- The death toll is expected to increase.
- 11 girls, counselor who still are missing in the summer camp.
- The total missing number is not yet clear.
The number of dead for catastrophic floods in Texas reached at least 67 on Sunday, including 21 boys, since the search for girls missing in a summer camp entered a third day.
Larry Leitha, Kerr’s County Sheriff in Texas Hill Country, the epicenter of floods, said the death toll in Kerr County had reached 59, including 21 children.
Leitha said that 11 girls and a counselor remained missing in a summer camp near the Guadalupe River, which broke its banks after the torrential rain fell in the central area of Texas on Friday, the holidays of the Independence Day of the United States.
A Travis County official said that four people had died from the floods there, with 13 not counted, and the authorities reported another death in Kendall County. The Burnet County Sheriff’s office reported two deaths. A woman was found dead in her car submerged in the city of San Angelo in Tom Green County, said the police chief.
Leitha said there were 18 adults and four children who are still waiting for identification in Kerr County. He did not say if those 22 people were included in the death count of 59.
The authorities said on Saturday that more than 850 people had been rescued, including some clinging to the trees, after a sudden storm threw up to 15 inches (38 cm) of rain throughout the region, about 85 miles (140 km) northwest of San Antonio. It was not clear exactly how many people in the area were still missing.
“Everyone in the community is suffering,” Leitha told reporters.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency was activated on Sunday and is deploying resources for the first to respond in Texas after President Donald Trump issued a great disaster statement, said the National Security Department in a statement.
The helicopters and aircraft of the United States Coast Guard are helping search and rescue efforts, DHS said.
Some experts questioned whether the federal workforce cuts by the Trump administration, even to the agency that supervises the National Meteorological Service, led to a failure of the officials to precisely predict the seriousness of the floods and issue appropriate warnings before the storm.
The Trump administration has supervised thousands of employment cuts of the Maternal Agency of the National Meteorological Service, the Oceanic and Atmospheric National Administration, leaving many weather offices with little personal, said former director of NOAA, Rick Spinrad.
He said he did not know if these personnel cuts were considered the lack of early warning for the extreme floods of Texas, but that they would inevitably degrade the capacity of the agency to offer precise and timely forecasts.
The Secretary of National Security, Kristi Noem, who supervises NOAA, said that a “moderate” flood surveillance issued Thursday by the National Meteorological Service had not precisely predicted the extreme rain and said that the Trump administration was working to improve the system.
The White House did not respond to a request for comments.
Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democratic congressman, told the “State of the Union” of CNN that less personnel in the weather service could be dangerous.
“When you have sudden floods, there is a risk that if you don’t have the staff … to do that analysis, make predictions in the best way, it could lead to tragedy,” Castro said.
More rain
More rain was expected in the area on Sunday. The National Meteorological Service issued a flood surveillance for Kerr County until local time of 1 PM
The disaster was quickly developed on Friday morning as the heaviest rain that the leak took to the river waters quickly to 29 feet (9 meters).
Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, said at a press conference on Saturday that he had asked Trump to sign a disaster statement, which would unlock federal aid for those affected. Noem said Trump would honor that request.
Trump has previously outlined plans to climb the role of the federal government in the response to natural disasters, leaving the states to support the load more.
The 11 missing girls and the counselor were from the Mystic Summer Camp camp, a Camp of Christian girls of almost a century, which had 700 girls in residence at the time of flooding.
A day after the disaster hit, the camp was a devastation scene. Within a cabin, the mud lines indicated how high the water had increased at least at at least six feet (1.83 m) from the floor. The bed frames, mattresses and personal belongings covered with mud were scattered inside.
Some buildings had broken windows, one had a missing wall.
