Closing summary
It’s almost midnight in central Texas and we’re about to close this live blog. Our full report on the devastating floods can be seen here, and below is an overview of the latest. Thanks for reading.
The risk of life-threatening flooding remained high in central Texas on Monday as more rain was forecast after a deluge that killed at least 82 people, including children at summer camps, while dozens remained missing. Officials said they expected the death toll to rise.
Rescue crews were still searching for the missing, while state governor Greg Abbott said 41 people were unaccounted for across Texas and more could be missing. In the Hill Country area, searchers 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, 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 said about 850 people had been rescued, with more than 400 people involved in the search and rescue operation. Further rain into Sunday hampered search efforts using boats, helicopters and drones. By Sunday morning water levels had fallen significantly.
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”.
Updated
Continuing the list from AP of some of the most deadly floods across the US in the past 25 years:
Superstorm Sandy, 2012: The storm was a late fall freak combination of a hurricane and other storms that struck New York and surrounding areas. Sandy killed 147 people, 72 in the eastern US, according to the National Hurricane Center. More than 110 deaths were attributed to drowning, AccuWeather says.
Mississippi River, 2011: Heavy rainfall in several states, plus a larger-than-normal slow melt, led rivers in the Mississippi River Basin to swell and flood. Flash floods associated with these storms caused 24 deaths across Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee, according to the National Weather Service.
Hurricane Ike, 2008: The storm struck the south-east Texas Gulf Coast and created a storm surge as high as 20 feet (6 metres) in the island city of Galveston. The storm ended up causing more than $29bn in damage and was responsible for more than 100 deaths, many attributed to flooding.
Hurricane Katrina, 2005: The storm is the deadliest flood event in the US in the past 25 years. Katrina crashed into the Gulf Coast and caused devastating flooding when levees failed in New Orleans, where people had to be rescued by boat and helicopter from rooftops. The costliest storm in US history, Katrina caused nearly 1,400 deaths and an estimated $200bn in damages.
Tropical Storm Allison, 2001: The storm caused 41 deaths, mostly attributed to flooding caused by 40 inches (101cm) of rain that fell in Texas and Louisiana, AccuWeather said. Allison remained a threat for days as its remnants lingered after making landfall, causing major flooding in Houston.
Updated
Flooding has caused an average of more than 125 deaths a year in the US over the past few decades, according to the National Weather Service, and flash floods are the country’s top storm-related killer.
Here’s a look at some of the other most deadly floods nationwide over the past 25 years, care of the Associated Press.
Hurricane Helene, 2024: The storm struck Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee and Virginia in September 2024 and caused about 250 deaths, the National Weather Service said. Many of those who died in Helene fell victim to massive inland flooding, rather than high winds.
Kentucky, 2022: Raging floodwaters in eastern Kentucky in late July led to 45 deaths, senior meteorologist Tyler Roys said on Saturday. The floods destroyed homes and businesses and caused significant damage to schools, roads, bridges and water systems. Thousands of families lost all of their possessions.
Tennessee, 2021: Twenty people were killed when creeks near the small Middle Tennessee town of Waverly overflowed after more than 17 inches (43cm) of rain fell in less than 24 hours. Homes were washed off their foundations, cars wrecked and businesses demolished. The dead included twin babies who were swept from their father’s arms.
Hurricane Harvey, 2017: The storm barrelled into Texas in as a category 4 storm and wound up killing at least 68 people, according to the National Hurricane Center. All but three of the Harvey deaths were directly attributed to freshwater flooding, which damaged more than 300,000 structures and caused an estimated $125bn in damage.
West Virginia, 2016: A rainstorm that initially seemed not to be major turned into a catastrophe for the state, trapping dozens of people during the night and eventually leaving 23 people dead around West Virginia.
Continued next post
Updated
Here are some of the latest images coming in from central Texas over the newswires amid the flood devastation.
The longtime owner and director of Camp Mystic, Dick Eastland, reportedly died while trying to save campers, as posted earlier.
His grandson George Eastland has paid an emotional tribute on Instagram saying his grandfather’s impact will continue on.
The post said:
If he wasn’t going to die of natural causes, this was the only other way, saving the girls that he so loved and cared for. That’s the man my grandfather was. A husband, father, grandfather, and mentor to thousands of young women, he no longer walks this earth, but his impact will never leave the lives he touched.
The post also said he never once heard Eastland raise his voice and “never saw an ounce of hate or judgement leave your body”.
