Texas officials estimate 161 people are missing after floods as death toll rises to 109
By Sneha Dey, Alejandro Serrano, Jayme Lozano Carver, Eleanor Klibanoff and Colleen DeGuzman
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KERRVILLE — Search and rescue teams are looking for 161 missing people in Kerr County, possible victims of the July 4 Hill Country flood whose death toll has climbed to 109 victims, according to an update from Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday afternoon.
“We will not stop until every missing person is accounted for,” Abbott said.
First responders in the Hill Country continued their search for bodies through Tuesday in the aftermath of the floods as hopes of finding survivors dimmed.
Abbott added Tuesday that five children from Camp Mystic and a counselor were also missing. One child who was not associated with the camp is also missing, he said. Twelve other people throughout the state are missing, as well.
At least seven people died in Travis County, six in Kendall County, three in Burnet County, two in Williamson County and one in Tom Green County.
“It’s extremely treacherous,” Ben Baker, of Texas Game Wardens said of search efforts during a news conference Tuesday, adding that his team has searched at least 26 miles of the river. “We’re having to go layer by layer peeling these off to make these recoveries.”
Tanner Jacobs is among the hundreds of first responders that have been wading through muddy ground and layers of debris along the side of the Guadalupe River to look for bodies and victims’ keepsakes.
“As bodies are found, we’ve been responding ... That has slowed down,” Jacobs, who is part of a recovery strike team out of the governor’s office, said Tuesday. “We’re thinking that what may be left are going to be up underneath these piles of debris. So we are waiting for people to turn up.”
The search team has had to use heavy equipment. It is like this for miles along the river: Excavators pick up log jams, first responders and volunteers sift through it for signs of life.
Jacobs was supposed to go home Monday. But he told supervisors at his regular job he couldn’t leave, not yet, not while families were still desperate for their girls to come home.
Amid search and rescue efforts, Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring Jr. said Monday he cannot get over the response to help the city and surrounding areas after the flood. He said he wants everyone to know how thankful he is for all the first responders and volunteers. Nearly 1,000 people have come to Kerrville as either first responders to help the search-and-response teams or volunteers to help those displaced by the flooding, he said.
“These are not just guys with a pickup and a chainsaw," Herring said. "They are trained professionals who are here doing a grim job."
The Hill Country flood death toll is higher than the total number of flood-related deaths recorded across the country last year, along with the year before. The flood is among the deadliest natural disasters the state has seen, and it is the second deadliest flood after the 1921 flood in San Antonio, which killed 215 people.
Among those killed were 27 campers and counselors from Camp Mystic, a summertime Christian retreat for generations of Texas girls. The camp’s director, Richard “Dick” Eastland, also died. Five campers and a counselor were among the missing Tuesday.
At least 25 people were reported missing across the region Monday, but it is not clear how many people in total are still unaccounted for. A local government official said Monday it was still “a lot” after days of search and rescue operations. Those searching said they have been dealing with prank calls, false tips and rugged terrain across a roughly 60-mile area.
Abbott visited Camp Mystic and the surrounding areas on Tuesday. President Donald Trump is also planning to visit the region on Friday to tour the damage, which one estimate placed between $18 billion and $22 billion in destruction and economic losses.
Amid the tragedy, attention has turned to measures that could help prevent similar disasters in a region prone to flash floods. The flash floods raised questions about whether people in the area had received adequate warning. Local and state officials have said that National Weather Service forecasts did not accurately predict the intensity of the rainfall.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, the state’s second-in-command, said Monday that “there should have been sirens here.”
The New York Times reported over the weekend that there was hesitation from locals to spend money on such a system because of the high cost. “Taxpayers won’t pay for it,” Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly told the Times.
“The state needs to step up and pay for these,” Patrick said on Fox News. “Had we had sirens along this area, up and down — the same type of sirens that they have in Israel when there’s an attack coming that would have blown very loudly, it’s possible that that would have saved some of these lives.”
Abbott has suggested lawmakers might address the issue during an upcoming special legislative session set to begin in two weeks. Patrick said the sirens must be in place “by the next summer.”
State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican, said Monday that he intends to introduce legislation to create a system of alert sirens for flash flood–prone river valleys.
“We are going to combine ‘old-tech’ sirens (emergency alert overrides that can’t be turned off) with ‘new-tech’ to alert Texans to get to higher ground,” Bettencourt wrote on social media. “It’s time to go back to what worked and still does in Tornado Alley, civil defense sirens.”
In Washington, D.C., White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the National Weather Service’s meteorologists, telling reporters that they had “executed timely and precise forecasts and warnings.”