Texas Floods: Search for Camp Girls as Death Toll Rises
Among those still missing are over 20 young girls from an all-girls Christian summer camp, Camp Mystic. The camp is situated in Kerr County, which was hit especially hard by Friday's flash flood. Parents have been appealing for information about their missing children via social media.
'People need to know today will be a hard day,' said Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring, Jr. at a press conference on Saturday.
Rescue efforts are using helicopters, drones, and boats to search for victims and reach survivors. A difficult task as, per the authorities, the Guadalupe River rose 26 ft in under an hour on Friday. Though the flood waters are now receding, authorities have said the area is still 'very difficult terrain,' especially as debris is washing up.
'The camp was completely destroyed,' said 13-year-old Elinor Lester, one of the campers at Camp Mystic, according to Associated Press. 'A helicopter landed and started taking people away. It was really scary.'
Read More: Texas Suffers Deadly Flash Floods on July 4
Camp Mystic is understood to house older girls on elevated ground known as Senior Hill. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick on Friday evening said: "All campers on Senior Hill are accounted for. If your daughter is not accounted for, you have been notified from the camp. If you have not been personally contacted, then your daughter has been accounted for." He went on to clarify, "That does not mean [the missing children] have been lost. They could be out of communication."
Patrick read a statement from Camp Mystic, saying it has experienced "catastrophic levels of flooding" and has been left with "no power, water, or wifi."
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in a press conference that the flood was "extraordinarily catastrophic' and shared that the state is still in a 'search and rescue posture,' looking for those who remain missing, including the girls at Camp Mystic.
On Friday, Abbott issued a disaster declaration for 15 counties in Texas 'to ensure counties have access to every tool, strategy, and personnel that the State of Texas can provide to them, which will be limitless.'
President Donald Trump commented on the floods on Friday, calling the event 'shocking' when talking to reporters on Air Force One. When asked about federal aid, Trump said: 'We'll take care of it,' adding that he would work with Abbott.
Trump elaborated on Saturday morning, stating that his Administration is working with state and local officials in response to the 'tragic' flooding, and that Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem would shortly be arriving in Texas to assess the situation.
'Melania and I are praying for all of the families impacted by this horrible tragedy,' Trump said via Truth Social. 'Our brave first responders are on site doing what they do best. God bless the families and God bless Texas.'
Larry Leitha, Sheriff of Kerr County, said that as of Saturday morning, over 800 people had been evacuated overall.
Texas Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican, told press on Saturday that one of his children's schoolmates was on a mattress for several hours in the middle of the night after the flood, but has since been reunited with her mom. Roy did not clarify if the child was floating on a mattress in floodwaters or where they had been prior to the flooding.
'Those are the kind of blessings that we should be celebrating, while we're also mourning the loss of life as we identify those who didn't make it,' Roy said.
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Nim Kidd, the chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM), said Friday that National Weather Service (NWS) advisories and forecasts 'did not predict the amount of rain we saw.'
Early Thursday afternoon, the NWS had issued a broad flood watch for parts of south-central Texas, including Kerr County, though the most severe warnings came in the middle of the night and early morning Friday.
