Death toll rises after devastating flooding in central Texas

Families have sifted through waterlogged debris and stepped inside empty cabins at an all-girls summer camp ripped apart by flash floods that washed homes off their foundations and killed at least 79 people in central Texas.

Rescuers operating in challenging terrain continued their desperate search for the missing, including 10 girls from Camp Mystic.

For the first time since the storms began pounding Texas, Governor Greg Abbott said there were 41 people confirmed to be unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.

In Kerr County, home to Camp Mystic and other youth camps in the Texas Hill Country, searchers have found the bodies of 68 people, including 28 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha said on Sunday afternoon.

He pledged to keep searching until “everybody is found” from Friday’s flash floods.

Four deaths were also reported in Travis County, three in Burnet, two in Kendall and one each in Tom Green and Williamson counties, according to local officials. The death toll is certain to rise over the next few days, said Freeman Martin of the Texas Department of Public Safety.

The governor warned on Sunday that additional rounds of heavy rains lasting into Tuesday could produce more life-threatening flooding, especially in places already saturated.

Families were allowed to look around the camp on Sunday morning. One girl walked out of a building carrying a large bell. A man, who said his daughter was rescued from a cabin on the highest point in the camp, walked along the riverbank, looking in clumps of trees and under big rocks.

A woman and a teenage girl, both wearing rubber waders, briefly went inside one of the cabins, which stood next to a pile of soaked mattresses, a storage trunk and clothes. At one point, the pair doubled over, sobbing before they embraced.

While the families saw the devastation for the first time, nearby crews operating heavy equipment pulled tree trunks and tangled branches from the water as they searched the river.

With each passing hour, the hope of finding more survivors became even more bleak. Volunteers and some families of the missing who drove to the disaster zone searched the riverbanks despite being asked not to do so.

President Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration on Sunday for Kerr County, activating the Federal Emergency Management Agency to Texas. “These families are enduring an unimaginable tragedy, with many lives lost, and many still missing,” Mr Trump posted on social media.

The destructive, fast-moving waters rose 26ft on the river in only 45 minutes before daybreak Friday, washing away homes and vehicles.

Searchers used helicopters, boats and drones to look for victims and to rescue people stranded in trees and from camps isolated by washed-out roads. Officials said more than 850 people were rescued in the first 36 hours.

Mr Abbott vowed that authorities will work around the clock and said new areas were being searched as the water receded. He declared Sunday a day of prayer for the state.

“I urge every Texan to join me in prayer this Sunday — for the lives lost, for those still missing, for the recovery of our communities, and for the safety of those on the front lines,” he said in a statement.

In Rome, Pope Leo XIV offered special prayers for those touched by the disaster. History’s first American pope spoke in English at the end of his Sunday noon blessing, saying “I would like to express sincere condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones, in particular their daughters who were in summer camp, in the disaster caused by the flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas in the United States. We pray for them.”

The hills along the Guadalupe River are dotted with youth camps and campgrounds where generations of families have come to swim and enjoy the outdoors. The area is especially popular around the Independence Day holiday, making it more difficult to know how many are missing.

“We don’t even want to begin to estimate at this time,” Kerrville City manager Dalton Rice said on Saturday.

Survivors shared terrifying stories of being swept away and clinging to trees as rampaging floodwaters carried trees and cars past them. Others fled to attics inside their homes, praying the water would not 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 those confirmed dead were an eight-year-old girl from Mountain Brook, Alabama, who was at Camp Mystic, and the director of another camp up the road.

Locals know the area as “ flash flood alley” but the flooding in the middle of the night caught many campers and residents by surprise even though there were warnings.

The National Weather Service on Thursday 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 — a rare alert notifying of imminent danger.