Although I am devastated, I can’t say I’m surprised that you sacrificed your life with the hopes of someone else’s being saved.
Search teams are using helicopters, boats and drones to look for victims in the flash floods that have torn across central Texas since the start of the Fourth of July weekend.
At the centre of the disaster is the scenic Texas Hill Country, where volunteers and some families of the missing have searched the riverbanks despite being asked not to do so. Authorities in surrounding areas closer to Austin, the state capital, have also recovered victims from flood waters.
The Associated Press has this rundown of the known toll of dead and missing.
Texas Hill Country
Flash floods striking with the force to rip away concrete slabs and giant trees tore across Guadalupe River banks dotted with children’s camps and campgrounds.
Kerr county authorities had confirmed at least 68 deaths as of Sunday and said they had no way to total the number of missing across the county, the hardest-hit by the floods.
Among Kerr county’s confirmed dead are at least 28 children. The missing campers were from Camp Mystic, the riverside Christian camp for girls in the small town of Hunt.
Travis county
Six people in Travis county died in the flooding, county spokesman Hector Nieto said on Sunday evening. The flash floods along creeks carried away homes, trailers, cars and people in the north-west part of the county.
Travis county judge Andy Brown, the county’s top executive, said earlier on Sunday that about 50 people have been rescued by helicopter, in boats and on foot. It had also sent resources to Kerr county, knowing that it was harder hit. While a flood watch remains in effect, officials say they have neutralised the initial emergency.
“Now we’re going to be moving into recovery,” said Eric Carter, chief emergency management eoordinator for Travis county.
Burnet county
Authorities in the largely rural county, which borders Travis county, reported three dead and five people missing in flood waters that surged out of Cow Creek and other waterways.
Other victims
Two deaths were reported in both Kendall and Williamson counties, and there was one in Tom Green county.
In Williamson county, in the north suburbs of Austin, the US military at nearby Fort Hood helped evacuate 16 people people from a home for disabled children, county judge Steve Snell said.
The victim in Tom Green county was a woman whose body was found outside her submerged car in the city of San Angelo.
Updated
Floods toll rises to 82
The death toll from the flash flooding in central Texas has risen to 82 after searchers found more bodies, the Associated Press is reporting.
Authorities say many more remain missing, including 10 girls from the Camp Mystic summer camp.
Searchers have now found 68 bodies in Kerr county, where a wall of water came down the Guadalupe River.
Sheriff Larry Leitha said the dead included 28 children.
Texas governor Greg Abbott warned on Sunday that additional rounds of heavy rains lasting into Tuesday could produce more life-threatening flooding.
Some families were allowed to look around the hardest hit camp in the Hill Country on Sunday while nearby crews continued their search.
Updated
The Federal Emergency Management Agency was activated on Sunday and is deploying resources to Texas first responders after Donald Trump issued a major disaster declaration, the homeland security department has said, and US coast guard helicopters and planes were aiding search and rescue efforts.
But as the Associated Press reports, Trump has previously outlined plans to cut back the federal government’s role in responding to natural disasters, leaving states to bear more of the burden themselves.
Some experts questioned whether the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce by – 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.
Trump’s administration has overseen thousands of job cuts from the National Weather Service’s parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), leaving many weather offices understaffed, according to 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 that they would inevitably degrade the agency’s ability to deliver accurate and timely forecasts.
Trump, as reported earlier, pushed back when asked on Sunday if federal government cuts hobbled the disaster response or left key job vacancies at the weather service, saying “that was really the Biden set-up”.
Updated
At the Vatican in Rome, the first pontiff from the US has said he is praying for those bereaved after the Texas floods.
Pope Leo XIV told crowds after his Sunday lunchtime blessing:
I would like to express sincere condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones, in particular their daughters who were at summer camp, in the disaster caused by the flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas in the United States. We pray for them.
Updated
Families permitted to look through Camp Mystic
Families have sifted through waterlogged debris and stepped inside empty cabins at Camp Mystic, the summer camp devastated by the flash floods that have killed at least 79 people.
Rescuers have been navigating challenging terrain including snakes in their continued search for the missing, including 10 girls and a counsellor from the all-girl Christian summer camp.
Families were allowed to look around Camp Mystic beginning on Sunday morning after Kerr county authorities said the risk of further flooding had passed, the Associated Press reports, describing the scene:
One girl walked out of a building carrying a large bell. A man, who said his 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.