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CBS News
33 minutes ago
- CBS News
Devastating Central Texas flash floods second-deadliest in Texas history, so far
The death toll, as of Sunday at 10 p.m., of 81 fatalities, makes the Central Texas flash floods on July 4 the second-deadliest flood disaster in Texas history. The Hill Country is notorious for flash flooding, given the high number of narrow valley floors and proximity to potential tropical events from the Gulf. This event was partly triggered by the remnants of Tropical Storm Barry that hit Mexico on Sunday, June 29. The atmosphere was loaded with water vapor from Berry that moved north into the middle parts of Texas. More than a foot of rain fell in less than a 12-hour period starting Thursday and going into Friday morning. This massive rain fell over a large part of the western Guadalupe River basin. Kerrville and west into the town of Hunt are the headwaters of the river. Water rose 26 feet in 45 minutes The destructive fast-moving waters rose 26 feet in just 45 minutes before daybreak Friday, washing away homes and vehicles. The danger was not over as torrential rains continued to pound communities outside San Antonio on Saturday, and flash flood warnings and watches remained in effect. Searchers used helicopters, boats and drones to look for victims and to rescue stranded people in trees and from camps isolated by washed-out roads. "People need to know today will be a hard day," Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring, Jr. said Saturday. "Please pray for our community." Trump signs federal disaster declaration for Kerr County President Trump signed a major disaster declaration for Kerr County on Sunday morning, as Abbott visited flood-damaged areas. Abbott encouraged all Texans to pause in reflection and prayer Sunday, and to also "seek God's wisdom, peace, and mercy in this time of need for so many Texas families." On Saturday, Abbott said that 850 people had been rescued in the past 36 hours. Rescuers scoured flooded riverbanks littered with mangled trees Saturday and turned over rocks in the search for more than two dozen children from a girls' camp and many others missing after a wall of water blasted down a river in the Texas Hill Country. Martin said there are still unidentified victims at funeral homes that include adults and children. At least 81 people are dead and at least 10 are still missing from Camp Mystic in Kerr County, a children's summer camp, officials said Sunday. Col. Freeman Martin with the Texas Department of Public Safety said Sunday that there is "no higher priority than finding those children."
Indianapolis Star
39 minutes ago
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Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
How the cataclysmic Texas floods unfolded, minute by minute
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'It made like a swirl right around those cabins like a toilet bowl,' said Craig Althaus, who worked at the camp in Texas Hill Country for 25 years. Advertisement At least 78 people died in the floods that swept through Central Texas on Friday - including 28 children - authorities said Sunday, and dozens more remain missing in one of the deadliest freshwater floods in decades. Ten children are still missing from Camp Mystic, the Christian camp on the banks of the river where for nearly a century girls have come to escape the heat of their hometowns: singing praise songs, learning how to fish and ride horseback. Advertisement Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said Sunday that rescue operations and efforts to find the missing were ongoing, even as serious flood conditions threaten again. Abbott said he visited Camp Mystic on Sunday and called the scene 'nothing short of horrific - to see what these young children went through.' Authorities said they had little hint of the cataclysmic events to come when the National Weather Service issued its first flood watch for the area at 1:18 p.m. Thursday. The areas along the river in Kerr County were not only packed with campers at about 18 summer camps but thousands more celebrating the holiday in tents and cabins, some of which had been in Texas families for generations. The Weather Service cautioned that 1 to 2 inches of widespread rainfall was likely, with 'the potential for a lower probability but much higher impact flood event overnight.' But extraordinary conditions were working against them, meteorologists say. Atmospheric conditions sent plumes of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico deep into Texas - an area so prone to flooding that it is called 'Flash Flood Alley'- a system that then stalled and eventually dumped catastrophic levels of rain onto the same area in hours. The Weather Service said it gave localities enough time to warn residents, but the most dire alerts came in the early hours Friday, with the flash flood warnings blasting from phones at 1:14 a.m. Many locals said those alerts never reached them. Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice told reporters that he went for a jog along the river between 3:30 a.m. and 4 a.m. Friday and noticed only a light rain. He went home to shower and returned to a park to check conditions. By 5:20 a.m., the river had risen dramatically, surging from 7 to 29 feet within a few hours, authorities say. Advertisement Thomas Rux, 65, said he was awakened by thunder and fire officials with a bullhorn banging on his door, which convinced him to leave his trailer by the river about 4:30 a.m. He grabbed his keys and wallet, and fled to a nearby business on higher ground. From there, he could see the river rise with shocking speed. Eventually his 44-foot-long RV drifted by, carried by the raging waters, lodging between two trees. His alarm company called to see if someone has broken in. No, he told them, the river had just carried away his home. Serena Aldrich, an attorney from San Antonio, said in an interview that her two girls, ages 12 and 9, were asleep at Camp Mystic - the beloved summer camp about to celebrate its centenary - when the storm bore down. The older girl, who was bunking in an elevated area they call 'Senior Hill,' was awakened by loud thunder. The younger girl, who was in a different cabin, woke up when water started flooding in. Groups of girls in their pajamas, some without shoes, were guided by their counselors up the side of a tall hill to a camp area with the pavilion and the famous lighted sign - that can be seen for miles around - that says 'Mystic.' They were eventually rescued from a neighboring camp by helicopter. She said that the family was 'heartbroken' by the experience, but that the young counselors had been heroic. Advertisement Amid the darkness and chaos, Camp Mystic director Richard 'Dick' Eastland was also trying to help evacuate the youngest campers in the Bubble Inn cabin, witnesses said. He and his wife, Tweety, had been directing the camp since 1974, now alongside their sons. Eastland taught the girls how to bait a hook and fish, said Paige W. Sumner, the director of philanthropy at the local senior center who attended the camp for years. 'He was like a dad to everyone,' Sumner said in an interview. Whenever one of the campers was injured or there was another emergency, she recalled, Eastland would jump up and quickly buzz to the scene in a golf cart. Eastland was found in a black SUV, along with three girls he had tried to save, and died on the way to the hospital, local authorities said. Around 5 a.m., Collene Lucas left her job at a convenience store, not thinking much about the rain and wildly rushing river, which sits less than 100 yards from the home she shares with her husband, David. 'We're familiar with that sound,' Lucas, 62, said. When she got news of the flooding, she tried to head home to reach her husband, but was stymied when her truck stalled out in the water. Only when his dogs began raising a ruckus and emergency responders arrived at his door did David step out of bed - into two feet of water. 'I've been here close to 40 years, and I've never seen anything like this,' said David Lucas, 73, gray-bearded and weary. Never had water come close to the house, he said, not until the day it all but swallowed it whole. Advertisement The river would eventually leave miles of devastation in its wake, with pecan, cypress and live oak trees toppled, and houses ripped from their foundations. At Camp Mystic, cots were overturned, swimming towels still on the line covered in muck and stuffies abandoned. More than 850 people would be saved in the next 36 hours, authorities said. One little girl survived by clinging to a mattress for hours as it floated down the river, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told reporters. By Sunday, rescue operations continued, with helicopters crisscrossing the cloudy skies above the First Presbyterian Church of Kerrville, and authorities vowed to continue searching until everyone believed lost had been found. Rain threatened and authorities warned ominously of another 'wall of water' headed their way. Inside the church, the morning light streamed through stained glass windows where the roughly 200 parishioners wrestled with all their community had faced in recent days, and all that lay ahead. The church had lost one of its beloved members. Jane Ragsdale, the director and co-owner of the nearby Heart O' the Hills camp, had died in the flooding. The camp, along the banks of the Guadalupe River, was not in session when the disaster hit. But Ragsdale had been described as the 'heart and soul' of the camp, where she had served since the 1970s, according to the camp website. Inside her church Sunday morning, the service began with hymns and a long silence. The pastor giving the children's message told the young faces before her: 'It's okay to be angry about what's happened. It's okay to be really scared. It's okay to be terribly sad.' The Rev. Jasiel Hernandez Garcia said he, too, had struggled to find the right words amid such tragedy. Advertisement 'This is not how this weekend was supposed to be,' Garcia said from the pulpit. It was supposed to be a time of celebrations and fireworks, of time with family and making new friends at nearby camps. 'In the blink of an eye, everything changed. The waters came quickly, too quickly. Homes flooded, roads disappeared, and people were swept away,' he said. 'What felt strong was made fragile. What seemed secure was taken away in just a moment.' Dennis reported from Kerrville and Ingram, Texas, Gowen from Lawrence, Kansas, and Gregg from Washington. Scott Dance, Ben Noll and Matthew Cappucci contributed to this report.
