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Lucy Campbell (now); Anna Betts, Yohannes Lowe and Tom Ambrose (earlier)

Texas flooding live updates: at least 80 people killed in Texas flooding including 27 campers and counsellors from girls camp

The day so far

  • The desperate search for missing campers, vacationers and residents continues after catastrophic flooding over the 4 July weekend killed at least 82 people in Texas, including more than two dozen campers and counsellors from an all-girls Christian camp.

  • Texas senator Ted Cruz has pushed back on what he called “partisan finger-pointing” that has blamed staff cuts at the National Weather Service for failures to predict the intensity of the rainfall last week over the Guadalupe river headwaters. But he did say that, in hindsight, it was regrettable that the most vulnerable areas hadn’t been evacuated.

  • It comes as some experts are questioning whether cuts to the federal workforce by the Trump administration, including to thousands to the the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - the agency that oversees the National Weather Serviceleaving many weather offices understaffed, led to a failure by officials to accurately predict the severity of the floods and issue appropriate warnings ahead of the storm. Ahead of the floods, the NSW office near San Antonio, which oversees warnings issued in Kerr County, had one key vacancy - a warning coordination meteorologist, who is responsible for working with emergency managers and the public to ensure people know what to do when a disaster strikes. The person who served in that role for decades was among hundreds of NSW employees who accepted early retirement offers and left the agency at the end of April.

  • Ten campers and one counsellor from Camp Mystic remain missing, according to Larry Leitha, the Kerr County sheriff. An earlier statement from the camp confirmed that some 27 campers and counsellors were dead after the flooding.

  • Slow-moving thunderstorms are expected to continue through early afternoon across parts of the Texas Hill Country, with flash flooding likely, according to the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center. In its latest update, the center reported that thunderstorms producing localized rainfall rates over 3 inches per hour are ongoing and expected to continue into the early afternoon.

  • The National Weather Service office for Austin and San Antonio also issued a flash flood warning for Llano County in south-central Texas this morning. As of 10:01am CT, the agency said that radar indicated thunderstorms producing heavy rainfall across the area. Between 1 and 4 inches of rain have fallen already, with an additional 1 to 3 inches possible.

Texas senator Ted Cruz was in Kerr County today talking to reporters about the warnings that were issued before the Guadalupe river burst its banks after heavy rains, killing 82 including 27 children.

Amid criticisms of the lack of warnings about the severity of the storm to local residents, Cruz said:

Now, obviously, most people at 1am and 4am are sleeping, so I think we will have a reasonable conversation about are there any ways to have earlier detection? Some of the limits of the flash flood are that they’re very difficult because they can arise so quickly. But everyone would agree, in hindsight, if we could go back and do it again, we would evacuate, particularly those in the most vulnerable areas.

He then pushed back on what he called “partisan finger-pointing” that has blamed staff cuts at the National Weather Service for failures to predict the intensity of the rainfall last week over the Guadalupe river headwaters.

Some are eager to point at the National Weather Service and saying that cuts there led to to a lack of warning. I think that’s contradicting by the facts and and if you look in the facts in particular number one and these warnings went out hours before the flood became a true emergency.

It’s worth noting that the National Weather Service Union, which has been very critical of the Doge cuts, has publicly said that they don’t believe that a reduction of staffing had any impact whatsoever on their ability to warn of this event.

Here is a clip featuring timelapse footage provided by a witness shows flood waters rising over a causeway in Kingsland, Texas, and completely submerging it in the span of a few minutes.

The flooding occurred after torrential rain fell in the central Texas area on Friday 4 July, the US Independence Day holiday.

The death toll from catastrophic floods reached at least 80 on Monday, including 28 children, as the search for girls missing from a summer camp continued and fears of more flooding prompted evacuations of volunteer responders.

The news conference has ended.

“Evacuation is a delicate balance” Dalton Rice, the Kerrville city manager, said at the news conference. “If you evacuate too late, you then risk putting buses, or cars, or vehicles or campers on roads, into low water areas, trying to get them out, which then can make it even more challenging.”

“It’s very tough to make those calls, because what we also don’t want to do is cry wolf” he said. “It’s very difficult, very challenging.”

Rice explained that some of these areas take a lot of time to get out to so even when the first responders were on the ground at 3:30 in the morning, “we had first responders that were getting swept away, actually responding to the first areas of rainfall” he said, “that’s how quick it happened.”