A woman and a teenage girl, both wearing rubber waders, briefly went inside one of the cabins, which stood next to a pile of soaked mattresses, a storage trunk and clothes. At one point, the pair doubled over, sobbing before they embraced.
One family left with a blue footlocker. A teenage girl had tears running down her face looking out the open window, gazing at the wreckage as they slowly drove away.
While the families saw the devastation for the first time, nearby crews operating heavy equipment pulled tree trunks and tangled branches from the water as they searched the river.
With each passing hour, the outlook of finding more survivors became even more bleak.
Updated
People from elsewhere in Texas have converged on Kerr County to help search for the missing.
One of the searches focused on four young women who were staying in a house that was washed away by the Guadalupe River. Adam Durda and his wife Amber, both 45, drove three hours to help, Agence France-Presse reports.
“There was a group of 20-year-olds that were in a house that had gotten washed away,” Durda said.
That’s who the family requested help for, but of course, we’re looking for anybody.
Justin Morales, 36, was part of a search team that found three bodies, including that of a Camp Mystic girl caught up in a tree.
“We’re happy to give a family closure and hopefully we can keep looking and find some of the ... you know, whoever,” he told AFP.
Help give some of those families closure. That’s why we’re out here.
Texans also started flying personal drones to help look but local officials urged them to stop, citing a danger for rescue aircraft.
Updated
An official has said 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.
Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, told a press conference on Sunday afternoon that aircraft were sent to scout for additional flood waters, while search-and-rescue personnel who might be in harm’s way were alerted to pull back from the river in the meantime.
Reuters reports that Kidd said among those killed were three people in Burnet county, one in Tom Green county, five in Travis county and one in Williamson county.
“You will see the death toll rise today and tomorrow,” said Freeman Martin, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, also speaking on Sunday.
Officials said on Saturday that more than 850 people had been rescued, including some clinging to trees, after a sudden storm dumped up to 15 inches (38cm) of rain across the region, about 85 miles (140km) north-west of San Antonio.
Larry Leitha, the Kerr county sheriff in Texas Hill Country, told reporters:
Everyone in the community is hurting.
Updated
Trump rejects federal cuts affected disaster response
Expanding on the last post, Donald Trump was asked in relation to the Texas disaster whether he was still planning to phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency and said:
Fema is something we can talk about later. But right now they’re busy working so we’ll leave it at that.
Speaking to reporters at a New Jersey airport, the president was also asked if he was investigating whether some of the cuts to the federal government left key vacancies at the National Weather Service or in emergency coordination. He responded:
They didn’t. I’ll tell you, if you look at that, what a situation that all is – that was really the Biden set-up, that was not our set-up. But I wouldn’t blame Biden for it either. I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe and it’s just so horrible to watch.
Trump said Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, would continue to be in Texas and “we’re working very close” with Texas representatives.
Updated
Donald Trump has said cuts to the National Weather Service played no role in the disaster and that now was not the time to talk about his previously stated plan to eliminate Fema, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The president also said he would probably visit Texas on Friday and described the disaster as “absolutely horrible”.
Summary
The evening is quickly approaching as local residents in Kerrville, Texas, continue to receive flash flood warnings on their devices.
Here are the latest updates:
About 80 people are dead throughout the state due to the flooding in central Texas, according to state officials. Sixty-eight people are dead in Kerr County, including 40 adults and 28 children.
Texas governor Greg Abbott said earlier than 10 people in other areas of the state were found dead. The Kerr county sheriff said 18 adults and 10 children were still pending identification.
Ten Camp Mystic campers are missing, along with one counsellor, the sheriff said. During an afternoon press conference, Abbott confirmed there were 41 known missing people throughout the entire state.
Donald Trump sent a letter to Abbott this morning declaring the flooding to be a “major disaster”. The Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) would continue to deploy resources to the state to respond to the disaster.
Former president George W Bush, who also served as governor of Texas, expressed his condolences to the families on Sunday. His wife, Laura Bush, was a counsellor at Camp Mystic years ago.
As search and rescue efforts continue, locals are pressing officials about the area’s preparedness to the flooding – and officials are sidestepping those questions. According to reports, the area lacked an alarm system to warn of the incoming flood. Kerr County officials have unsuccessfully attempted to raise enough funds since at least 2018 to establish an alarm system.
