Death toll from Texas floods reaches at least 43; dozens still missing

By Rich McKay and Andy Sullivan

(Reuters) -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, vacationers and residents who were still missing.

It was likely the casualty toll was higher, authorities said, as other counties in the area were afflicted by the flooding. Travis County Public Information Officer Hector Nieto said four people had died from the flooding there, and 13 were unaccounted for.

Officials said more than 850 people had been rescued, including some who were clinging to trees, after a sudden storm dumped up to 15 inches of rain in an area 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, and there may be others beyond that.

"We are kind of looking at this in two ways called 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 rain drove river waters rapidly to as high as 29 feet.

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

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

The U.S. National Weather Service said the flash flood emergency has largely ended for Kerr County, following thunderstorms that dumped more than a foot of rain. That is half of the total the region sees in a typical year. A flood watch remained in effect until 7 p.m. for the broader region.

Kerr County sits in the Texas Hill Country, a rural area known for rugged terrain, historic towns and tourist attractions.

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said an unknown number of visitors had come to the area for an Independence Day celebration by the river.

“We don't know how many people were in tents on the side, in small trailers by the side, in rented homes by the side," he said on Fox News Live.

'COMPLETE SHOCK'

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

In Comfort, a town about 40 miles down the river from Camp Mystic, huge trees, some over 60 feet tall, were pulled out and scattered around the river by the floods, with several blocking local roads. While the main highway from San Antonio to affected areas remained mainly intact, some two-lane bridges were severely damaged by water.

A Reuters photographer saw around 10 cars - some with smashed windshields and doors - that had been swept away by flood waters and lay abandoned near the river.

"Complete shock. I'm still in shock today," said Tonia Fucci, 52, a Pennsylvanian who was in Comfort visiting 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 at a news briefing that he had asked President Donald Trump to sign a disaster declaration, which would unlock federal aid for those affected. U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Trump would honor 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 scale back the federal government's role in responding to natural disasters, leaving states to shoulder more of the burden themselves.

Videos posted online showed bare concrete platforms where homes used to stand and piles of rubble along the banks of the river. Rescuers plucked residents from rooftops and trees, sometimes forming human chains to fetch people from the floodwater, local media reported.

Local officials said the extreme flooding struck before dawn on Friday with little or no warning, precluding authorities from issuing advance evacuation orders as the Guadalupe River swiftly rose 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 and said the Trump administration was working to upgrade the system.

The administration has cut thousands of jobs from the National Weather Service's parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, leaving many weather offices understaffed, said former NOAA director Rick Spinrad. He said he did not know if those staff cuts factored into the lack of advance warning for the extreme Texas flooding, but said they would inevitably degrade the agency's ability to deliver 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.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; writing by Andy Sullivan and Dan Burns; Additional reporting by Marco Bello and Sandra Stojanovic in Comfort, Texas; Deborah Gembara in Washington; and Ryan Jones in Toronto; editing by Diane Craft, Nick Zieminski and David Gregorio)