In a post on Facebook Monday morning, Kerrville city officials said search and rescue efforts remain underway across both the city and Kerr County.

“Rescue teams worked throughout the night and ground teams are searching the river corridor” officials wrote. “We are not slowing down.”

City leaders urged the public to stay away from affected areas, noting that heavy traffic – largely from sightseers – slowed emergency response efforts on Sunday.

Sightseers, they said, “are making things worse.”

“If you’re not from here, don’t come here to see flood damage” officials added. “If you live here, avoid the river corridor so our first responders can do their jobs.”

Cruz insists 'now is not a time for partisan finger pointing and attacks'

“After we come through search and rescue, after we come through the process of rebuilding, there will naturally be a period of retrospection, where you look back and said what exactly transpired, what was the timeline, and what could have been done differently to prevent this loss of life” the Texas senator said.

“My hope is, in time, we learn some lessons to implement the next time there is a flood” he added.

Updated

“Those children, those little girls, who were lost at Camp Mystic, that’s every parent’s nightmare” Cruz said. “The pain and agony of not knowing your children’s whereabouts is the worst thing imaginable.”

Updated

Ted Cruz: 'Texas is grieving right now'

“Texas is grieving right now” said Texas senator Ted Cruz at the news conference on Monday morning.

“The pain, the shock, of what has transpired these last few days has broken the heart of our state” he said. “As of yesterday the confirmed death toll was 82 and those numbers are continuing to go up.”

Cruz said that there have been over 850 high water rescues since this flooding began.

Updated

“This will be a rough week” Joe Herring Jr, the mayor of Kerrville, said at the news conference.

“Primary search continues, and we remain hopeful, every foot, every mile, every bend of the river, our work continues” he said.

“We need your prayers” Herring Jr added.

Dalton Rice, the City Manager of Kerrville, said at the news conference said that search and rescue operations will continue today in North Kerr County to Canyon Lake and Comal County.

“This is unprecedented, unprecedented flood events” Rice said. “We are still currently in the primary search phase, which is the rapid one, they are running it, we have different segments that are gridded out. Each one of those segments are taking anywhere between an hour to three hours, up to 2km for each segment.”

“They are running into a lot of technical challenges with terrain, with water, even potentially with weather and the rising fields” he added.

10 campers and one counsellor remain missing from Camp Mystic

Larry Leitha, the Kerr County sheriff, said that 10 campers and one counsellor from Camp Mystic remain missing.

“We continue to offer our condolences to those affected” he said. “Reuniting the families remains our top priority.”

Updated

75 killed in Kerr county

As of Monday morning, 75 people have died in Kerr county, including 27 children and 48 adults, Kerr county sheriff Larry Leitha said.

Leitha added that the identities of 15 adults and 9 children are still pending confirmation.

Updated

Search and rescue operations are ongoing in Kerr Country, Kerr County sheriff Larry Leitha said.

Kerr County officials are holding a news conference.

Slow-moving thunderstorms are expected to continue through early afternoon across parts of the Texas Hill Country, with flash flooding likely, according to the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center.

In its latest update, the center reported that thunderstorms producing localized rainfall rates over 3 inches per hour are ongoing and expected to continue into the early afternoon.

“Some significant instances of flash flooding are possible, especially given the sensitive flood-prone terrain of central TX” the center added.

Flash flood warning issued for south-central Texas

The National Weather Service Office for Austin and San Antonio has issued a flash flood warning for Llano County in south-central Texas this morning.

As of 10:01 am CT (11:01 am ET), the agency said that radar indicated thunderstorms producing heavy rainfall across the area. Between 1 and 4 inches of rain have fallen already, with an additional 1 to 3 inches possible.

“Flash flooding is ongoing or expected to begin shortly” the agency said.

Updated

A camp counsellor at Camp Mystic helped evacuate 14 of her campers during the catastrophic flooding in the area early on Friday morning.

Emma Foltz, from Alexandria, Louisiana, was recognized by Louisiana governor Jeff Landry for her efforts in a post on Instagram. Landry said:

She played an instrumental role in helping evacuate 14 of her campers to safety. Please join me in thanking Emma for all her hard work and bravery under immense pressure.