Video posted on X by the Texas National Guard shows a group of campers who were evacuated by military members. As the truck drives by, one of the girls waves at the camera. Brown floodwater is seen in the background next to fallen trees.
Texas National Guardsmen evacuate a group of campers needing assistance near Kerrville. Texas Military Department (TMD) personnel have been working around the clock to assist with evacuations and search and rescue operations. pic.twitter.com/tNzyKLncHi
— Texas Military Dept. (@TXMilitary) July 6, 2025
The Kerrville city manager did not answer questions during a press conference on Sunday afternoon regarding concerns by locals there was not enough warning of the incoming flood.
Reports have surfaced showing that, since at least 2018, county officials unsuccessfully attempted to apply for grants for flood warning alarm systems.
Residents claimed they “got no emergency alerts, whatsoever,” a reporter said during the press conference. “Yes or no: did local agencies send out any emergency alerts, blares, sirens of any kind?”
“We don’t want to speculate at this time, we know there’s a lot of speculation and question around it,” said Dalton Rice, the city manager. “Again, there is going to be a full review of this, so we can make sure that we focus on future preparedness.”
“We want to continue to focus on the families at this time, so we’re getting through that.”
People in Kerrville, Texas received alerts on their phones warning of a “severe” emergency alert on Sunday late afternoon.
“A FLASH FLOOD WARNING is in effect for this area” until 6:30 p.m. central time, the alert reads.
“This is a dangerous and life-threatening situation. Do not attempt to travel unless you are fleeing an area subject to flooding or under an evacuation order.”
Several flash flood warnings are in effect throughout central Texas, the National Weather Service also said on Sunday afternoon, as “scattered showers and isolated thunderstorms continue to increase.”
The Kerr County sheriff said on Sunday that search and rescue efforts around the Johnson Creek area were being temporarily suspended, as a rise there could add “one or two feet” of additional water into the Guadalupe River.
“We are pulling our assets out of there right now, to be safe. We’ll determine where it’s safe again to put them back in there,” sheriff Larry Leitha said.
Nearly 80 dead in Texas after raging flood
There are now nearly 80 people confirmed dead due to the central Texas flood, according to state officials.
Larry Leitha, the Kerr County sheriff, said on Sunday afternoon that 68 people have died in the county, including 40 adults and 28 children. Earlier in the afternoon Texas’s governor Greg Abbott said that ten people in other areas of the state were found dead.
This means there is a total of at least 78 confirmed dead in the entire state of Texas.
According to Leitha, there are still 18 adults and 10 children who are pending identification in the county. And there are 10 Camp Mystic campers missing, along with one counselor.
Journalists have pressed the governor and local officials about a lack of alarm systems near the camps and how people affected could have been warned about the flood.
A report from KXAN, an NBC affiliate in Austin, said that Kerrville did not have an outdoor warning alarm system. The report says that while the National Weather Service and the local city Facebook page warned people to “move to higher ground,” the campers at Camp Mystic would likely not have seen the alert, due to the no electronic devices rule.
Additionally, the KXAN story says that since at least 2018, the Kerr County government has repeatedly applied for grants to install a flood warning system.
The Times later reported that Camp Mystic is 15 miles up the river from Kerrville, with a local resident saying the flood alert system may be impractical.
Texas’s governor Greg Abbott, when asked about the lack of sirens near the camps said it will be “something that will be looked at.”
Kerr County in Texas, where many of the flood deaths took place, did not have a warning alarm system to warn locals about the flood, the New York Times reported earlier.
NPR correspondent Sergio Martínez-Beltrán reports that as Texas’s governor Greg Abbott holds his ongoing press conference, people in Kerrville received an emergency alert, reading: “High confidence of river flooding at North Folks of river. Move to higher ground.”
The Texas Division of Emergency Management chief confirmed on Sunday afternoon they are continuing to searching for live victims of the flood.
They are also engaging in “recovery operations,” meaning they will also be cleaning up debris and clearing roadways.
Texas governor: 69 dead in the state after raging flood
Texas’s governor Greg Abbott said on Sunday afternoon during a press conference that there is a total of 69 confirmed dead in Texas from the deadly floods.
Abbott said there are 59 confirmed dead in Kerr County and another 10 confirmed dead in other Texas areas.
Updated
Texas officials said on Sunday during a press conference that there are unidentified bodies in a local funeral home, including both adults and children. Texas Rangers are collecting DNA from the bodies and families, and flying it to the University of North Texas in Dallas to try to identify the dead in “hours.”
