Texas flood death toll nears 90 with girl campers still missing

The bodies of more than two dozen children have already been recovered as harrowing tales emerge.

Crews picked through mountains of debris and waded into swollen rivers overnight in the search for victims of catastrophic flooding that killed nearly 90 people over the weekend in Texas, including more than two dozen campers and counsellors from an all-girls Christian camp.

With additional rain on the way, more flooding still threatened in saturated parts of central Texas. Authorities said the death toll was sure to rise as crews looked for many people who were missing.

Operators of Camp Mystic, a century-old summer camp in the Texas Hill Country, said they lost 27 campers and counsellors, confirming their worst fears after a wall of water slammed into cabins built along the edge of the Guadalupe River.

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"We have been in communication with local and state authorities who are tirelessly deploying extensive resources to search for our missing girls," the camp said in a statement.

Authorities later said that 10 girls and a counsellor from the camp remain missing.

The raging flash floods – among the nation's worst in decades – slammed into riverside camps and homes before daybreak Friday, pulling sleeping people out of their cabins, tents and trailers and dragging them for miles past floating tree trunks and automobiles. Some survivors were found clinging to trees.

Piles of twisted trees sprinkled with mattresses, refrigerators, coolers and canoes now litter the riverbanks. Search-and-rescue teams used heavy equipment near Kerrville to remove large branches while volunteers covered in mud sorted through chunks of debris, piece by piece.

In the Hill Country area, home to Camp Mystic and several other summer camps, searchers have found the bodies of 75 people, including 27 children, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said.

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Fourteen other deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, according to local officials.

Governor Greg Abbott said Sunday that 41 people were unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.

Authorities vowed that one of the next steps will be investigating whether enough warnings were issued and why some camps did not evacuate or move to higher ground in areas long vulnerable to flooding.

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Families were allowed to look around the camp beginning Sunday morning.

One girl walked out of a building carrying a large bell. A man whose daughter was rescued from a cabin on the highest point in the camp walked a riverbank, looking in clumps of trees and under big rocks.

One family left with a blue footlocker. A teenage girl had tears running down her face as they slowly drove away and she gazed through the open window at the wreckage.

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Searching the disaster zone

Nearby crews operating heavy equipment pulled tree trunks and tangled branches from the river. With each passing hour, the outlook of finding more survivors became even more bleak.

Volunteers and some families of the missing came to the disaster zone and searched despite being asked not to do so.

Authorities faced growing questions about whether enough warnings were issued in an area long vulnerable to flooding and whether enough preparations were made.

President Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration Sunday for Kerr County and said he would likely visit Friday: "I would have done it today, but we'd just be in their way."

"It's a horrible thing that took place, absolutely horrible," he told reporters.

Little time to escape floods

Reagan Brown said his parents, in their 80s, managed to escape uphill as water inundated their home in the town of Hunt.

When the couple learned that their 92-year-old neighbour was trapped in her attic, they went back and rescued her.

"Then they were able to reach their tool shed up higher ground, and neighbours throughout the early morning began to show up at their tool shed, and they all rode it out together," Brown said.

Among those confirmed dead were an eight-year-old girl from Mountain Brook, Alabama, who was at the camp, and the director of another camp up the road.

Two school-age sisters from Dallas were missing after their cabin was swept away. Their parents were staying in a different cabin and were safe, but the girls' grandparents were unaccounted for.

Prayers in Texas — and from the Vatican

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 Rome, Pope Leo XIV offered special prayers for those touched by the disaster.

The first American pope spoke in English at the end of his Sunday noon blessing.

"I would like to express sincere condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones, in particular their daughters who were in summer camp, in the disaster caused by the flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas in the United States. We pray for them," he said.

Desperate refuge and trees and attics

Survivors shared terrifying stories of being swept away and clinging to trees as rampaging floodwaters carried trees and cars past them. Others fled to attics, praying the water wouldn't reach them.

At Camp Mystic, a cabin full of girls held onto a rope strung by rescuers as they walked across a bridge with water whipping around their legs.

Among those confirmed dead were an eight-year-old girl from Mountain Brook, Alabama, who was at Camp Mystic, and the director of another camp up the road.

Two school-age sisters from Dallas were missing after their cabin was swept away. Their parents were staying in a different cabin and were safe, but the girls' grandparents were unaccounted for.

Warnings came before the disaster

On Thursday the National Weather Service advised of potential flooding and then sent out a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours of Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies — a rare alert notifying of imminent danger.

Authorities and elected officials have said they did not expect such an intense downpour, the equivalent of months' worth of rain for the area.

Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said authorities are committed to a full review of the emergency response.

Trump, asked whether he was still planning to phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said that was something "we can talk about later, but right now we are busy working." He has said he wants to overhaul if not completely eliminate FEMA and sharply criticised its performance.

Trump also was asked whether he planned to rehire any of the federal meteorologists who were fired this year as part of widespread government spending cuts.

"I would think not. This was a thing that happened in seconds. Nobody expected it. Nobody saw it. Very talented people there, and they didn't see it," the president said.

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