KERRVILLE: Search teams plodded through muddy riverbanks and flew aircraft over flood-ravaged central Texas as hopes dimmed of finding survivors among dozens still missing from a disaster that has claimed at least 104 lives, many of them children. Three days after a torrential predawn downpour transformed the Guadalupe River into a raging, killer torrent, a Christian girls' summer camp devastated by the flash flood confirmed that 27 campers and counselors were among those who had perished.
Ten girls and a camp counselor were still unaccounted for, officials said on Monday, as search-and-rescue personnel faced the potential of more heavy rains and thunderstorms while clawing through tonnes of muck-laden debris. The bulk of the death toll from Friday's calamity was concentrated in and around the riverfront town of Kerrville and the grounds of Camp Mystic, situated in a swath of Texas Hill Country known as "flash flood alley."
By Monday afternoon, the bodies of 84 flood victims - 56 adults and 28 children - were recovered in Kerr County, most of them in the county seat of Kerrville, according to the local sheriff. As of midday on Sunday, state and local officials said 12 other flood-related fatalities had been confirmed across five neighboring south-central Texas counties, and that 41 other people were still listed as missing outside Kerr County.
The New York Times, one of numerous news media outlets publishing varying death tolls, reported that at least 104 people had been killed across the entire flood zone. Debate also intensified over questions about how state and local officials reacted to weather alerts forecasting the possibility of a flash flood and the lack of an early warning siren system that might have mitigated the disaster. On Monday, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick vowed that the state would "step up" to pay for installing a flash-flood warning system in Kerrville by next summer if local governments "can't afford it." "There should have been sirens," Patrick said in a Fox News interview. "Had we had sirens here along this area...it's possible that we would have saved some lives."
While authorities continued to hold out hope that some of the missing would turn up alive, the likelihood of finding more survivors diminished as time passed. "This will be a rough week," Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring Jr said at a briefing on Monday morning. Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old Christian girls' retreat on the banks of the Guadalupe was at the epicenter of the disaster. "Our hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this unimaginable tragedy," the camp said in a statement on Monday. — Reuters
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