Texas’s governor Greg Abbott confirmed that there are 41 known missing people throughout the entire state after the deadly flooding.
Eleven of those missing are girls who were at Camp Mystic.
Abbott encouraged people to contact local officials if they suspect and have concrete information that someone may be missing. “Call only if you have specific information,” Abbott said.
Texas’s governor Greg Abbott said on Saturday afternoon that officials continue with recovery efforts in central Texas after the devastating floods.
Abbott said he visited Camp Mystic on Saturday to view the destruction.
“We are working as swiftly as possible to get them accurate information that will provide that closure,” Abbott said regarding concerned parents searching for their children.
As the search for the missing continues, questions are being asked about the timing and manner of emergency warnings issued by state and local officials, with updates posted on Facebook in the middle of the night unlikely to have been seen by those in danger. A Kerr county official told the New York Times that emergency alert systems are expensive and the county’s taxpayers had not previously wanted to pay for one.
In the tense final moments of a news conference on Sunday morning, Kerrville city manager Dalton Rice refused to answer a reporter’s question about why information about the threat of flooding was not passed to camps along the river, and why they were not evacuated. “That is a great question”, Rice said, “but, again, we want to make sure that we continue to focus, we still have 11 missing children that we want to get reunited with their families.”
Rice and other local officials ended the news conference and walked away out of the room as reporters pressed them for answers. “Sir, was any emergency alert given out on the fourth, that morning of? Did anyone get any alerts?” one reporter asked. “Sir, there are families that deserve better than that”, another said, as Rice opened the door and walked away.
An eight-year-old girl was counted among the dead from Camp Mystic, according to local reporters.
Renee Smajstrla will forever “be living her best life” at Camp Mystic, her uncle told a reporter with KHOU 11. An image shared on social media of the eight-year-old was taken on 3 July, just one day before the devastating Texas flood.
More than 750 girls were staying at the all-girl Christian camp when the floods hit. As of earlier this morning, the number of missing girls from Camp Mystic has gone down to 11.
The death toll from the central Texas floods has risen to 70 after searchers found more bodies, the Associated Press reports.
As of this morning, local officials said that 11 girls from Camp Mystic remain missing. The total number of dead in Kerr County is 59, meaning the remaining dead are from surrounding areas.
Updated
Former president George W Bush, who was a former governor of Texas, issued a statement on the deadly flooding in Texas.
“On this day of prayer, Laura and I are holding up our fellow Texans who are hurting,” the statement reads. “We are heartbroken by the loss of life and the agony so many are feeling.
“Those who have lost their precious children are facing a grief no parents should ever know. We are grateful to the first responders and volunteers who are working to find the missing and comfort the grieving at Camp Mystic and along the Guadalupe. We know our words cannot help, but we believe the prayers of so many Americans will.”
Laura Bush, his wife, once worked as counselor at Camp Mystic while she studied at Southern Methodist University, Texas Monthly reported.
There are signs of damage all along Highway 39, which runs next to the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas, according to the New York Times. This includes fences being blown away, chunks of asphalt pavement being scattered across the grassed areas and debris from homes clinging to tree branches.
In a post on X, secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem confirmed that the department is deploying federal emergency management resources to Texas’s first responders, following Trump’s declaration of a major disaster.
In days prior, multiple federal agencies under the Department of Homeland Security helped with efforts in Texas, including the Coast Guard, Customs and Border Protection and an elite Border Patrol special response unit.
Trump declares deadly flooding a "major disaster"
Donald Trump declared the deadly flooding in Texas to be a major disaster under the Stafford Act on Sunday.
“I have authorized Federal relief and recovery assistance in the affected area,” said a letter signed and posted to social media by Trump to Texas’s governor Greg Abbott. “Individual Assistance and Public Assistance will be provided.”
Trump has designated the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate assistance efforts.
Updated
The National Weather Service has extended its flood watch through 7 p.m. central time for central Texas.
The Service warns that additional rainfall of two-to-four inches are possible, with “isolated pockets of 10 inches” also possible. “It is very difficult to pinpoint where exactly the isolated heavy amounts will occur in this pattern,” the National Weather Service posted on X.
Kerr County officials said that, as of 9 a.m. central time on Sunday, 38 adults and 21 children have died in the county due to the deadly flooding. Eighteen adults and four children have not been identified.