Foltz is a rising senior at Louisiana Tech. This was her third year as a camp counsellor at Camp Mystic, according to Landry. He added:

We continue to pray for all those affected by this travesty. Louisiana is here to help!

At least 80 people killed in Texas flooding including 27 campers and counsellors from girls camp

Crews trudged through debris and waded into swollen riverbanks on Monday in the search for victims of catastrophic flooding over the 4 July weekend that killed more 80 people in Texas, including more than two dozen campers and counselors from an all-girls Christian camp.

With more rain on the way, the risk of more flooding was still high in saturated parts of central Texas, the Associated Press reports, with authorities sure the death toll would rise as crews looked for the many people who were still missing.

The floods, among the nation’s worst in decades, swept away people sleeping in tents, cabins and homes along the river in the middle of the night on Friday.

Reagan Brown told the AP 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 neighbor was trapped in her attic, they went back and rescued her.

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

A few miles away, rescuers manoeuvring through challenging terrain filled with snakes kept up the search for the missing.

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

In the Hill Country area, home to several summer camps, searchers have found the bodies of 68 people, including 28 children, Kerr County sheriff Larry Leitha said.

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

Updated

Kristi Noem says she is not aware of any breakdown in flood warning systems

Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem said today that she’s not aware of any breakdown in emergency warning systems that could have contributed to the high death toll in the Texas floods.

Asked on Fox & Friends this morning whether there was any breakdown, Noem responded:

Not that we found so far. The National Weather Service put out the alerts when they received them and, unfortunately, in many places in our country we have flash floods like this that do occur, and the notification was proactive and out there.

But she added:

Would everybody like more time? Absolutely. So many situations when we see terrible events like this and these national weather disasters, more notification is always extremely helpful.

She said the weather service under Donald Trump “has been working to put in new technology and a new system because it has been neglected for years”, but did not expand on what that new technology entails or its relevance to the question of whether it would have helped lessen the floods’ death toll.

It’s an ancient system that needed to be upgraded and so President Trump recognized that right away and got to work on it when he came into office in January but that installation is not complete and that technology isn’t fully installed.

Asked whether the disaster either underscores or changes the administration’s plans to phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), Noem said:

I think what we’ve seen here is exactly what President Trump has envisioned for Fema, is immediately allowing the state to do the response and supporting them every way that they can.

Aligned with Trump, Noem has advocated for phasing out Fema, starting with weaning states off funding. Just last month she said the disaster relief agency “fundamentally needs to go away” and be “eliminated as it exists today”.

And just five days ago she said on Instagram that the controversial “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant detention facility in Florida would be funded largely by Fema’s Shelter and Services Program.

Updated

A US Coast Guard rescue swimmer has been hailed as a hero for helping to save 165 people from flooding in Texas during the first mission of his career, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official.

Scott Ruskan was among the Coast Guard members deployed after Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration yesterday. He was in charge of triage at Camp Mystic, the girls’ summer camp that saw some of the worst of the flooding.

“He is an American hero whose selfless courage embodies the spirit and mission of the USCG,” DHS said.

Homeland security secretary Kristi Noem also praised the 26-year-old as “an American hero” in a post on X.

Ruskan played down his role and praised his colleagues in an interview with the New York Post, telling the publication:

Honestly, I’m mostly just a dude. I’m just doing a job.

This is what I signed up for, and I think that any single Coast Guard rescue swimmer or any single Coast Guard pilot, flight mechanic, whoever it may be, would have done the exact same thing in our situation.

That’s what we were asked to do and we’re gonna do it. Any one of us, if anyone else was on duty that day, they would have done the same thing as us. We just happened to be the crew that got the case.

The Texas agriculture commissioner has said there has been no time to even begin calculating the damage done to the region’s agriculture industry during the floods, with more than 40 people still unaccounted for.

Sid Miller told Fox News that cattle and livestock have been found “on the tops of trees” following the deadly flooding, which he said had “caught everybody off guard”.

We’ve lost hundreds of miles of fencing, barns, all kinds of buildings, structures.

We are still so focused on search and rescue of the over 40 people that are still unaccounted for, that we haven’t even had time to start calculating about the agriculture loss.

But it’s been devastating. It’s a 26ft wall of water, 3am in the morning ... caught everybody off guard.

