By JIM VERTUNO, NADIA LATHAN and JOHN SEEWER Associated Press
KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — The death toll from catastrophic flooding in Texas over the July Fourth weekend surpassed 100 on Monday as search-and-rescue teams continued to wade into swollen rivers and use heavy equipment to untangle trees as part of the massive search for missing people.
Authorities overseeing the search for flood victims said they will wait to address questions about weather warnings and why some summer camps did not evacuate ahead of the flooding that killed at least 104.
The officials spoke only hours after the operators of Camp Mystic, a century-old all-girls Christian summer camp in the Texas Hill Country, announced that they lost 27 campers and counselors to the floodwaters. Kerr County officials said Monday 10 campers and one counselor have still not been found.
Searchers have found the bodies of 84 people, including 28 children, in the county home to Camp Mystic and several other summer camps, officials said.
With additional rain on the way, more flooding still threatened saturated parts of central Texas. Authorities said the death toll was sure to rise.
The raging flash floods — among the nation’s worst in decades — slammed into camps and homes along the edge of the Guadalupe River before daybreak Friday, pulling sleeping people out of their cabins, tents and trailers and dragging them for miles past floating tree trunks and cars. Some survivors were found clinging to trees.
Piles of twisted trees sprinkled with mattresses, refrigerators and coolers littered the riverbanks Monday. The debris included reminders of what drew so many to the campgrounds and cabins in the Hill Country — a volleyball, canoes and a family portrait.
Nineteen deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, local officials said.
Among those confirmed dead were 8-year-old sisters from Dallas who were at Camp Mystic and a former soccer coach and his wife who were staying at a riverfront home. Their daughters were still missing.
Calls for finding why warnings weren’t heard
Authorities vowed that one of the next steps would be investigating whether enough warnings were issued and why some camps did not evacuate or move to higher ground in a place long vulnerable to flooding that some local residents refer to as “flash flood alley.”
That will include a review of how weather warnings were sent out and received. One of the challenges is that many camps and cabins are in places with poor cellphone service, Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said.
“We definitely want to dive in and look at all those things,” he said. “We’re looking forward to doing that once we can get the search and rescue complete.”
Some camps were aware of the dangers and monitoring the weather. At least one moved several hundred campers to higher ground before the floods.
Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said recent government spending cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Weather Service did not delay any warnings.
“There’s a time to have political fights, there’s a time to disagree. This is not that time,” Cruz said. “There will be a time to find out what could been done differently. My hope is in time we learn some lessons to implement the next time there is a flood.”
The weather service first advised of potential flooding on Thursday and then sent out a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours of Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies — a rare step that alerts the public to imminent danger.
Authorities and elected officials have said they did not expect such an intense downpour, the equivalent of months of rain. Some residents said they never received any warnings.
President Donald Trump, who signed a major disaster declaration for Kerr County, said he plans to visit the state on Friday. He had said Sunday that he does not plan to rehire any of the federal meteorologists who were fired this year.
“This was a thing that happened in seconds. Nobody expected it,” the president said.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said local and federal weather services provided sufficient warnings.
Crews search for dozens of people
More than three dozen people were unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing, Gov. Greg Abbott said Sunday.
Search-and-rescue crews at one staging area said Monday that more than 1,000 volunteers had been directed to Kerr County.
Kerrville city officials urged people to stop flying drones over the area after they said a private drone operating illegally Monday afternoon collided with a helicopter involved in emergency operations. The helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing and is out of service until further notice.
Little time to escape floods
Reagan Brown said his parents, in their 80s, managed to escape uphill as water inundated their home in the town of Hunt. When the couple learned that their 92-year-old neighbor was trapped in her attic, they went back and rescued her.
“Then they were able to reach their tool shed up higher ground, and neighbors throughout the early morning began to show up at their tool shed, and they all rode it out together,” Brown said.
Elizabeth Lester, a mother of children who were at Camp Mystic and nearby Camp La Junta during the flood, said her young son had to swim out his cabin window to escape. Her daughter fled up the hillside as floodwaters whipped against her legs.
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Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Michael Biesecker and Brian Slodysko in Washington; Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama; Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City and Sophia Tareen in Chicago.