The remaining dead are from outlying areas. There are a total of nearly 70 dead.
There are 11 Camp Mystic campers and one counselor still missing, officials said.
Death toll from Texas flooding rises to nearly 70, officials say
The death toll due from the Texas floods has risen to nearly 70 overall on Sunday, with 59 people dead in Kerr County, officials said. The additional numbers are from outlying areas.
The number of missing girls from Camp Mystic has gone down to 11, from an original 27 missing.
Updated
A MAGA congressional candidate in Georgia shared strange posts on social media, claiming that the weather is being manipulated, as search and rescue efforts continue in Texas after deadly flooding.
Kandiss Taylor, who is running for Congress in Georgia for the 2026 elections, posted on X: “Fake weather. Fake hurricanes. Fake flooding. Fake. Fake. Fake.”
In another post, Taylor doubled-down, by sharing conspiracy theories about natural disasters: “This isn’t just ‘climate change.’ It’s cloud seeding, geoengineering, & manipulation. If fake weather causes real tragedy, that’s murder.”
X users responded to Taylor, slamming her for her tweets.
She later said that her posts were about legislation proposed by right-wing MAGA and conspiracy-theorist congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene that would prohibit “the injection, release, or dispersion of chemicals or substances into the atmosphere for the express purpose of altering weather.”
“I wasn’t talking about Texas with this post,” Taylor said. “Liberal left winged media twisted what I said to make it about Texas.”
The longtime owner and director of Camp Mystic, a Christian girls camp, died while trying to save campers, a local publication reports.
Dick Eastland was “kind and welcoming” and is described as a father figure to campers.
Camp Mystic was established in 1926 along the Guadalupe River in central Texas nearly a century ago “to provide young girls with a wholesome Christian atmosphere,” Reuters reports.
Dick and his wife Tweety Eastland, are the third generation of the family that bought the camp in 1939, the camp website says. There are still 27 girls missing from Camp Mystic.
“[Eastland] was family to so many campers,” wrote Paige Sumner in the Kerrville Daily Times. “It doesn’t surprise me at all that his last act of kindness and sacrifice was working to save the lives of campers.”
People in Texas describe the terrifying moments after deadly flooding swept through the central part of the state. The death toll has risen to 59 people.
One man describes him and his wife being swept by the water and holding onto a tree until rescuers arrived to help. “It was scary, it was really scary,” he said.
The Guardian’s video team produced this piece on people caught up in the floods.
Updated
Death toll from Texas flooding rises to 59, lieutenant governor says
The death toll from the flooding in Texas has risen to 59, according to the county’s Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick (up from the previous total of 51). More details soon…
Updated
Here is a graphic showing where Camp Mystic is located within the state of Texas:
Officials said this morning the tally of children missing from the Christian youth camp for girls stood at 27.
Updated
Officials have said waters in some parts of Texas are starting to recede to where they were before the storm.
The Guadalupe River near Kerrville – which surged by more than 20 feet within 90 minutes during the downpour — is, according to CNN, back down to just a foot or two higher than its level before the flood.
Updated
The hills along the Guadalupe River in central Texas are dotted with century-old youth camps and campgrounds where generations of families came to swim and enjoy the outdoors, Associated Press reports. The area is especially popular around the July Fourth holiday, making it more difficult to know how many are missing.
“We don’t even want to begin to estimate at this time,” Kerrville city manager Dalton Rice said earlier.
Search crews were facing harsh conditions while “looking in every possible location,” he said.
Updated
Jonathan Porter, the chief meteorologist at AccuWeather, a private weather forecasting company that uses National Weather Service data, said it appeared evacuations and other proactive measures could have been undertaken to reduce the risk of fatalities.
In a statement, he said:
People, businesses, and governments should take action based on flash flood warnings that are issued, regardless of the rainfall amounts that have occurred or are forecast.
As we mentioned in a previous post, local officials in Texas have said they had not expected such an intense downpour that was the equivalent of months’ worth of rain for the area.
“We know we get rains. We know the river rises,” said Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s top elected official. “But nobody saw this coming.”
As much as 10 inches of intense rainfall fell within a few hours overnight in central Kerr County on Friday, causing the Guadalupe River’s banks to burst at about 4am local time.
Pope Leo has sent condolences to the families of devastating floods in Texas which killed at least 51 people and left nearly 30 others missing, many of them children.
