Death toll from Texas flooding rises to 59, lieutenant governor says
The death toll from the flooding in Texas has risen to 59, according to the county’s Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick (up from the previous total of 51). More details soon…
Key events
People in Texas describe the terrifying moments after deadly flooding swept through the central part of the state. The death toll has risen to 59 people.
One man describes him and his wife being swept by the water and holding onto a tree until rescuers arrived to help. “It was scary, it was really scary,” he said.
The Guardian’s video team produced this piece on people caught up in the floods.
Death toll from Texas flooding rises to 59, lieutenant governor says
The death toll from the flooding in Texas has risen to 59, according to the county’s Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick (up from the previous total of 51). More details soon…
Here is a graphic showing where Camp Mystic is located within the state of Texas:
Officials said this morning the tally of children missing from the Christian youth camp for girls stood at 27.
Officials have said waters in some parts of Texas are starting to recede to where they were before the storm.
The Guadalupe River near Kerrville – which surged by more than 20 feet within 90 minutes during the downpour — is, according to CNN, back down to just a foot or two higher than its level before the flood.
The hills along the Guadalupe River in central Texas are dotted with century-old youth camps and campgrounds where generations of families came to swim and enjoy the outdoors, Associated Press reports. The area is especially popular around the July Fourth holiday, making it more difficult to know how many are missing.
“We don’t even want to begin to estimate at this time,” Kerrville city manager Dalton Rice said earlier.
Search crews were facing harsh conditions while “looking in every possible location,” he said.
Jonathan Porter, the chief meteorologist at AccuWeather, a private weather forecasting company that uses National Weather Service data, said it appeared evacuations and other proactive measures could have been undertaken to reduce the risk of fatalities.
In a statement, he said:
People, businesses, and governments should take action based on flash flood warnings that are issued, regardless of the rainfall amounts that have occurred or are forecast.
As we mentioned in a previous post, local officials in Texas have said they had not expected such an intense downpour that was the equivalent of months’ worth of rain for the area.
“We know we get rains. We know the river rises,” said Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s top elected official. “But nobody saw this coming.”
As much as 10 inches of intense rainfall fell within a few hours overnight in central Kerr County on Friday, causing the Guadalupe River’s banks to burst at about 4am local time.
Pope Leo has sent condolences to the families of devastating floods in Texas which killed at least 51 people and left nearly 30 others missing, many of them children.
Following Angelus prayers, the pontiff said:
I would like to express sincere condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones, in particular their daughters who were in a summer camp in the disaster caused by flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas. We pray for them.
Aftermath of Texas floods – in pictures
Here are some of the latest images coming out from Texas after devastating floods forced authorities to launch one of the largest search-and-rescue efforts in the state’s recent history:
What has the federal response to the Texas floods been?
US president Donald Trump addressed the deadly floods on Saturday. On his Truth Social platform, he said his administration was working with state and local officials on the ground in Texas to respond “to the tragic flooding” that occurred a day before.
“Our Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, will be there shortly,” Trump wrote.
Speaking at a press conference alongside Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Saturday, Noem pledged that the Trump administration would use all available resources to help the state in its rescue efforts, including by bringing in more fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to aid with operations.
She said the government would make it a priority to upgrade National Weather Service technology used to deliver warnings.
Noem said:
We know that everyone wants more warning time, and that’s why we’re working to upgrade the technology that’s been neglected for far too long to make sure families have as much advance notice as possible.
For context: Some state and local officials have said the NWS failed to provide accurate forecasts ahead of Friday’s destructive flooding.
“The original forecast that we received Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3-6 inches of rain in the Concho Valley and 4-8 inches in the Hill Country,” Texas emergency management chief W. Nim Kidd told journalists on Friday. “The amount of rain that fell at this specific location was never in any of those forecasts.”
The father of Blair, 13, and Brooke Harber, 11, confirmed to CNN yesterday that his daughters had died in the Texas flooding after having gone missing in Kerr County.
RJ Harber told CNN that Blair “was a gifted student and had a generous kind heart” and that Brooke “was like a light in any room, people gravitated to her and she made them laugh and enjoy the moment”.
Neither Blair or Brooke were at Camp Mystic when they went missing.
Questions have arose as to why the severity of the flooding in the middle of the night on the Fourth of July holiday caught many officials by surprise.
Here is an extract from a story by my colleagues Oliver Milman, José Olivares and Robert Mackey who have looked into the preparations for the flood and examined how federal policy may have impacted local projection capabilities:
Officials defended their preparations for severe weather and their response but said they had not expected such an intense downpour that was, in effect, the equivalent of months’ worth of rain for the area.
One National Weather Service (NWS) forecast this week had called for only 3-6in (76-152mm) of rain, said Kidd, of the Texas division of emergency management.
“It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw,” he said.
Saturday’s deaths renewed questions about whether it was wise for the Trump administration to implement deep budget and job cuts at the NWS – among other federal government agencies – since his second presidency began in January.
Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old Christian girls camp, had 700 girls in residence at the time of the flood, according to Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick.
Early Friday morning, shortly after the deluge hit, over 100 game wardens and an aviation group tried to access the camp, but they weren’t able to enter to start rescuing children until after midday, CNN reports.
One of the girls attending the camp, Renee Smajstrla, who was nine years old, was confirmed to be among the dead by her uncle.
“Renee has been found and while not the outcome we prayed for, the social media outreach likely assisted the first responders in helping to identify her so quickly,” Shawn Salta wrote on Facebook. “We are thankful she was with her friends and having the time of her life.”
Camp Mystic said in an email to parents of the campers that if they had not been contacted directly, their child had been accounted for.
Another girls’ camp in the area, 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.
Search for missing continues with at least 51 people killed, including 15 children
We are restarting our live coverage of the devastating Texas floods.
Hundreds of rescuers are desperately searching for people missing in central Texas, after torrential rains caused devastating flooding that killed at least 51 people, including 15 children.
The total number of missing people is not yet clear, but officials say that 27 of them are girls who had been attending Camp Mystic, a Christian youth camp located along the River Guadalupe in Kerr County, the area worst affected by the flood.
The river rose more than 20 feet in less than two hours overnight into the July 4 holiday.
The flooding in Kerr County killed at least 43 people, including 15 children, and at least eight people died in nearby counties, including Travis County and Tom Green County.
Searchers used helicopters, boats and drones to look for victims and to rescue people stranded in trees and from camps isolated by washed-out roads.
Authorities said about 850 people had been rescued, with more than 1,700 people involved in the search-and-rescue operation.
Texas Governor 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 a post on X, he wrote that Camp Mystic was “horrendously ravaged in ways unlike I’ve seen in any natural disaster” and vowed that rescuers would find “every girl who was in those cabins”.
Stay with us as we bring you the latest updates on the floods throughout the day.