By Jim Vertuno and John Seewer
Associated Press
KERRVILLE, Texas 鈥� Crews trudged through debris and waded into swollen riverbanks Monday in the search for victims of over the July Fourth weekend that killed more 80 people in Texas, including more than two dozen campers and counselors from an all-girls Christian camp.
With more rain on the way, the risk of was still high in saturated parts of central Texas. Authorities said the death toll was sure to rise as crews looked for the many people who were still missing.
Operators of Camp Mystic, a in the Texas Hill Country, said Monday that they lost 27 campers and counselors, confirming their worst fears after a wall of water slammed into cabins built along the edge of the Guadalupe River.
鈥淲e have been in communication with local and state authorities who are tirelessly deploying extensive resources to search for our missing girls,鈥� the camp said in a statement.
The floods, among the nation鈥檚 , swept away people sleeping in tents, cabins and homes along the river Friday in the middle of the night.
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.
鈥淭hen 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,鈥� Brown said.
A few miles away, rescuers maneuvering through challenging terrain filled with snakes kept up the search for the missing.
Gov. Greg Abbott said Sunday that 41 people were unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.
In the Hill Country area, home to several summer camps, searchers have found the bodies of 68 people, including 28 children, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said.
Twelve other Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, according to local officials.
Families were allowed to look around Camp Mystic beginning Sunday morning. A man whose 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.
One family left with a blue footlocker. A teenage girl had tears running down her face as they slowly drove away and she gazed through the open window at the wreckage.
Searching the disaster zone
Crews operating heavy equipment pulled tree trunks and tangled branches from the river. With each passing hour, the prospect of finding more survivors dimmed.
Search-and-rescue crews at one staging area said Monday that more than 1,000 volunteers had been directed to an area of hard-hit Kerr County.
Authorities faced about whether enough warnings were issued in an area long and whether enough preparations were made.
President Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration Sunday for Kerr County and said he would likely visit Friday. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a horrible thing that took place, absolutely horrible,鈥� he told reporters.
Desperate refuge and trees and attics
Survivors shared terrifying stories of being swept away and clinging to trees as floodwaters carried trees and cars past them. Others fled to attics, praying the water wouldn鈥檛 reach them.
At Camp Mystic, a cabin full of girls held onto a rope strung by rescuers as they walked across a bridge with water whipping around their legs.
Among were an 8-year-old girl from Mountain Brook, Alabama, who was at the camp, and the director of another camp up the road.
Two school-age sisters from Dallas were missing Sunday after their cabin was swept away. Their parents were staying in a different cabin and were safe, but the girls鈥� grandparents were unaccounted for.
Warnings came before the disaster
On Thursday the National Weather Service advised of potential flooding and then sent out a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours of Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies 鈥� a rare alert notifying the public of imminent danger.
Authorities and elected officials have said they did not expect such an intense downpour, the equivalent of for the area.
Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said authorities are committed to a full review of the emergency response.
Trump, asked whether he was still planning to phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said that was something 鈥渨e can talk about later, but right now we are busy working.鈥� He has said he wants to overhaul if not completely eliminate FEMA and has sharply criticized its performance.
Trump said he doesn鈥檛 plan to rehire any of the federal meteorologists who were fired this year as part of widespread government spending cuts.
鈥淭his was a thing that happened in seconds. Nobody expected it. Nobody saw it. Very talented people there, and they didn鈥檛 see it,鈥� the president said.
