Texas floods: Search for scores of missing people continues as death toll rises
Rescue teams in Texas are on day seven of their search for over 170 people still missing after devastating flash floods hit Central Texas.
The death toll has now reached at least 121, as confirmed by local authorities and Governor Greg Abbott, News.Az reports, citing CBS News.
Efforts are still underway to locate survivors and recover bodies from the wreckage caused by the catastrophic storm, which caused the Guadalupe River to swell to near-record levels.
There are 161 people known to be missing in Kerr County alone, officials said. The county, located in the flood-prone Texas Hill Country west of Austin, the state capital, bore the brunt of the disaster. At least 10 more people are missing in other parts of the state.
President Trump signed a federal disaster declaration at Abbott's request, allowing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to deploy its own teams to support local rescue and recovery efforts as those operations press on. More storms after the initial flooding made efforts especially challenging, officials said.
A large majority of the flooding deaths occurred in Kerr County, where officials have confirmed at least 96 people died.
At Camp Mystic, a girls' summer camp with cabins along the river in a rural part of Kerr County near Hunt, at least 27 campers and counselors died in what the camp described as "catastrophic flooding." Some survivors said they woke up to water rushing through the windows.
Leitha said Wednesday that crews continued to search for five missing campers and one counselor from Camp Mystic.
One child not associated with the camp is also missing, Abbott said Tuesday.
Hundreds of rescuers, including teams from local, state and federal agencies, as well as volunteers, are involved in the search, Texas Game Warden Ben Baker said Tuesday during a news conference.
"It's very tragic whenever you see human life. But to see a child in that loss of life, is extremely tragic," Baker told a reporter who had asked about the impacts on rescuers' mental health.
Abbott said Tuesday he received a text message from Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that said the Department of Health and Human Services is set to declare a public health emergency for the Texas Hill Country flash floods.
"This will make it easier for health care and mental health providers from out of state to help both by traveling to the area and by telemedicine," Abbott said the message read.
Friday was the last time a missing person was found alive in Kerr County, according to authorities. But search crews continued to survey miles of the Guadalupe River in the hope of locating others who may have been lost in the floods that inundated Kerr County, Baker told reporters.
The river runs for approximately 230 miles through a region that sits between Austin and San Antonio, starting in Kerr County and ending along the Gulf Coast. It's nicknamed "flash flood alley" because the terrain makes it vulnerable to inundation.
Officials in five other Texas counties have also confirmed deaths in the flooding: Travis County, which includes Austin, as well as Burnet, Kendall, Williamson and Tom Green County.
During the early hours of Friday morning, the Guadalupe River in Hunt, in Kerr County, rose to about 26 feet — roughly the height of a two-story building — over the course of just 45 minutes, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said during a news conference.
Similar news
