banks dotted with children's camps and campgrounds. Kerr County authorities had confirmed at least 59 deaths as of Sunday and said they had no way to total the number of missing across the county – the hardest-hit by the floods. Among Kerr County's confirmed dead are at least 21 children. The missing campers were from Camp Mystic, a riverside Christian camp for girls in Hunt, Texas.
Travis County: Four people were confirmed killed as flash floods along creeks carried away homes, trailers, cars, and people in the northwest portion of the county. Travis County Judge Andy Brown, the top executive of the county, said Sunday that some 50 people have been rescued by helicopter, in boats, and on foot. 'They've also sent resources to Kerr County, knowing that it was harder hit.' While a flood watch remains in effect, officials say they have neutralized the initial emergency. 'Now we're going to be moving into recovery,' said Eric Carter, chief Emergency Management Coordinator for Travis County.
Burnet County: Authorities in the largely rural county, which borders Travis County, reported three dead and five people missing in floodwaters that surged out of Cow Creek and other waterways.
Other victims: Two deaths were reported in Kendall County, and there was one death each in Tom Green and Williamson counties. In Williamson County, in the north suburbs of Austin, the US military at nearby Fort Hood helped evacuate 16 people from a home for disabled children, County Judge Steve Snell said. The victim in Tom Green County was a woman whose body was found outside her submerged car in the city of San Angelo.
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Risk of Further Floods in Texas During Desperate Search for Missing as Death Toll Tops 80
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Risk of Further Floods in Texas During Desperate Search for Missing as Death Toll Tops 80

With more rain on the way, the risk of life-threatening flooding was still high in central Texas on Monday even as crews urgently searched for the missing following a holiday weekend deluge that killed at least 82 people, including children at summer camps. Officials said the death toll was sure to rise. Residents of Kerr County began clearing mud and salvaging what they could from their demolished properties as they recounted harrowing escapes from rapidly rising floodwaters late Friday. Reagan Brown said his parents, in their 80s, managed to escape uphill as water inundated their home in the town of Hunt. 'When the couple learned that their 92-year-old neighbor was trapped in her attic, they went back and rescued her. Then they were able to reach their toolshed up higher ground, and neighbors throughout the early morning began to show up at their toolshed, and they all rode it out together,' Brown said. A few miles away, rescuers maneuvering through challenging terrain filled with snakes continued their search for the missing, including 10 girls and a counselor from Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp that sustained massive damage. Gov. Greg Abbott said 41 people were unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing. In the Hill Country area, home to several summer camps, searchers have found the bodies of 68 people, including 28 children, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said. Ten other deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green, and Williamson counties, according to local officials. The governor warned that additional rounds of heavy rains lasting into Tuesday could produce more dangerous flooding, especially in places already saturated. Families were allowed to look around the camp beginning Sunday morning. One girl walked out of a building carrying a large bell. A man whose daughter was rescued from a cabin on the highest point in the camp walked a riverbank, looking in clumps of trees and under big rocks. One family left with a blue footlocker. A teenage girl had tears running down her face as they slowly drove away and she gazed through the open window at the wreckage. Nearby, crews operating heavy equipment pulled tree trunks and tangled branches from the river. With each passing hour, the outlook of finding more survivors became even more bleak. Volunteers and some families of the missing came to the disaster zone and searched despite being asked not to do so. Authorities faced growing questions about whether enough warnings were issued in an area long vulnerable to flooding and whether enough preparations were made. President Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration Sunday for Kerr County and said he would likely visit Friday. 'I would have done it today, but we'd just be in their way. It's a horrible thing that took place, absolutely horrible,' he told reporters. Gov. 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. In Rome, Pope Leo XIV offered special prayers for those touched by the disaster. '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 US. We pray for them,' the first American pope spoke in English at the end of his Sunday noon blessing. Survivors shared terrifying stories of being swept away and clinging to trees as rampaging floodwaters carried trees and cars past them. Others fled to attics, praying the water wouldn't reach them. At Camp Mystic, a cabin full of girls held onto a rope strung by rescuers as they walked across a bridge with water whipping around their legs. Among those confirmed dead were an 8-year-old girl from Mountain Brook, Alabama, who was at Camp Mystic and the director of another camp up the road. Two school-age sisters from Dallas were missing after their cabin was swept away. Their parents were staying in a different cabin and were safe, but the girls' grandparents were unaccounted for. On Thursday, the National Weather Service advised of potential flooding and then sent out a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours of Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies–a rare alert notifying of imminent danger. Authorities and elected officials have said they did not expect such an intense downpour, the equivalent of months worth of rain for the area. Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said authorities are committed to a full review of the emergency response. Trump, asked whether he was still planning to phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said that was 'something we can talk about later, but right now we are busy working.' He has said he wants to overhaul, if not completely eliminate, FEMA and sharply criticized its performance. Trump also was asked whether he planned to rehire any of the federal meteorologists who were fired this year as part of widespread government spending cuts. 'I would think not. This was a thing that happened in seconds. Nobody expected it. Nobody saw it. Very talented people there, and they didn't see it,' the president said.