Tavia Hunt, the wife of Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt, has confirmed that one of the victims of the devastating Texas floods was a member of their family, nine-year-old Janie Hunt.

Janie, a young cousin in the family, was one of the girls at Camp Mystic, the popular summer camp perched on the banks of the Guadalupe River that has become a focus of the search after suffering significant damage in the deluge.

In an Instagram post, Tavia Hunt wrote:

Our hearts are broken by the devastation from the floods in Wimberley and the tragic loss of so many lives – including a precious little Hunt cousin, along with several friend’s little girls.

How do we trust a God who is supposed to be good, all knowing and all powerful, but who allows such terrible things to happen – even to children?

Janie, a great-granddaughter of the oil baron William Herbert Hunt, is reportedly the eldest of three children. Camp Mystic said in a statement earlier today that 27 campers and counselors died in the catastrophic flooding.

Residents of Kerr County began clearing mud and salvaging what they could from their demolished properties as they recounted harrowing escapes from rapidly rising floodwaters late Friday.

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 toolshed up higher ground, and neighbors throughout the early morning began to show up at their toolshed, and they all rode it out together,” Brown said.

Updated

Here is a map, which shows the layout of Camp Mystic in Texas and its proximity to the Guadalupe river…

‘No warning at all’: Texas flood survivors question safety planning and officials’ response

As Texas marshals a formidable response to the flash floods that have already killed dozens, questions are now being posed about warnings that were given on Thursday and early Friday about the severity of the approaching storm and the co-ordination between local officials and the National Weather Service.

New flood alerts were issued for Texas “hill country” on Sunday, prompting rescue services to suspend the search for missing people, including at least 11 from Camp Mystic, the summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River hard hit by Friday’s flash flood.

At an early evening press briefing, Kerr county authorities said they were suspending the search and evacuating first responders from the river valley. They confirmed that 68 had died there, including 28 children. Not all have been identified, with officials still examining the bodies of 18 adults and 10 children.

Extraordinary tales of resilience have also emerged alongside videos of the destruction and loss that are circulating on social media. On Sunday, a video was posted on X of girls from Camp Mystic being evacuated from the camp and singing the hymns Pass It On and Amazing Grace as they crossed a bridge over the still torrential Guadalupe River.

The new round of rainfall in the area prompted an alert of a “dangerous and life-threatening situation”, it said, adding: “Do not attempt to travel unless unless you are fleeing an area subject to flooding or under an evacuation order.”

The co-ordination between Kerr county officials and the National Weather Service has become a flashpoint of its own.

Updated

Camp Mystic confirms 27 campers and counsellors killed

Some 27 campers and counsellors are dead after flooding at Camp Mystic, a statement from the camp said.

“Our hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this unimaginable tragedy. We are praying for them constantly,” the camp wrote in a statement on their website.

It went on:

We have been in communication with local and state authorities who are tirelessly deploying extensive resources to search for our missing girls.

We are deeply grateful for the outpouring of support from community, first responders, and officials at every level.

We ask for your continued prayers, respect and privacy for each of our families affected. May the Lord continue to wrap His presence around all of us.

Here are some of the latest images of the devastation caused by the tragic flash flooding in Texas…

People have recounted their ordeal after deadly flooding swept through central Texas on Friday morning…

President Donald Trump, who said on Sunday he would visit the disaster scene, probably this coming Friday, 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.

Some experts questioned whether cuts to the federal workforce by the Trump administration, including to the agency that oversees the National Weather Service, led to a failure by officials to accurately predict the severity of the floods and issue appropriate warnings ahead of the storm, Reuters reported.

Trump’s administration has overseen thousands of job cuts from the National Weather Service’s parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, leaving many weather offices understaffed, former NOAA director Rick Spinrad said.

Ahead of Friday’s floods, the Weather Service office near San Antonio, which oversees warnings issued in Kerr County, had one key vacancy - a warning coordination meteorologist, who is responsible for working with emergency managers and the public to ensure people know what to do when a disaster strikes.

The person who served in that role for decades was among hundreds of Weather Service employees who accepted early retirement offers and left the agency at the end of April, media reported.

Trump pushed back when asked on Sunday if federal government cuts hobbled the disaster response or left key job vacancies at the Weather Service under Trump’s oversight.

