Texas floods leave 51 dead, 27 girls missing as rescuers continue search in devastated Kerr County
The flooding has claimed the lives of at least 43 people in Kerr County alone, including 15 children, and more fatalities have been reported in nearby counties. Many of the missing are girls from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the Guadalupe River, which was completely destroyed when floodwaters rose 26 feet (8 meters) in just 45 minutes before dawn on Friday. Search and rescue under way
Rescue crews, aided by helicopters, drones, and boats, are scouring the devastated landscape for survivors. More than 850 people have been rescued in the past 36 hours, but the fate of many remains unknown. Families and friends of the missing have posted desperate pleas and photographs on social media, hoping for information.
Governor Greg Abbott declared Sunday a day of prayer for Texas and vowed to keep rescue efforts running around the clock. 'I urge every Texan to join me in prayer this Sunday — for the lives lost, for those still missing, for the recovery of our communities, and for the safety of those on the front lines,' he said. Camps and homes swept away
Survivors described scenes of chaos as water tore through the hills and campsites. Elinor Lester, a 13-year-old camper at Mystic, recalled how the girls were evacuated across a bridge as water whipped around their legs. 'It was really scary,' she said.
In Ingram, Erin Burgess and her son clung to a tree for an hour after floodwaters overwhelmed their home, while Barry Adelman's family, including a 94-year-old grandmother and a 9-year-old grandson, fled to their attic to escape the rising water. Questions over preparedness
The scale of destruction has raised questions about whether adequate warnings and preparations were made. The National Weather Service and private forecasters say they issued flood warnings hours in advance, but many residents and camp organizers said they were caught by surprise.
Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly acknowledged the community's shock. 'We know we get rains. We know the river rises. But nobody saw this coming,' he said. Relief and recovery efforts begin
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrived in Kerr County to oversee relief efforts and pledged federal support. The Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country has begun collecting donations to assist victims and rebuild the devastated communities.
As water levels slowly recede, officials are shifting focus from rescue to recovery, but the task ahead remains daunting. 'The rescue has gone as well as can be expected,' said Kelly. 'Now it's getting time for the recovery — and that's going to be a long, toilsome task for us.'
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Warnings gave 3 hours, 21 minutes to save lives in Texas. What happened then remains unclear.
The National Weather Service's West Gulf River Forecast Center in Forth Worth helps other offices like the Austin/San Antonio office predict floods. (Photo by Desiree Rios for The Texas Tribune). Three hours and 21 minutes. That's how much time passed from when the National Weather Service sent out its first flash flood warning for part of Kerr County to when the first flooding reports came in from low-lying water crossings. The weather service says that first warning triggered one of many automatic alerts to cell phones and weather radios, telling people in the area of the danger. But if any local officials got those warnings, and if so, whether they activated in any meaningful way in that 3 hours and 21 minutes remains a black box. County officials have not responded to requests for interviews and have not said at public press conferences what efforts they took when the flooding threat turned from possible to imminent in the middle of the night. At those press conferences, Kerrville's city manager has repeatedly said they are focused on search and rescue, rather than answer questions about their response. 'We knew there was a flash flood warning,' Gov. Greg Abbott said at a press conference on Tuesday. 'No one would know that would be a 30-foot-high tsunami-ball of water.' NWS officials said they communicated directly with local officials during the night of the floods, but did not specify when. In some cases, they said, calls went to voicemail. Kerrville's mayor said he was unaware of the flooding until around 5:30 a.m., more than four hours after that first warning, when the city manager called and woke him up. Warnings didn't go up on county Facebook pages until around the same time — when the Guadalupe River had already risen rapidly and pushed out of its banks around Hunt and was making its way toward the county seat of Kerrville. Weather experts say that — from the outside at least — weather service forecasters appear to have done most everything right as the river rose with astonishing speed, blew past its previous record level and blasted through summer camps, RV parks, homes and campgrounds. It's the kind of situation that meteorologists warn trainees about, the sort of nightmare scenario some refer to as a silent killer. A holiday weekend that brings out-of-town visitors to the area known as 'Flash Flood Alley.' The worst of the danger arrived in the dark, while people slept. The river claimed more than 90 lives in Kerr County, where many people were still missing more than four days later. The weather service on Thursday afternoon put out a flood watch, which is a specific threat designation that means the conditions are present for a flood to happen. 