Latest news with #RichMcKay
Yahoo
12-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
List of missing in Texas floods adds uncertainty to search for survivors
By Jane Ross and Rich McKay KERRVILLE, Texas (Reuters) -Six days after flash floods swept through parts of Texas Hill Country and killed at least 120, authorities say there are still more than 160 people unaccounted for, as thousands of searchers combed through piles of mud-covered debris for survivors on Thursday. But that figure may not reflect the true number of missing people, according to disaster response experts. The number of people reported missing in the aftermath of a natural disaster often turns out to be far greater than the eventual death toll. Worried members of the public, unable to reach a relative or friend, report the name to local authorities and to crowd-sourced online databases, and it gets added to a list that can grow distressingly long. In the first days after the devastating wildfire in the California mountain town of Paradise in 2018, the number of people missing briefly exceeded 1,200. It took two weeks for local officials to recover all the victims, and many months more for them to account for every person reported missing. In total, the fire killed 85 people, still the deadliest wildfire in the state's history. More than two weeks after a wildfire destroyed Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui in 2023, the FBI said there were still more than 1,000 names on its list of the missing. The following summer, officials put the final death toll at 102. Josh Dozor, a former deputy assistant administrator at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and now an executive at the disaster response company International SOS, said the list of missing people could still change significantly. "There could be people listed as missing who don't even know they're on the list," he said. "There are power issues, someone might not have a cell phone charged. People are at shelters. It could take time to reassemble with loved ones." Kerr County, home to the vast majority of victims and missing people, is a sprawling, rural county with areas that have spotty cell phone service. More than 2,100 first responders were continuing a painstaking, mile-by-mile search across the country, hoping against long odds to find survivors six days after torrential rains sent a wall of water raging down the Guadalupe River in the predawn hours of July 4. Authorities have not found anyone alive since the day of the floods. At least 96 people, including 36 children, died in Kerr County, officials said at a briefing on Thursday morning. The death toll includes 27 campers and staff members from Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer retreat on the banks of the river. Five girls and one counselor from the camp remain missing, officials said. "The length of time to find someone still alive after a summertime flash flood is a lot longer than, say, a winter storm or an earthquake, but the chances here are diminishing," Dozor said on Thursday. 'FLASH FLOOD ALLEY' Kerr County sits at the heart of what is known as Flash Flood Alley in central Texas, a region where some of the country's deadliest floods have occurred. More than a foot of rain fell in less than an hour early on July 4. Flood gauges showed the river's height rose from about a foot to 34 feet (10.4 meters) in a matter of hours, cascading over the river's banks and sweeping away trees and structures in its path. Hundreds of community members gathered at a worship service at Tivy High School in Kerrville on Wednesday to remember the victims. Students and adults prayed and sang, with some hugging and holding back their tears during the memorial. The school's soccer coach, Reece Zunker, and his wife, Paula, a former teacher there, were among the victims. Their two children were missing as of Sunday, according to the school district. "Zunker was a really tough guy," said art teacher Marti Garcia, who attended Wednesday's event. "I just had faith that he was going to pull it out." Authorities in Kerr County have faced questions about whether more could have been done in the early hours of July 4 to alert residents about the rising floodwaters and get some of them to higher ground. The state legislature will convene in a special session later this month to investigate the flooding and provide disaster-relief funding. Meanwhile, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham told reporters on Thursday that after talks with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, federal authorities had pledged $15 million in disaster relief for the mountain village of Ruidoso, where flash flooding on Tuesday killed three people, including two children, and damaged hundreds of homes. Some $12 million of the federal disaster funding is money previously pledged, but never paid, to build levees to protect the community from flash floods after wildfires last year, Lujan Grisham said.
