Death toll in central Texas flash floods rises to 79, over 10 campers remain missing
Texas flash flood: In Kerr County, home to Camp Mystic and other youth camps in the Texas Hill Country, searchers have found the bodies of 68 people, including 28 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha said.
The death toll in central Texas flash floods on Monday went up to 79 as sheriff said 10 campers are still missing. The families sifted through waterlogged debris on Sunday and stepped inside empty cabins at Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp ripped apart by flash floods that washed homes off their foundations in central Texas.
Rescue, search operations underway
Rescuers maneuvering through challenging terrain continued their desperate search for the missing, including 10 girls and a counsellor from the camp. For the first time since the storms began pounding Texas, Governor Greg Abbott said there were 41 people confirmed to be unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.
In Kerr County, home to Camp Mystic and other youth camps in the Texas Hill Country, searchers have found the bodies of 68 people, including 28 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha said.
10 deaths reported in Travis, Burnet, other places
He pledged to keep searching until “everybody is found” from Friday's flash floods. Ten other deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, according to local officials. The death toll is certain to rise over the next few days, said Colonel Freeman Martin of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The governor warned on Sunday that additional rounds of heavy rains lasting into Tuesday could produce more life-threatening flooding, especially in places already saturated.
Families were allowed to look around the camp beginning Sunday morning. 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. Volunteers and some families of the missing who drove to the disaster zone searched the riverbanks despite being asked not to do so.
Authorities faced growing questions about whether enough warnings were issued in an area long vulnerable to flooding and whether enough preparations were made.
(With inputs from AP)
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Texas floods leave over 20 girls missing from summer camp, at least 13 dead in deluge