Desperate search for missing girls as nearly 80 dead in Texas floods
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HUNT, Texas: Rescuers in Texas raced against time Sunday to find dozens of missing people, including children, swept away by flash floods that killed at least 80 people, with forecasters warning of new deluges. US President Donald Trump said he would 'probably' visit the southern state on Friday. The president brushed off concerns his administration's wide-ranging cuts to weather forecasting and related federal agencies had left local warning systems worse-off. Instead, Trump described the flash floods as a '100-year catastrophe' that 'nobody expected.' At least 40 adults and 28 children were killed in the worst-hit Kerr County in central Texas, Sheriff Larry Leitha said, while at least ten more people were killed by flooding in nearby areas. 'You will see the death toll rise today,' warned Texas public safety chief Freeman Martin at a press conference. 'Across the state, in all the areas affected by flooding, there are 41 known missing,' Texas Governor Greg Abbott said. As questions grew about why warnings did not come sooner or people were not evacuated earlier in the area popular with campers, Trump said the situation was a 'Biden setup.' 'That was not our setup,' Trump told reporters on Sunday, adding that he would 'not' hire back meteorologists when probed about staff and budget cuts at the National Weather Service (NWS). Asked about whether he would change his plans to phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency, he responded: 'FEMA is something we can talk about later.' Trump, who previously said disaster relief should be handled at the state-level, also signed a major disaster declaration that freed up resources for Texas. In central Texas, some 17 helicopters joined the search for missing people, including ten girls and a counselor from a riverside Christian summer camp where about 750 people had been staying when disaster struck. In a terrifying display of nature's power, the rain-swollen waters of the Guadalupe River reached treetops and the roofs of cabins in Camp Mystic as girls slept overnight Friday, washing away some of them and leaving a scene of devastation. Blankets, teddy bears and other belongings at the camp were caked in mud. Windows in the cabins were shattered, apparently by the force of the water. The National Weather Service (NWS) warned Sunday that slow-moving thunderstorms threatened more flash floods over the saturated ground of central Texas. Governor Abbott warned that heavy rainfall could 'lead to potential flash flooding' in Kerrville and surrounding areas, as officials warned people against going near the swollen river and its creeks. The flooding began at the start of the Fourth of July holiday weekend as months' worth of rain fell in a matter of hours, much of it coming overnight as people slept. The Guadalupe surged around 26 feet (eight meters) — more than a two-story building — in just 45 minutes. Flash floods, which occur when the ground is unable to absorb torrential rainfall, are not unusual in this region of south and central Texas, known colloquially as 'Flash Flood Alley.' Scientists say that in recent years human-driven climate change has made extreme weather events such as floods, droughts and heat waves more frequent and more intense. Officials said while rescue operations were ongoing, they were also starting the process of debris removal. 'There's debris all over the place that makes roads impassable, that makes reconstruction projects unachievable,' Abbott said. People from elsewhere in Texas converged on Kerr County to help look for the missing. Texans also started flying personal drones to help look but local officials urged them to stop, citing a danger for rescue aircraft. One of the searches focused on four young women who were staying in a house that was washed away by the river. Adam Durda and his wife Amber, both 45, drove three hours to help. 'There was a group of 20-year-olds that were in a house that had gotten washed away,' Durda told AFP. 'That's who the family requested help for, but of course, we're looking for anybody.' Justin Morales, 36, was part of a search team that found three bodies, including that of a Camp Mystic girl caught up in a tree. 'We're happy to give a family closure and hopefully we can keep looking and find some of the... you know, whoever,' he told AFP. 'Help give some of those families closure. That's why we're out here.'

