What to know about the flash floods in Texas that killed more than 80 people
Here's what to know about the deadly flooding, the colossal weather system that drove it in and around Kerr County, Texas, and ongoing efforts to identify victims.
Massive rain hit at just the wrong time, in a flood-prone place
The floods grew to their worst at the midpoint of a long holiday weekend when many people were asleep.
The Texas Hill Country in the central part of the state is naturally prone to flash flooding due to the dry dirt-packed areas where the soil lets rain skid along the surface of the landscape instead of soaking it up. Friday's flash floods started with a particularly bad storm that dropped most of its 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain in the dark early morning hours.
After a flood watch notice midday Thursday, the National Weather Service office issued an urgent warning around 4 a.m. that raised the potential of catastrophic damage and a severe threat to human life. By at least 5:20 a.m., some in the Kerrville City area say water levels were getting alarmingly high. The massive rain flowing down hills sent rushing water into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet (8 meters) in just 45 minutes.
Death toll is expected to rise and the number of missing is uncertain
Gov. Greg Abbott said Sunday that there were 41 people confirmed to be unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.
In Kerr County, home to youth camps in the Texas Hill Country, searchers have found the bodies of 68 people, including 28 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha said Sunday afternoon. Fatalities in nearby counties brought the total number of deaths to 79 as of Sunday evening.
Ten girls and a counselor were still unaccounted for at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the river.
For past campers, the tragedy turned happy memories into grief.
Beyond the Camp Mystic campers unaccounted for, the number of missing from other nearby campgrounds and across the region had not been released.
"We don't even want to begin to estimate at this time," Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said Saturday, citing the likely influx of visitors during the July Fourth holiday.
Officials face scrutiny over flash flood warnings
Survivors have described the floods as a "pitch black wall of death" and said they received no emergency warnings.
Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, who lives along the Guadalupe River, said Saturday that " nobody saw this coming." Various officials have referred to it as a "100-year-flood," meaning that the water levels were highly unlikely based on the historical record.
And records behind those statistics don't always account for human-caused climate change. Though it's hard to connect specific storms to a warming planet so soon after they occur, meteorologists say that a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture and allow severe storms to dump even more rain.
Additionally, officials have come under scrutiny about why residents and youth summer camps along the river were not alerted sooner than 4 a.m. or told to evacuate.
Officials noted that the public can grow weary from too many flooding alerts or forecasts that turn out to be minor.
Kerr county officials said they had presented a proposal for a more robust flood warning system, similar to a tornado warning system, but that members of the public reeled at the cost.
On Sunday, officials walked out of a news briefing after reporters asked them again about delays in alerts and evacuations.
Monumental clearing and rebuilding effort
The flash floods have erased campgrounds and torn homes from their foundations.
"It's going to be a long time before we're ever able to clean it up, much less rebuild it," Kelly said Saturday after surveying the destruction from a helicopter.
Other massive flooding events have driven residents and business owners to give up, including in areas struck last year by Hurricane Helene.
President Donald Trump said he would likely visit the flood zone on Friday.
AP photographers have captured the scale of the destruction, and one of Texas' largest rescue and recover efforts.
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The Mainichi
3 hours ago
- The Mainichi
Death toll from catastrophic flooding in Texas over the July Fourth weekend surpasses 100
KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) -- The death toll from catastrophic flooding in Texas over the July Fourth weekend has surpassed 100 as the massive search continues for missing people. The number of deaths reached 104 on Monday. In hard-hit Kerr County, home to Camp Mystic and several other summer camps, searchers have found the bodies of 84 people, including 28 children, Kerr County officials said. Authorities overseeing the search for flood victims in Texas said they will wait to address questions about weather warnings and why some summer camps did not evacuate ahead of the catastrophic flooding. The officials spoke only hours after the operators of Camp Mystic, a century-old all-girls Christian summer camp in the Texas Hill Country, announced that they lost 27 campers and counselors to the floodwaters. Meanwhile, search-and-rescue teams carried on with the search for the dead, using heavy equipment to untangle trees and wading into swollen rivers. Volunteers covered in mud sorted through chunks of debris, piece by piece, in an increasingly bleak task. With additional rain on the way, more flooding still threatened in saturated parts of central Texas. Authorities said the death toll was sure to rise. The announcement by Camp Mystic confirmed the worst fears after a wall of water slammed into cabins built along the edge of the Guadalupe River. The raging flash floods -- among the nation's worst in decades -- slammed into riverside camps and homes before daybreak Friday, pulling sleeping people out of their cabins, tents and trailers and dragging them for miles past floating tree trunks and cars. Some survivors were found clinging to trees. Piles of twisted trees sprinkled with mattresses, refrigerators and coolers now litter the riverbanks. The debris included reminders of what drew so many to the campgrounds and cabins in the Hill Country -- a volleyball, canoes and a family portrait. Nineteen deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, according to local officials. Among those confirmed dead were 8-year-old sisters from Dallas who were at Camp Mystic and a former soccer coach and his wife who were staying at a riverfront home. Their daughters were still missing. Calls for finding why warnings weren't heard Authorities vowed that one of the next steps would be investigating whether enough warnings were issued and why some camps did not evacuate or move to higher ground in a place long vulnerable to flooding that some local residents refer to as "flash flood alley." That will include a review of how weather warnings were sent out and received. One of the challenges is that many camps and cabins are in places with poor cellphone service, said Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice. "We definitely want to dive in and look at all those things," he said. "We're looking forward to doing that once we can get the search and rescue complete." Some camps, though, were aware of the dangers and monitoring the weather. At least one moved several hundred campers to higher ground before the floods. Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said recent government spending cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Weather Service did not delay any warnings. "There's a time to have political fights, there's a time to disagree. This is not that time," Cruz said. "There will be a time to find out what could been done differently. My hope is in time we learn some lessons to implement the next time there is a flood." The weather service first advised of potential flooding on Thursday and then sent out a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours of Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies -- a rare step that alerts the public to imminent danger. Authorities and elected officials have said they did not expect such an intense downpour, the equivalent of months of rain. Some residents said they never received any warnings. President Donald Trump, who signed a major disaster declaration for Kerr County and plans to visit the area, said Sunday that he does not plan to rehire any of the federal meteorologists who were fired this year. "This was a thing that happened in seconds. Nobody expected it," the president said. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said local and federal weather services provided sufficient warnings. "That was an act of God. It's not the administration's fault that the flood hit when it did, but there were early and consistent warnings," Leavitt said. More than three dozen people were unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing, Gov. Greg Abbott said Sunday. Search-and-rescue crews at one staging area said Monday that more than 1,000 volunteers had been directed to Kerr County. Little time to escape floods 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 tool shed up higher ground, and neighbors throughout the early morning began to show up at their tool shed, and they all rode it out together," Brown said. Elizabeth Lester, a mother of children who were at Camp Mystic and nearby Camp La Junta during the flood, said her young son had to swim out his cabin window to escape. Her daughter fled up the hillside as floodwaters whipped against her legs.
Japan Today
4 hours ago
- Japan Today
Texas search teams face more rain as death toll surpasses 80
People look at the Guadalupe river, following flash flooding, as they gather after receiving a SMS alerting on potential floods in the area, in Kerrville, Texas, U.S. July 6, 2025. REUTERS/Marco Bello By Evan Garcia A Christian girls' summer camp in central Texas said on Monday that at least 27 campers and counselors were among those who perished in the catastrophic flooding over the July 4 weekend, while emergency responders still searching for dozens of missing people faced the prospect of more heavy rains and thunderstorms. The death toll from Friday's floods exceeds 80, and officials expect it to rise as search teams waded through mud-laden riverbanks and flew over the flood-stricken landscape, even as they still hope to find more survivors. "This will be a rough week," Mayor Joe Herring Jr said at a briefing on Monday morning. The vast majority of the victims - 48 adults and 27 children - died in Kerr County, where the Guadalupe River was transformed by pre-dawn torrential downpours into a raging torrent in less than an hour on Friday. The waters tore through Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old Christian girls' retreat on the banks of the river. "Our hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this unimaginable tragedy," the camp said in a statement on Monday. Ten girls and a camp counselor are still missing, officials said on Monday. "Texas is grieving right now," U.S. Senator Ted Cruz said. "The pain, the shock of what has transpired these past few days has broken the heart of our state." Richard "Dick" Eastland, 70, the co-owner and director of Camp Mystic, died trying to save the children at his camp during the flood, multiple media including the Austin American-Statesman reported. Eastland and his wife Tweety Eastland have owned the camp since 1974, according to the camp's website. "If he wasn't going to die of natural causes, this was the only other way, saving the girls that he so loved and cared for," Eastland's grandson, George Eastland, wrote on Instagram. In Hill Country, where the worst flooding occurred, 2 to 4 inches of more rain were expected to fall, with isolated areas getting up to 10 inches of rain, said Allison Santorelli, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. Santorelli said that the potential new floods could be particularly dangerous because of the water-saturated soil and all the debris already in and around the river. The weather service issued a flood watch through 7 p.m. on Monday in the region. State emergency management officials had warned on Thursday, ahead of the July Fourth holiday, that parts of central Texas faced the possibility of flash floods based on National Weather Service forecasts. CONFLUENCE OF DISASTER But twice as much rain as was predicted ended up falling over two branches of the Guadalupe just upstream of the fork where they converge, sending all of that water racing into the single river channel where it slices through Kerrville, City Manager Dalton Rice said. Rice and other public officials, including Governor Greg Abbott, said the circumstances of the flooding, and the adequacy of weather forecasts and warning systems, would be scrutinized once the immediate situation was brought under control. In the meantime, search-and-rescue operations were continuing around the clock, with hundreds of emergency personnel on the ground contending with debris, mud and other challenges. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was activated on Sunday and was deploying resources to Texas after President Donald Trump issued a major disaster declaration, the Department of Homeland Security said. U.S. Coast Guard helicopters and planes were aiding search and rescue efforts. SCALING BACK FEDERAL DISASTER RESPONSE Trump said on Sunday that he would visit the disaster scene, probably on Friday. He has previously outlined plans to scale back the federal government's role in responding to natural disasters, leaving states to shoulder more of the burden. Some experts questioned whether cuts to the federal workforce by the Trump administration made it harder for officials to accurately predict the severity of the floods and issue appropriate warnings ahead of the storm. Trump's administration has overseen thousands of job cuts at the National Weather Service's parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, leaving many weather offices understaffed, former NOAA director Rick Spinrad said. Trump pushed back when asked on Sunday if federal government cuts hobbled the disaster response or left key job vacancies at the service. "That water situation, that all is, and that was really the Biden setup," he said, referencing his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden. "But I wouldn't blame Biden for it, either. I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe." Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer on Monday asked a government watchdog to investigate whether budget cuts contributed to any delays or inaccuracy in forecasting the floods. Cruz, a Republican, said there would be time to examine whether more could have been done to prevent the loss of life but that now was not the time for "partisan finger-pointing." © Thomson Reuters 2025.
The Mainichi
a day ago
- The Mainichi
What to know about the flash floods in Texas that killed more than 80 people
KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) -- Flash floods in Texas killed at least 82 people over the Fourth of July holiday weekend and left others still missing, including girls attending a summer camp. The devastation along the Guadalupe River, outside of San Antonio, has drawn a massive search effort as officials face questions over their preparedness and the speed of their initial actions. Here's what to know about the deadly flooding, the colossal weather system that drove it in and around Kerr County, Texas, and ongoing efforts to identify victims. Massive rain hit at just the wrong time, in a flood-prone place The floods grew to their worst at the midpoint of a long holiday weekend when many people were asleep. The Texas Hill Country in the central part of the state is naturally prone to flash flooding due to the dry dirt-packed areas where the soil lets rain skid along the surface of the landscape instead of soaking it up. Friday's flash floods started with a particularly bad storm that dropped most of its 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain in the dark early morning hours. After a flood watch notice midday Thursday, the National Weather Service office issued an urgent warning around 4 a.m. that raised the potential of catastrophic damage and a severe threat to human life. By at least 5:20 a.m., some in the Kerrville City area say water levels were getting alarmingly high. The massive rain flowing down hills sent rushing water into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet (8 meters) in just 45 minutes. Death toll is expected to rise and the number of missing is uncertain Gov. Greg Abbott said Sunday that there were 41 people confirmed to be unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing. In Kerr County, home to youth camps in the Texas Hill Country, searchers have found the bodies of 68 people, including 28 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha said Sunday afternoon. Fatalities in nearby counties brought the total number of deaths to 79 as of Sunday evening. Ten girls and a counselor were still unaccounted for at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the river. For past campers, the tragedy turned happy memories into grief. Beyond the Camp Mystic campers unaccounted for, the number of missing from other nearby campgrounds and across the region had not been released. "We don't even want to begin to estimate at this time," Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said Saturday, citing the likely influx of visitors during the July Fourth holiday. Officials face scrutiny over flash flood warnings Survivors have described the floods as a "pitch black wall of death" and said they received no emergency warnings. Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, who lives along the Guadalupe River, said Saturday that " nobody saw this coming." Various officials have referred to it as a "100-year-flood," meaning that the water levels were highly unlikely based on the historical record. And records behind those statistics don't always account for human-caused climate change. Though it's hard to connect specific storms to a warming planet so soon after they occur, meteorologists say that a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture and allow severe storms to dump even more rain. Additionally, officials have come under scrutiny about why residents and youth summer camps along the river were not alerted sooner than 4 a.m. or told to evacuate. Officials noted that the public can grow weary from too many flooding alerts or forecasts that turn out to be minor. Kerr county officials said they had presented a proposal for a more robust flood warning system, similar to a tornado warning system, but that members of the public reeled at the cost. On Sunday, officials walked out of a news briefing after reporters asked them again about delays in alerts and evacuations. Monumental clearing and rebuilding effort The flash floods have erased campgrounds and torn homes from their foundations. "It's going to be a long time before we're ever able to clean it up, much less rebuild it," Kelly said Saturday after surveying the destruction from a helicopter. Other massive flooding events have driven residents and business owners to give up, including in areas struck last year by Hurricane Helene. President Donald Trump said he would likely visit the flood zone on Friday. AP photographers have captured the scale of the destruction, and one of Texas' largest rescue and recover efforts.