“That water situation, that all is, and that was really the Biden setup,” he said referencing his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden. “But I wouldn’t blame Biden for it, either. I would just say this is 100-year catastrophe.”

As the death toll continues to rise after deadly flash flooding in central Texas, a frantic search is under way for missing campers, vacationers and residents.

Hunt resident Macon Ware’s five granddaughters had just finished a summer camping session at Camp Mystic, the all-girl camp where dozens of campers were swept away in the flood.

“Some of their friends were there for the second session and my heart goes out to all those little girls,” he says.

See the full video below…

Pope Leo extends condolences to Texas flood victims: ‘We pray for them’

Pope Leo XIV on Sunday voiced his sympathies for the families whose lives have been upended by the flooding in Texas’s Hill Country, which left about 80 dead – many of them children – and others missing.

After reciting Angelus prayers at the Vatican, the American-born pontiff remarked in English: “I would like to express sincere condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones, in particular their daughters who were in a summer camp in the disaster caused by flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas.

“We pray for them.”

The worldwide Roman Catholic church leader’s comments were notable in that they addressed what is the deadliest natural disaster in his home country since he became the first US-born pope ever in May.

They were also ecumenical in the sense that the girls’ summer camp to which he referred is a Christian – though not specifically Catholic – institution.

Updated

Search teams scour Texas flood zone for dozens still missing

Hello and welcome to the Texas floods live blog. I am Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you the latest news lines over the next few hours.

Residents in central Texas were observing a day of prayer on Sunday for at least 82 people killed and dozens missing in Friday’s devastating flash flooding, as a search and rescue operation for survivors began to morph into a grim exercise of recovering bodies.

Relatives continued an anxious wait for news of 10 girls and one camp counselor still unaccounted for from a riverside summer camp that was overwhelmed by flash flooding from the Guadalupe River, which rose 26ft (8 meters) in 45 minutes on Friday morning after torrential pre-dawn rain north of San Antonio.

Kerr county’s sheriff, Larry Leitha, said at a briefing on Sunday afternoon that 68 people have been confirmed dead there, including 28 children, with the search continuing for the missing girls and their counselor from Camp Mystic, along the river.

Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, said in an earlier briefing that another 10 fatalities have been confirmed in neighboring counties. Abbott said that officials were still searching for 41 known missing persons across the state.

“We are seeing bodies recovered all over up and down,” Kerrville’s city manager, Dalton Rice, told reporters at an earlier briefing on Sunday. Authorities said about 850 people had been rescued, with more than 400 people involved in the search and rescue operation.

By Sunday morning, water levels had fallen to just a foot or two higher than before the flood. On Sunday afternoon, people in Kerrville received an emergency alert on their phone, reading: “High confidence of river flooding at North Folks of river. Move to higher ground.”

Further rain on Saturday and into Sunday morning hampered search efforts of crews using boats, helicopters and drones. Abbott promised responders would remain at the scene until every individual was recovered. He said he instructed responders to assume all missing persons were still alive.

Read our full report here:

Here are the latest headlines from Texas:

  • Ten other deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, Associated Press cited local officials as saying.

  • Abbott said additional stretches of heavy rain lasting into Tuesday could produce more dangerous flooding, especially in places already saturated.

  • Relatives continued an anxious wait for news of 10 girls and one camp counsellor from the riverside Camp Mystic still unaccounted for after it was overwhelmed by flash flooding from the Guadalupe River, which rose 26ft (8 meters) in 45 minutes on Friday morning. Families were allowed to look around the camp from Sunday morning as nearby searches continued.

  • The Texas Division of Emergency Management chief said on Sunday he was receiving unconfirmed reports of “an additional wall of water” flowing down some of the creeks in the Guadalupe Rivershed as rain continued to fall on soil in the region already saturated from Friday’s rains. “We’re evacuating parts of the river right now because we are worried about another wall of river coming down in those areas,” Nim Kidd said.

  • Authorities faced growing questions about whether enough warnings were issued in an area long vulnerable to flooding and whether enough preparations were made. Kerrville city manager Dalton Rice said there would be a full review of the emergency response.

  • President Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration on Sunday for Kerr county and said he would likely visit on Friday, calling what took place “absolutely horrible”. Asked whether he was still planning to phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), he said that was something “we can talk about later, but right now we are busy working”.

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