Quick Action By One Texas Summer Camp Leads To Timely Evacuations Ahead Of Deadly Flood
Quick Action By One Texas Summer Camp Leads To Timely Evacuations Ahead Of Deadly Flood

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Quick Action By One Texas Summer Camp Leads To Timely Evacuations Ahead Of Deadly Flood

It was about 1 a.m. on the Fourth of July when the facilities manager at a central Texas summer camp saw water from the Guadalupe River steadily rising amid a deluge of rain. Aroldo Barrera notified his boss, who had been monitoring reports of the storms approaching Presbyterian Mo-Ranch Assembly–a recreation destination where an intercultural youth conference had been called off early just hours earlier. Despite an absence of warning by local authorities, camp officials acted quickly on their own, relocating about 70 children and adults staying overnight in a building near the river. 'With the kids safe, camp leaders, including President and CEO Tim Huchton, were able to avoid the catastrophe that hit at least one other camp near Hunt, where the 500-acre Mo-Ranch is located. They helped them pack up,' Lisa Winters, communications director for Mo-Ranch, told The Associated Press on Sunday. 'They got them up, they got them out, put them up on higher ground.' Other places fared much worse. Flash floods that roared through Texas Hill Country before dawn on Friday decimated the landscape near the river, leaving at least 78 dead and many others unaccounted for. As of Sunday, 10 girls from nearby Camp Mystic remained missing, officials said. Rescue and recovery teams combed the area for them and others still unaccounted for days after the flood. The decision to leave added to the mounting accounts of how camps and residents in the area say they were left to make their own decisions in the absence of warnings or notifications from the county. Local authorities have faced heavy scrutiny and, at times, have deflected questions about how much warning they had or were able to provide the public, saying the reviews will come later. For now, they say they're focusing on rescues. Officials have said they did not expect such an intense downpour–the equivalent of months worth of rain for the area. Mo-Ranch suffered no loss of life, said Winters, adding that the camp received no direct information from county officials about flooding that could–and did–take lives. 'We had no warning this was coming,' Winters said, adding that it would have been devastating had camp officials not been looking at weather reports and the rising river waters. 'Mo-Ranch saw it coming well in advance, and they did something about it,' she said. By about 7 a.m. Friday, camp staff began contacting children's parents, telling them their kids were safe. 'They knew that those parents would wake up and just see all this media footage of kids lost or the river,' Winters said. 'They're like, 'Tell your parents you're OK.' … We made sure every single guest, every single kid was accounted for.' The camp, which sits on higher ground than some in the area, suffered some damage but not as significant as others, Winters said. 'The buildings don't matter,' she said. 'I can't imagine losing children or people.' She said a sturdy aluminum kayak was wrapped around a tree like a pretzel. 'That just shows you the sheer power of the water. I don't know how any people could survive. We're blessed,' she said. The camp remained closed Sunday, and Mo-Ranch was working on ways to help other camps affected by the flood. 'We're in a difficult place because others are really suffering,' said Winters, who became emotional during an interview. 'We're a sisterhood of camps. We take care of each other.'

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