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Rescue teams find three more bodies after central Texas floods
By Rich McKay and Jonathan Allen (Reuters) -The death toll in Kerr County crept up to 87 on Tuesday as search and rescue teams recovered three more bodies in the flood-ravaged hills of central Texas, according to officials in the county worst hit by the disaster. Rescue teams from federal agencies, neighboring states and Mexico have joined local efforts to search for survivors, which have been hindered by thunderstorms and downpours. As they work through lists of people reported missing, the teams have not found a living survivor in Kerr County since Friday. The floods have killed at least 109 people including dozens of children. "The work is extremely treacherous, time-consuming," Lieutenant Colonel Ben Baker of the Texas Game Wardens said at the press conference. "It's dirty work. The water is still there." Torrential rains before dawn on Friday deluged the Guadalupe River, which burst its banks and killed dozens of people, leaving behind mangled piles of debris, trees and cars. Local and federal emergency officials have faced days of angry questions about whether they could have warned people in flood-prone Texas Hill Country sooner. At least 56 adults and 30 children have been killed in Kerr County, Sheriff Larry Leitha said at a press conference in Kerrville, the county seat, with more than two dozen victims yet to be identified. Authorities have not determined if the 87th victim was an adult or child. Some of the flood victims were sleeping at Camp Mystic, a riverside Christian girls' summer camp near the town of Hunt; five children and one camp counsellor were still unaccounted for on Tuesday. The sheriff rebuffed several questions about the county's emergency management operations and preparedness, and declined to say who in the county was ultimately in charge of monitoring weather alerts and issuing a flood warning or evacuation order. He said his office first started getting 911 emergency calls between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. on Friday, several hours after the local National Weather Service station issued a flash-flood alert. "We're in the process of trying to put (together) a timeline," Leitha said. The floods killed at least another 22 people outside Kerr County, according to local sheriffs' and media reports, with seven dead in Travis County, seven dead in Kendall County, five dead in Burnett County, two in Williamson County and one in Tom Green County. U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican, plans to visit the devastated region this week, a spokesperson said. Democrats in Washington have called for an official investigation into whether the Trump administration's job cuts at the National Weather Service affected the agency's response to the floods.
Japan Today
06-07-2025
- Climate
- Japan Today
Death toll from Texas floods reaches 69, including 21 children
By Rich McKay and Tim Reid The death toll from catastrophic floods in Texas reached at least 69 on Sunday, including at least 21 children, as the search for girls missing from a summer camp entered a third day. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, speaking at a press conference on Sunday afternoon, said the death toll in Kerr county, the epicenter of the flooding, had reached 59, while another 10 had died elsewhere in Texas and 41 remained missing. Among the most devastating impacts of the flooding occurred at Camp Mystic summer camp, a nearly century-old Christian girls camp, where 11 girls and a counselor are still missing. "It was nothing short of horrific to see what those young children went through," said Abbott, who said he toured the area on Saturday and pledged to continue efforts to locate the missing. The flooding occurred after the nearby Guadalupe River broke its banks after torrential rain fell in the central Texas area on Friday, the U.S. Independence Day holiday. Larry Leitha, the Kerr County Sheriff in Texas Hill Country, said earlier that 21 children have died in the flooding. Officials speaking at the press conference on Sunday afternoon said the destruction killed three people in Burnet County, one in Tom Green county, five in Travis county and one in Williamson county. Officials said on Saturday that more than 850 people had been rescued, including some clinging to trees, after a sudden storm dumped up to 15 inches (38 cm) of rain across the region, about 85 miles (140 km) northwest of San Antonio. "Everyone in the community is hurting," Leitha told reporters. The National Weather Service issued flood warnings and advisories for central Texas that were to last until 4:15 p.m. local time as rains fell, potentially complicating rescue efforts. The Federal Emergency Management Agency was activated on Sunday and is deploying resources to first responders in Texas after President Donald Trump issued a major disaster declaration, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. U.S. Coast Guard helicopters and planes are helping the search and rescue efforts, the department said. Trump 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 themselves. Some experts questioned whether cuts to the federal workforce by the Trump administration, including to the agency that oversees the National Weather Service, led to a failure by 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 from the National Weather Service's parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, leaving many weather offices understaffed, former NOAA director Rick Spinrad said. Spinrad said he did not know if those staff cuts factored into the lack of advance warning for the extreme Texas flooding, but that they would inevitably degrade the agency's ability to deliver accurate and timely forecasts. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who oversees NOAA, said a "moderate" flood watch issued on Thursday by the National Weather Service had not accurately predicted the extreme rainfall and said the Trump administration was working to upgrade the system. Joaquin Castro, a Democratic U.S. congressman from Texas, told CNN's "State of the Union" program that fewer personnel at the weather service could be dangerous. "When you have flash flooding, there's a risk that if you don't have the personnel ... to do that analysis, do the predictions in the best way, it could lead to tragedy," Castro said. 'COMPLETE DEVASTATION' Camp Mystic had 700 girls in residence at the time of the flooding. Katharine Somerville, a counselor on the Cypress Lake side of Camp Mystic, on higher ground than the Guadalupe River side, said her 13-year-old campers were scared as their cabins sustained damage and lost power in the middle of the night. "Our cabins at the tippity top of hills were completely flooded with water. I mean, y'all have seen the complete devastation, we never even imagined that this could happen," Somerville said in an interview on Fox News on Sunday. Somerville said the campers in her care were put on military trucks and evacuated, and that all were safe. The disaster unfolded rapidly on Friday morning as heavier-than-forecast rain drove river waters rapidly to as high as 29 feet (9 meters). A day after the disaster struck, the summer camp was a scene of devastation. Inside one cabin, mud lines indicating how high the water had risen were at least six feet (1.83 m) from the floor. Bed frames, mattresses and personal belongings caked with mud were scattered inside. Some buildings had broken windows, one had a missing wall. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Japan Today
