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.
© Thomson Reuters 2025.
18 Comments
Yrral
I stay about 250 miles from Central Texas,it rain almost every day in June
patkim
What? Doesn't the National Weather Service have enough staff to handle accumulating the correct data to give the proper estimate of rain to fall? Oh, that's right ....I forgot ....
What about NOAA? Shouldn't they be monitoring the weather for extreme patterns so that they can coordinate with NWS? Oh, that's right .... I forgot ...
And where's FEMA to handle the recovery efforts? Oh, that's right .... I forgot ....
While I get it that the flooding was totally unpreventable, 27 lives did not have to be lost.
wallace
27 young girls are missing. More than 32 dead, including 14 children. Tragic for the families and friends. How much of this was due to climate change? The recovery will take a long time.
patkim
Good question. Would be nice to have that funding for environmental protections and clean fuel initiatives back. Not to mention funding for weather forecasting and early warning systems.
Desert Tortoise
It has come out that the NWS did indeed issue a Flash Flood Warning in the early hours of Thursday morning that included cell phone alerts to residents. Later that morning they issued a rare Flash Flood Emergency again with telephone warnings. It looks like NWS did their job correctly updating forecasts over the wee hours of the morning as weather developed. The county and local city officials had no system to evacuate residents based on NWS warnings and indeed appear to have been unaware that the NWS had issued the Flash Flood Warning or Flash Flood Emergency. It has also come out the county considered installing a flood warning system with sirens along the river but there was public push back over the cost so the system was never built.
Desert Tortoise
Large Marge is blaming it on climate modification and using the flood to push a bill in Congress prohibiting weather modification and her favorite boogeyman, "chemtrails". MAGA candidate Kandiss Taylor posted the following on social media.
"“Fake weather. Fake hurricanes. Fake flooding. Fake. Fake. Fake.” "his isn’t just ‘climate change.’ It’s cloud seeding, geoengineering, & manipulation,“ she added. ”If fake weather causes real tragedy, that’s murder. Pray. Prepare. Question the narrative.”
I couldn't make this stuff up. This is how whacked out the Republican Party has become.
https://www.rawstory.com/kandiss-taylor-maga/
TokyoLiving
Texas being Texas..
Desert Tortoise
Here is a description of the NWS warnings prior to the flood. NWS did their job. Local officials didn't.
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/07/05/texas-hill-country-floods-warning-forecast-nws/
ClippetyClop
What an imbecile. Beyond sick and depraved. She's sure to be elected.
Desert Tortoise
Eh, taxpayer opposition to costly projects are not confined to Texas, or even to so-called red states.
Jimizo
That’s truly depressing.
MAGA has reached out to the bottom of the barrel conspiracy theorists.
Some conspiracy theorists are just a bit of knockabout fun, but these cretins are dangerous.
Tragic news. Texas a place I have fond memories of.
Cephus
"It has come out that the NWS did indeed issue a Flash Flood Warning in the early hours of Thursday morning that included cell phone alerts to residents. Later that morning they issued a rare Flash Flood Emergency again with telephone warnings. It looks like NWS did their job correctly updating forecasts over the wee hours of the morning as weather developed. The county and local city officials had no system to evacuate residents based on NWS warnings and indeed appear to have been unaware that the NWS had issued the Flash Flood Warning or Flash Flood Emergency. It has also come out the county considered installing a flood warning system with sirens along the river but there was public push back over the cost so the system was never built."
Thanks for the clarification, 43 deaths are one too many even after rare flash flood warnings.
deanzaZZR
Yikes. Mistakes were made. Also, Mother Nature does Mother Nature things.
RIP
Bret T
patkimToday 06:30 am JST
What? Doesn't the National Weather Service have enough staff to handle accumulating the correct data to give the proper estimate of rain to fall? Oh, that's right ....I forgot ....
What about NOAA? Shouldn't they be monitoring the weather for extreme patterns so that they can coordinate with NWS? Oh, that's right .... I forgot ...
And where's FEMA to handle the recovery efforts? Oh, that's right .... I forgot ....
@ patkim, Please educate yourself before plying your political tripe:
courtesy of Desert Tortoise
It has come out that the NWS did indeed issue a Flash Flood Warning in the early hours of Thursday morning that included cell phone alerts to residents. Later that morning they issued a rare Flash Flood Emergency again with telephone warnings. It looks like NWS did their job correctly updating forecasts over the wee hours of the morning as weather developed. The county and local city officials had no system to evacuate residents based on NWS warnings and indeed appear to have been unaware that the NWS had issued the Flash Flood Warning or Flash Flood Emergency. It has also come out the county considered installing a flood warning system with sirens along the river but there was public push back over the cost so the system was never built.
Desert Tortoise
That was not the first deadly flash flood on the very same river. It has a history of similar floods.
buchailldana
Tragic
But as weather gets more extreme
Maybe not the right time to cut all the research
Asiaman7
All true, but the water rose to deadly levels in only 45 minutes at 3:00 a.m. in a powerful dark storm of thunder and lightning. It would have been very challenging for staff likely not trained for such a disaster to anticipate this outcome and save the lives of those young children at Camp Mystic.
In fact, if this disaster could have been anticipated, that camp would never have been built because its basically a death trap in case of such a flood.
—
This video provides more details: https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/05/weather/video/texas-floods-summer-camp-mystic-ed-lavandera-digvid
nishikat
Has Trump had a TV press conference regarding this? He's just announcing his thoughts and prayers on TrumpBookSocial? What kind of a president is this?