At least 43 dead as flood waters recede in central Texas

At least 43 people, including 15 children, have been confirmed dead following flash floods in central Texas, authorities said on Saturday, as rescuers continued a frantic search for campers, holidaymakers and residents still missing.

Officials said the death toll was likely to rise, as other counties in the area were also affected by the flooding. Travis County Public Information Officer Hector Nieto confirmed four deaths from the flooding there, with 13 others reported missing.

Authorities said more than 850 people had been rescued — including some found clinging to trees — after a sudden storm dropped up to 15 inches of rain around the Guadalupe River, about 85 miles (137 km) northwest of San Antonio.

Among the missing were 27 girls from the Camp Mystic summer camp, Kerrville city manager Dalton Rice said at a press conference on Saturday evening, adding that others might also be unaccounted for.

"We are kind of looking at this in two ways — the known missing, which is the 27 ... We will not put a number on the other side because we just don’t know," Rice said.

The disaster unfolded rapidly on Friday morning as heavier-than-forecast rainfall drove river levels up to 29 feet.

"We know that the rivers rise, but nobody saw this coming," said Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the region’s top elected official.

Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said 17 of the confirmed dead — including five children — had yet to be identified.

The US 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 a foot of rain early on Friday.

A flood watch, however, remains in effect until 7pm 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.

US 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.

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.

The weekend disaster echoes a catastrophic flood almost 40 years ago along the Guadalupe River where a bus and a van leaving a church camp encountered flood waters and 10 teenagers drowned trying to escape, according to a National Weather Service event summary of the 1987 storm. Hundreds of people were evacuated, it said.

‘Complete shock’

Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old Christian girls’ camp, had 700 girls in residence at the time of the flooding, according to Patrick. Another girls’ camp, Heart O’ the Hills, said on its website that co-owner Jane Ragsdale had died in the flood, though no campers were present as it was between sessions.

In Comfort, a town about 40 miles downriver from Camp Mystic, huge trees — some over 60 feet tall — were uprooted and scattered across roads and the riverbank. While the main highway from San Antonio to the flood-hit areas remained mostly intact, several two-lane bridges were severely damaged.

A Reuters photographer reported seeing around 10 cars — some with smashed windscreens and doors — that had been swept away by floodwaters and left abandoned near the river.

"Complete shock. I’m still in shock today," said Tonia Fucci, 52, a visitor from Pennsylvania staying in Comfort with her grandmother. "The devastation was such that I’m still in shock today. And with the rescues going on and helicopters, you just know there’s so many missing children and missing people. You just want them to be found for the sake of the families. But, you know, it’s not going to be a good ending. It’s just not going to be. There’s no way people could have survived the swiftness of the water.”

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said during a briefing that he had asked President Donald Trump to sign a disaster declaration, which would unlock federal aid for affected residents. US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Trump would honour that request.

Earlier on Saturday, Trump said he and his wife Melania were praying for the victims. "Our Brave First Responders are on site doing what they do best," he said on social media.

Trump has previously outlined plans to reduce the federal government’s role in responding to natural disasters, placing more responsibility on individual states.

Videos posted online showed bare concrete platforms where houses once stood and piles of debris along the riverbanks. Local media reported rescuers pulling people from rooftops and trees, sometimes forming human chains to get them out of the floodwaters.

Officials said the flooding struck before dawn on Friday with little or no warning, making it impossible to issue advance evacuation orders, as the Guadalupe River surged above major flood stage in less than two hours.

Noem said a "moderate" flood watch issued the previous day by the National Weather Service did not accurately predict the extreme rainfall. She said the Trump administration was working to improve the warning system.

The administration has cut thousands of jobs from the National Weather Service’s parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), leaving many weather offices short-staffed, said former NOAA director Rick Spinrad. He added that while it was unclear whether those cuts affected the Texas flood warnings, they would undoubtedly impair the agency’s ability to provide accurate and timely forecasts.

"People’s ability to prepare for these storms will be compromised. It undoubtedly means that additional lives will be lost and probably more property damage," he said.