The death toll from catastrophic floods in Texas reached at least 67 yesterday, including 21 children, as the search for girls missing from a summer camp entered a third day.
Larry Leitha, the Kerr County Sheriff in Texas Hill Country, the epicentre of the flooding, said the death toll in Kerr County had reached 59, including the 21 children.
Leitha said 11 girls and a counsellor remained missing from a summer camp near the Guadalupe River, which broke its banks after torrential rain fell in the central Texas area on Friday, the US Independence Day holiday.
A Travis County official said four people had died from the flooding there, with 13 unaccounted for, and officials reported another death in Kendall County. The Burnet County Sheriff’s office reported two fatalities. A woman was found dead in her submerged car in the city of San Angelo in Tom Green County, the police chief said.
Leitha said there were 18 adults and four children still pending identification in Kerr County. He did not say if those 22 individuals were included in the death count of 59.
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 of rain across the region, about 140 km northwest of San Antonio. It was unclear exactly how many people in the area were still missing.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency was activated yesterday and is deploying resources to first responders in Texas after President Donald Trump issued a major disaster declaration, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
US Coastguard helicopters and planes are helping the search and rescue efforts, DHS said.
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.
Some experts questioned whether cuts to the federal workforce by the Trump administration, 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, 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 that they would inevitably degrade the agency’s ability to deliver accurate and timely forecasts.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who oversees NOAA, said a “moderate” flood watch issued on Thursday by the National Weather Service had not accurately predicted the extreme rainfall and said the Trump administration was working to upgrade the system.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
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