'That far ahead of an event like this, that's the most you can do,' said Bob Henson, a meteorologist and journalist with Yale Climate Connections. And the agency issued increasingly urgent warnings through the night, which should have given most people enough time to escape death if they received and understood them, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources. Questions remain about whether people along the river had cell service to get the push alerts, had alerts enabled on their phones, or were even awake to heed them. Had they been warned of the coming flood, many people could have walked in the rainy darkness to higher ground. 'This really does appear to be a case where had there been even a modest acknowledgement of the level of danger that was predicted by the weather service, I don't think much of the scope of loss of life would have happened,' Swain said in a public video call Monday. Emergency officials across Central Texas had reasons to pay attention to the skies well before the deadly flooding occurred and the July 4 holiday weekend got into full swing. Federal forecasters issued a flood watch for a swath of the state at 1:18 p.m. Thursday, including for Kerr County, where at least 30 children would die. Nineteen other people have been confirmed dead in other counties from the widespread floods as of late Tuesday. A flood watch is intended to indicate to local emergency officials and others that they should be on the lookout, weather experts said. Forecasts on Thursday didn't say exactly where the worst rain might fall and how much — because that's very difficult to predict so far ahead, meteorologists said. Where exactly the rain falls can make a big difference in river forecasting. 'I look at flash flood events like this very similarly to tornadoes,' said Alan Gerard, a retired NOAA meteorologist and current CEO of Balanced Weather. 'We can tell you the conditions are favorable … but we can't tell you exactly how strong the tornado is going to be and whether or not it's going to hit your house.' Kerr County is part of the Texas Hill Country, where the limestone hills lack deep layers of soil to absorb water. Rivers can rise shockingly fast. Deadly flood events have happened there repeatedly in the past. The Texas Division of Emergency Management had activated rescue teams and bumped up its readiness level Thursday to bring more help on board. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said the regional director for TDEM personally called local officials to discuss the brewing storm. A state rescue task force, military vehicles and aircraft were stationed in the region, mostly in San Antonio, TDEM Chief Nim Kidd said during a press conference Friday night. But whether Kerr County officials got a call or took any particular action after the July 3 flood watch went out is unclear. At a news conference on Friday as the death toll rose, Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said, 'We didn't know this flood was coming.' Neither Kelly, the county sheriff nor the emergency management coordinator responded to requests for interviews. Part of the problem could be alert fatigue, especially in an area known for frequent flooding. People often receive multiple flood watches that don't result in actual flooding, said Avantika Gori, an assistant professor of civil & environmental engineering at Rice University and flood risk expert. This can lead to complacency, with people thinking, 'It's just another one of those things,' she said. They may also not understand the difference between a watch and warning, Gori said. Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring, 63, who grew up in the city, recalled seeing reports Thursday night of a chance of rain around the time of the July 4 kids' bike parade the next day. A friend warned him heavy rain was possible across a large area, but he didn't feel worried. 'I went outside and looked at the clouds and thought someone is going to get rain, but it's not going to be us,' he said. He said thunder woke him around midnight, and he was glad to see some rain falling. The Hill Country was in a significant drought. More specific warnings, which indicate flooding is occurring or imminent, came later in the night as the forecast developed and data poured in. Extra people were on duty at the weather service office in New Braunfels, said Erica Cei, a weather service spokesperson. At 1:14 a.m., the National Weather Service pushed out its first flash flood warning for central Kerr County, saying that data indicated life-threatening flash flooding was occurring or would begin soon. That message automatically triggered alerts to radios and cell phones, Cei said. At that point, the river had barely started to rise. The river was still within its banks in most places, and the incongruity between the warning and what people saw on the ground could potentially have caused people not to take action, Erik Nielsen, an instructional assistant professor at Texas A&M University, said in an email. It's just one of many challenges of issuing effective warnings that are hard to overcome, he said. People like Valerie Peters, who was staying at a Kerrville RV campsite called Jellystone Park, woke to the rainfall at some point and said she didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. She said she looked at the emergency notifications, shut the sound off and she went back to bed. She had been looking forward to a weekend of painting, karaoke and cornhole tournaments with her family. Luckily, her campsite avoided serious damage. 'We could have died,' Peters said. 