HUNT: Rescuers in Texas searched on Monday for bodies swept away by flash floods that killed more than 90 people, including 27 girls and counsellors at a summer camp destroyed by torrents of water.
The United States was shocked at the disaster over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, and forecasters warned of more flooding as rain falls on saturated ground.
“Our hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this unimaginable tragedy,” Camp Mystic said in a statement confirming the 27 deaths at the all-girls camp, located next to a river.
The White House on Monday put the overall number of dead from the flooding at 91, while Texas Senator Ted Cruz told reporters that the toll was continuing to rise.
27 girls, camp counsellors among the deceased
“Texas is grieving right now — the pain, the shock of what has transpired these last few days has broken the heart of our state,” Cruz told reporters.
“The children, little girls, who were lost at Camp Mystic, that’s every parent’s nightmare.” Camps are a beloved tradition in the long US summer holidays, with children often staying in woods, parks and other rural areas.
Cruz described them as a chance to make “lifetime friends — and then suddenly it turns to tragedy.”
President Donald Trump is planning to visit Texas on Friday, the White House said, as it slammed critics claiming his cuts to weather agencies had weakened warning systems.
Helicopters and boats were taking part in the grim search across an area popular with tourists as well as summer camps.
Camp Mystic was a Christian camp where about 750 people had been staying when the floodwaters struck.
In a terrifying display of nature’s power, the rain-swollen waters of the Guadalupe River reached treetops and the roofs of cabins as girls at the camp slept.
Blankets, teddy bears and other belongings were caked in mud. Windows in the cabins were shattered, apparently by the force of the water.
Months’ worth of rain fell in a matter of hours on Thursday night into Friday, and rain has continued in bouts since then.
The Guadalupe surged around 26 feet (eight metres) — more than a two-story building — in just 45 minutes.
“Our hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this unimaginable tragedy,” the camp said in a statement on Monday.
Richard Eastland, 70, the co-owner and director of Camp Mystic, died trying to save the children at his camp during the flood.
“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 County, where the worst flooding occurred, two to four inches of more rain were expected to fall, with isolated areas getting up to 10 inches of rain.
The weather service issued a flood watch through Monday night in the region. State emergency management officials had warned on Thursday, ahead of the July 4 holiday, that parts of central Texas faced the possibility of heavy showers and flash floods based on weather 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, a local official said. Governor Greg Abbott said the circumstances of the flooding, and the adequacy of weather forecasts and warning systems, would be scrutinised once the immediate situation was brought under control.
In the meantime, search-and-rescue operations were continuing, with hundreds of emergency personnel on the ground contending with a myriad of challenges.
Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2025