05-07-2025
- Climate
- Japan Today
Death toll at 27 as flood waters recede in central Texas
By Rich McKay and Ryan Patrick Jones Some 27 people, including nine children, have been confirmed dead after flash floods in central Texas, authorities said on Saturday, as rescuers continued a frantic search for survivors including dozens still missing from a girls' summer camp. The sheriff's office in Kerr County, Texas said more than 800 people had been evacuated from the region as flood waters receded in the area around the Guadalupe River, about 85 miles (137 km) northwest of San Antonio. "We will not stop until every single person is found," Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said at a news conference. At least 23 to 25 people from the Camp Mystic summer camp were missing, most of them reported to be young girls. The river waters rose 29 feet rapidly near the camp. The U.S. National Weather Service said that the flash flood emergency has largely ended for Kerr County, the epicenter of the flooding, following thunderstorms that dumped as much as 15 inches of rain -- half of the total the region sees in a typical year. A flood watch remained in effect until 7 p.m. for the broader region. Kerr County sits in the Texas Hill Country, a rural area known for its rugged terrain, historic towns and other tourist attractions. Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick 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 by 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. Camp Mystic had 700 girls in residence at the time of the flood, according to Patrick. Another girls' camp, Heart O' the Hills, said on its website that co-owner Jane Ragsdale had died in the flood but no campers had been present as it was between sessions. U.S. President Donald Trump said the federal government is working with state and local officials to respond to the flooding. "Melania and I are praying for all of the families impacted by this horrible tragedy. Our Brave First Responders are on site doing what they do best," he said on social media. Videos posted online showed bare concrete platforms where homes used to stand and piles of rubble along the banks of the river. Rescuers plucked residents from rooftops and trees, sometimes forming human chains to fetch people from the floodwater, local media reported. Dalton Rice, city manager for Kerrville, the county seat, told reporters on Friday that the extreme flooding struck before dawn with little or no warning, precluding authorities from issuing advance evacuation orders as the Guadalupe River swiftly rose above major flood stage in less than two hours. 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 on Friday night. The weekend disaster echoes a catastrophic 1987 Guadalupe River flood in which 10 teenagers drowned when trying to leave a church camp, according to the National Weather Service. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
Central Texas flood waters recede as rescuers continue search for victims
By Rich McKay (Reuters) -A frantic search continued on Saturday for about two dozen people still missing from a century-old Christian girls' camp in central Texas after flash floods in the area killed at least 24 at the start of the U.S. Independence Day weekend and prompted the rescue of hundreds of others. In a break for rescue crews, authorities said flood waters on Saturday were receding in the area around the Guadalupe River, about 85 miles (137 km) northwest of San Antonio, where at least 237 people were rescued, with more than 100 by helicopters. Another 23-to-25 people from the Camp Mystic summer camp were missing, most of them reported to be young girls. The river waters rose 29 feet rapidly near the camp. The U.S. National Weather Service said that the flash flood emergency has largely ended for parts of Kerr County in south-central Texas Hill Country, about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of San Antonio, following thunderstorms that dumped as much as a foot of rain early on Friday. A flood watch, however, remains in effect until 7 p.m. on Saturday from the San Antonio-Austin, Texas, region, with scattered showers expected throughout the day, said Allison Santorelli, a meteorologist with the NWS Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. "In terms of the Guadalupe River, the extreme flood waters have receded," she said. "It's no longer at extreme flood stages. And we're not expecting additional impacts." At a news conference late on Friday, almost 18 hours after the July Fourth crisis began, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said search-and-rescue operations would press on through the night and into Saturday. Abbott said resources devoted to the effort would be "limitless." President Donald Trump said on Friday that "we'll take care of them," when asked about federal aid for the disaster. Dalton Rice, city manager for Kerrville, the county seat, told reporters on Friday that the extreme flooding struck before dawn with little or no warning, precluding authorities from issuing advance evacuation orders as the Guadalupe River swiftly rose above major flood stage. "This happened very quickly, over a very short period of time that could not be predicted, even with radar," Rice said. "This happened within less than a two-hour span." State emergency management officials had warned as early as Thursday that west and central Texas faced heavy rains and flash flood threats "over the next couple days," citing National Weather Service forecasts ahead of the holiday weekend. The weather 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 on Friday night.