'We had no idea how serious this rain was.' For officials in the early morning hours, there was still time to act as the rain pounded. At 4:03 a.m., two hours and 49 minutes after their initial flood warning, federal forecasters warned that the rain had created a flash flood emergency for south-central Kerr County. Weather forecasters only use that term in what the agency says are 'exceedingly rare' cases to indicate that lives are very much at risk. 'This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW!' the warning said. The Guadalupe River was rising precipitously. In the nearly three hours since the first warning went out, it had risen 14.3 feet, according to the river level gauge near Hunt, upriver from Kerrville. It would rise another 15.5 feet, according to the data, before the gauge broke. At 4:35 a.m., three hours and 21 minutes after the first warning, the weather service office started to get reports from the Kerr County sheriff's office of low-level flooding, Cei said. The river was still rising. Forecasters pushed out a second flash flood emergency alert at 5:34 a.m., now for east central Kerr County, saying that 'a large and deadly flood wave' was headed down the Guadalupe River. Again, they urged people to get to higher ground immediately. They described the threat of damage as catastrophic. That was about the time the Kerr County Sheriff's Office took to Facebook to warn 'DANGEROUS FLOODING NOW.' On its Facebook page, Kerr County also posted a warning around then that the river was flooding. Kerrville's city manager — who told reporters that he'd been jogging near the river at 3:30 a.m. and saw no signs of flooding — woke the mayor with a phone call around 5:30 a.m. and told him the downtown park where a lot of the July 4th events were planned was under water. Herring said he threw on some clothes and went downtown. He got an alert on his phone from the CodeRED system the county uses at 6 a.m., he said, indicating a flash flood alert or 'something to that effect.' Residents can enroll in the system to get alerts. He said it was the only weather alert he got that morning. Communicating these developing threats as forecasts become more clear is what meteorologists call a 'last mile' problem — and it's long plagued the field. Even as weather service forecasters are issuing warnings, they might have no idea who's listening or monitoring the situation from the other side. 'The big question marks are, who was the National Weather Service able to reach in person and who was able to monitor the automated warnings that went out through cell phones, through email blasts and so forth at 1, 2, 3, 4 a.m.,' said Henson, the meteorologist with Yale Climate Connections. 'And that just comes down to county, local, and even to individual entities like campgrounds.' At National Weather Service weather forecast offices, it falls to the warning coordination meteorologist — in this case Paul Yura, who retired from a decades-long career in April, a few years earlier than he planned — to build relationships with local community members to prepare for events such as this. The White House on Monday defended the forecasting agency in the face of questions about whether nationwide staffing cuts had impacted their work. Two of Mayor Herring's close friends — Jane Ragsdale, director of the Heart O' The Hills camp and Dick Eastland, one of the owners of Camp Mystic — died in the flooding and their deaths have hit him hard. He felt sure both would have checked the weather. 'I wish to God there had been some way to warn them,' he said. Disclosure: Facebook, Rice University and Texas A&M University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here. This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at
an hour ago
Hundreds gather at high school stadium to honor the many lost to Texas deadly floods
KERRVILLE, Texas -- Several hundred people gathered for a worship ceremony at a high school stadium in Texas on Wednesday evening to remember the at least 120 people who died in the catastrophic flash floods over the July Fourth holiday, as well the many still missing. 'Our communities were struck with tragedy literally in the darkness,' Wyatt Wentrcek, a local youth minister, told the crowd in the bleachers of Tivy Antler Stadium in Kerrville. 'Middle of the night.' During a series of prayers for the victims and the more than 160 people still believed to be missing in hard-hit Kerr County, which includes Kerrville, people in the crowd clutched one another and brushed away tears. Many attendees wore blue shirts with the school's slogan, 'Tivy Fight Never Die,' or green ribbons for Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp in Kerr County where at least 27 campers and counselors died. Officials said five campers and one counselor have still not been found. Ricky Pruitt, with the Kerrville Church of Christ, told the crowd that they gathered intentionally at a place where they had celebrated victories and experienced losses on the field. 'Tonight is very different than all of those nights," he said. The event was held as search crews and volunteers continued to scour miles along the Guadalupe River for the people still missing. In air boats, helicopters and on horseback, crews looked in trees and mounds below their feet, while search dogs sniffed for any sign of buried bodies. With almost no hope of finding anyone alive, searchers said they were focused on bringing the families of the missing people some closure. The floods are now the deadliest from inland flooding in the U.S. since 1976, when Colorado's Big Thompson Canyon flooded, killing 144 people, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist with Yale Climate Connections. Officials have been seeking more information about those who were in the Hill Country, a popular tourist destination, during the holiday weekend but did not register at a camp or a hotel and may have been in the area without many people knowing, Gov. Greg Abbott has said. Public officials in the area have come under repeated criticism amid questions about the timeline of what happened and why widespread warnings were not sounded and more preparations were not made. Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha has said those questions will be answered, but the focus now is on recovering victims. The governor called on state lawmakers to approve new flood warning systems and strengthen emergency communications in flood prone areas throughout the state when the Legislature meets in a special session that Abbott had already called to address other issues starting July 21. Abbott also called on lawmakers to provide financial relief for response and recovery efforts from the storms. 'We must ensure better preparation for such events in the future,' Abbott said in a statement. Local leaders have talked for years about the need for a flood warning system, but concerns about costs and noise led to missed opportunities to put up sirens. President Donald Trump has pledged to provide whatever relief Texas needs to recover, and is planning to visit the state Friday. Polls taken before the floods show Americans largely believe the federal government should play a major role in preparing for and responding to natural disasters. Catastrophic flooding is a growing worry. On Tuesday, a deluge in New Mexico triggered flash floods that killed three people. Although it's difficult to attribute a single weather event to climate change, experts say a warming atmosphere and oceans make these type of storms more likely. After the ceremony in Kerrville on Wednesday, children and families mingled on the field, and some students formed prayer circles. Licensed counselors and therapists were also on hand to meet with people. Andrew Brown, who was at the vigil to honor a Tivy High School soccer coach who died in the flooding, said he believes a warning system with a siren would be helpful. 'I'm sure there are things that could have been different, and I'm sure there will be going forward," he said. David Garza said he drove an hour and a half to the stadium to provide support for loved ones affected by the floods. 'I'm from here, and I was here in the '78 flood and the '87 flood,' Garza said. 'I just wanted to be a part of this."
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Greg Abbott Was Asked Who's To Blame For The Texas Floods, And His Response Is Going Viral For Being "Tone-Deaf" And "Insane"
Central Texas is continuing to deal with the devastating fallout of massive flash floods as deaths continue to mount, and at least 173 people remain missing. Related: Since Friday, the media and citizens across the country have demanded answers as to why there was not a county-wide siren system in place to warn Texans of the flood, which could have potentially saved lives. According to AP News, Kerr County's top elected official said that the county had considered implementing a tornado-like siren for floods years ago. Still, the idea never came to fruition due to costs. "We've looked into it public reeled at the cost," Judge Rob Kelly said. On Fox News, Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick also admitted that flood warnings were issued via text for those who "signed up," forcing some residents to warn each other. "There were alert warnings that went out, we believe, by the locals. But if you were a resident and you signed up for it, you got it. But, if you happen to be a stranger who just came in for the Fourth of July weekend, you might not have had that [warning]." Well, Texas Governor Greg Abbott was confronted directly by a reporter who asked him who was to blame for the tragedy, and his comments are going viral: Abbott: You ask, I'm going to use your words: Who's to blame? Know this. That's the word choice of losers. Let me explain one thing about Texas. Every square inch of our state cares about football. Every football team makes mistakes. The losing teams are the ones who try to… — Acyn (@Acyn) July 8, 2025 CNN / Twitter: @Acyn Related: "You ask, I'm going to use your words: 'Who's to blame?' Know this. That's the word choice of losers." "Let me explain one thing about Texas. And that is, Texas, every square inch of our state cares about football. You can be in Hunt, Texas, Huntsville, Texas, Houston, Texas, any size community, they care about football. High school Friday night lights, college football, or pro." Related: "Every football team makes mistakes. The losing teams are the ones who try to point out who is to blame. The championship teams are the ones who say, 'Don't worry about it, man, we got this.' We're going to make sure that we go score again and we're gonna win this game. The way winners talk is not to point fingers. They talk about solutions." In response to the clip, people have been ripping into Abbott for his "callousness" during a tragedy. "You don't get to play the 'everyone makes mistakes' card when this was avoidable," another person wrote. "Nothing says strong leadership like using a football analogy to downplay the death of dozens of children," this person wrote. Related: This person pointed out the Texas government's unwillingness to use budget money on a siren alert system. "Calling people losers for wanting answers and making a fucking football analogy when 100+ people are dead and 160+ are missing is insane. Fuck him and his wannabe tr*mp ass," this person wrote. This user called Abbott's analogy "tone-deaf." What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below. Also in In the News: Also in In the News: Also in In the News:
