Death toll rises to at least 85 in Texas flash floods; rescuers search for survivors
A summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River is grieving the loss of 27 girls and counsellors who are among at least 95 killed in the floods.
Rescuers are searching the Guadalupe River for survivors of the Texas flash floods that killed at least 95 people over the July Fourth holiday weekend, with an unknown number of people still missing.
The basin area was crowded with families and campers preparing to enjoy the holiday when pounding rain brought about catastrophic flash floods just before dawn Friday local time. Homes were wiped out and vehicles and summer cabins were carried away by the raging waters.
A summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe in the state’s Hill Country said on Monday it was grieving the loss of 27 girls and counsellors. Camp Mystic’s director, Dick Eastland, was also feared dead.
The death toll climbed in several counties on Monday. Hard-hit Kerr County reported at least 75 people dead, with children making up more than two dozen of those deceased.
“This will be a rough week,” Kerrville mayor Joe Herring said. President Donald Trump will visit Texas later this week to review the damage from the floods, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said. Ms Leavitt said the trip would likely take place on Friday.
A warning for potential flash flooding in parts of Central Texas was issued by the National Weather Service on Thursday afternoon.
After a storm system had stalled over the area and dumped far more rain than had been forecast, the weather service warned of imminent flash floods around Camp Mystic early Friday.
A wave of water surged through the river, with the worst of the flooding near the camp happening between about 4am and 4.30am, according to a flood gauge.
Further downstream in Kerrville, the river rose almost 11 metres in the early hours. Sirens went off in a neighbouring county, but Kerr County did not have an outdoor warning system.
Kerrville resident George Moore woke up around 4am on Friday to the noise of weather alerts. He went outside to pull in a deer feeder and chairs along the banks of the river, where water was rising fast. He woke up wife Tammy and they joined others on the street going house to house to wake people up.
“The entire time I was out here, there were camper trailers and all kinds of things hitting those trees in the dark,” Mr Moore said, pointing to broken cypress trees. “I could hear two people somewhere over here hollering for help and there was nothing you could do. It was horrible.”
Ms Moore said they called 911 when they realised their street was no longer passable. The operator said that if the water rose too high, they should get on the roof and await rescue.
The water halted just a metre or so up their yard and no one on their street was hurt. Mr Moore said people are blaming the city but he is unhappy with the weather alerts, which come too frequently to know what to take seriously. “They say a flash flood warning. Well, you get 15 of them and you’re going, ‘OK, right’.”
On Sunday, search-and-rescue crews in helicopters flew low over the river, where massive trees had been snapped in half or toppled in huge piles like dominoes, debris tangled in their limbs.
Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz said on Monday he hopes new procedures will be put in place to evacuate people in the event of disastrous flash flooding.
“Everyone would agree, in hindsight, if we could go back and do it again, we would evacuate,” Senator Cruz said. “Particularly those in the most vulnerable areas – the young children in the cabins closest to the water, we would remove them and get them to higher ground.”
Storms continued in portions of west central Texas on Monday, with the National Weather Service issuing warnings for some counties. “A lot of these storms are capable of producing heavy rainfall, which could fairly easily lead to flash flooding,” said Allison Santorelli, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Centre.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott urged central Texans to be “extraordinarily cautious” on roads and alert to evacuation warnings for the next 24-48 hours because of flash flood risks.
Across Kerrville, churches and schools have become makeshift shelters and hubs for families looking for loved ones. Larger carparks have become staging areas for rescue crews and utility trucks, with mobile showers, laundry facilities and food trucks.
In the Kerrville Walmart carpark late on Sunday afternoon, Kellye Badon gathered with family and friends as they wrapped up day three of the search for her daughter, Joyce Catherine Badon, a 21-year-old student at Savannah College of Art and Design.
Joyce Catherine and three friends – Ella Cahill, Aidan Heartfield and Reese Manchaca – were swept from the porch of a home in Hunt, an unincorporated community west of the city, around 4am on Friday, Kellye Badon said.
Just before it happened, Mr Heartfield had called his father and said that water was rising and their cars had washed away. They couldn’t get into the attic. At some point, he handed the phone to Joyce Catherine, who spoke briefly to Mr Heartfield’s father and told him suddenly: “They’re gone. The current.” She added, “Tell my mom and dad I love them”, her mother recounted, breaking into tears. “And she was gone,” Kellye Badon said.
The Badons and other families have organised a roughly 50-member search team of their own. The only thing left of the house is the foundation, but they have mapped the area and are gathering early each morning to search an 11-12km stretch.
It is the kind of unofficial effort authorities are discouraging, but the Badons said they were determined to look until they find their daughter and her friends.
“She is a strong person,” Ms Badon said. “That is why I am optimistic she is holding on.”
Joyce Catherine Badon’s body was found on Monday.
The Wall Street Journal
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