Hopes of finding dozens of people missing in Texas floods alive fade
KERRVILLE: As expectations waned for the recovery of survivors among the dozens still missing from a calamity that has claimed at least 96 lives, many of them youngsters, search teams labored through muddy riverbanks and flew planes over flood-ravaged central Texas on Monday.
A Christian girls’ summer camp ravaged by the flash flood announced that 27 children and staff were among those who had died, three days after a heavy predawn rain turned the Guadalupe River into a rushing, deadly river.
Officials reported Monday that 10 girls and a camp counselor remained missing as search and rescue workers combed through heaps of muck-filled debris, perhaps facing more intense rain and thunderstorms.
The majority of Friday’s fatalities were focused in and around the riverbank town of Kerrville and the grounds of Camp Mystic, which is located in what is described as “flash flood alley,” a region of the Texas Hill Country.
According to the local sheriff, the remains of 84 flood victims—56 adults and 28 children—had been found in Kerr County by Monday afternoon, with the majority of them being found in Kerrville, the county seat.
As of Sunday noon, state and local authorities reported that 41 other individuals were still listed as missing outside of Kerr County and that 12 further flood-related deaths had been verified in five nearby south-central Texas counties.
At least 104 people have been murdered in the whole flood zone, according to the New York Times, one of several news sources that have released conflicting fatality figures.
Questions about how state and local authorities responded to weather advisories predicting the potential for a flash flood and the absence of an early warning siren system that may have prevented the catastrophe further sparked more heated debate.
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick promised Monday that if local governments “can’t afford it,” the state will “step up” to cover the cost of building a flash flood warning system in Kerrville by the following summer.
Patrick said, “There should have been sirens” during an appearance with Fox News. “Had we had sirens here along this area…it’s possible that we would have saved some lives.”
“ROUGH WEEK” AHEAD
The possibility of discovering additional survivors dwindled with time, despite officials’ persistent optimism that some of the missing would be found alive.
“This will be a rough week,” Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring Jr. said at a Monday morning briefing.
At the heart of the catastrophe was Camp Mystic, a Christian girls’ retreat on the Guadalupe that had been there for over a century.
“Our hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this unimaginable tragedy,” the camp stated in a statement released on Monday.
According to local news outlets, 70-year-old Richard “Dick” Eastland, co-owner and director of Mystic, lost his life attempting to save children at his camp from the water. The camp’s website states that he and his spouse, Tweety Eastland, have owned it since 1974.
George Eastland, Eastland’s grandson, said on Instagram, “This was the only alternative, saving the girls that he so loved and cared for, if he wasn’t going to die of natural causes.”
A SKY MISHAP
On Monday, a search helicopter had to make an emergency landing when a privately controlled drone struck it in restricted airspace above the Kerr County flood zone, costing authorities one of its aviation assets. According to the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office, the aircraft was placed out of action, but no injuries were recorded.
According to Monday’s National Weather Service estimates, Texas Hill Country may get up to 4 additional inches of rain, with isolated locations potentially receiving up to 10 inches (25 cm).
Because of the wet soil and the piles of debris already scattered along the river channel, officials warned the area was still particularly susceptible to further floods.
Ahead of the July 4 vacation, state disaster management authorities issued a warning Thursday that, according to National Weather Service projections, flash floods might occur in sections of central Texas.
However, just upstream of the bifurcation where they confluence, two branches of the Guadalupe received twice as much rain as anticipated, which sent all of the water hurtling down the one river channel that cuts through Kerrville, according to City Manager Dalton Rice.
According to Rice, the conclusion was unexpected and happened in under two hours, leaving insufficient time for a major evacuation to be carried out as a precaution without running the risk of endangering additional people.
Authorities in flood-prone regions, such as the Guadalupe River basin, must also weigh the possibility of making a mistake in predicting a disaster against the need to not “cry wolf,” he added.
However, according to a group of European experts, climate change has contributed to the development of warmer, wetter weather patterns that increase the likelihood of floods and heavy rains.
According to Davide Faranda of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), “Events of this kind are no longer exceptional in a warming world.” “Climate change loads the dice toward more frequent and more intense floods.”
According to the Houston Chronicle and New York Times, Kerr County authorities had contemplated putting in a flood warning system around eight years before but abandoned the idea because it was too expensive after they were unable to get a $1 million grant to finance it.