Following Angelus prayers, the pontiff said:
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.
Aftermath of Texas floods - in pictures
Here are some of the latest images coming out from Texas after devastating floods forced authorities to launch one of the largest search-and-rescue efforts in the state’s recent history:
Updated
What has the federal response to the Texas floods been?
US president Donald Trump addressed the deadly floods on Saturday. On his Truth Social platform, he said his administration was working with state and local officials on the ground in Texas to respond “to the tragic flooding” that occurred a day before.
“Our Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, will be there shortly,” Trump wrote.
Speaking at a press conference alongside Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Saturday, Noem pledged that the Trump administration would use all available resources to help the state in its rescue efforts, including by bringing in more fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to aid with operations.
She said the government would make it a priority to upgrade National Weather Service technology used to deliver warnings.
Noem said:
We know that everyone wants more warning time, and that’s why we’re working to upgrade the technology that’s been neglected for far too long to make sure families have as much advance notice as possible.
For context: Some state and local officials have said the NWS failed to provide accurate forecasts ahead of Friday’s destructive flooding.
“The original forecast that we received Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted 3-6 inches of rain in the Concho Valley and 4-8 inches in the Hill Country,” Texas emergency management chief W. Nim Kidd told journalists on Friday. “The amount of rain that fell at this specific location was never in any of those forecasts.”
The father of Blair, 13, and Brooke Harber, 11, confirmed to CNN yesterday that his daughters had died in the Texas flooding after having gone missing in Kerr County.
RJ Harber told CNN that Blair “was a gifted student and had a generous kind heart” and that Brooke “was like a light in any room, people gravitated to her and she made them laugh and enjoy the moment”.
Neither Blair or Brooke were at Camp Mystic when they went missing.
Updated
Questions have arose as to why the severity of the flooding in the middle of the night on the Fourth of July holiday caught many officials by surprise.
Here is an extract from a story by my colleagues Oliver Milman, José Olivares and Robert Mackey who have looked into the preparations for the flood and examined how federal policy may have impacted local projection capabilities:
Officials defended their preparations for severe weather and their response but said they had not expected such an intense downpour that was, in effect, the equivalent of months’ worth of rain for the area.
One National Weather Service (NWS) forecast this week had called for only 3-6in (76-152mm) of rain, said Kidd, of the Texas division of emergency management.
“It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw,” he said.
Saturday’s deaths renewed questions about whether it was wise for the Trump administration to implement deep budget and job cuts at the NWS – among other federal government agencies – since his second presidency began in January.
Updated
Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old Christian girls camp, had 700 girls in residence at the time of the flood, according to Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick.
Early Friday morning, shortly after the deluge hit, over 100 game wardens and an aviation group tried to access the camp, but they weren’t able to enter to start rescuing children until after midday, CNN reports.
One of the girls attending the camp, Renee Smajstrla, who was nine years old, was confirmed to be among the dead by her uncle.
“Renee has been found and while not the outcome we prayed for, the social media outreach likely assisted the first responders in helping to identify her so quickly,” Shawn Salta wrote on Facebook. “We are thankful she was with her friends and having the time of her life.”
Camp Mystic said in an email to parents of the campers that if they had not been contacted directly, their child had been accounted for.
Another girls’ camp in the area, 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.
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Search for missing continues with at least 51 people killed, including 15 children
We are restarting our live coverage of the devastating Texas floods.
Hundreds of rescuers are desperately searching for people missing in central Texas, after torrential rains caused devastating flooding that killed at least 51 people, including 15 children.
The total number of missing people is not yet clear, but officials say that 27 of them are girls who had been attending Camp Mystic, a Christian youth camp located along the River Guadalupe in Kerr County, the area worst affected by the flood.
The river rose more than 20 feet in less than two hours overnight into the July 4 holiday.
The flooding in Kerr County killed at least 43 people, including 15 children, and at least eight people died in nearby counties, including Travis County and Tom Green County.
Searchers used helicopters, boats and drones to look for victims and to rescue people stranded in trees and from camps isolated by washed-out roads.
Authorities said about 850 people had been rescued, with more than 1,700 people involved in the search-and-rescue operation.
Texas Governor Greg 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 a post on X, he wrote that Camp Mystic was “horrendously ravaged in ways unlike I’ve seen in any natural disaster” and vowed that rescuers would find “every girl who was in those cabins”.
Stay with us as we bring you the latest updates on the floods throughout the day.
