Risk of further floods in Texas as death toll rises to 89

The risk of life-threatening flooding was still high in central Texas on Monday as crews searched for the missing following a weekend deluge that killed at least 89 people.

Operators of Camp Mystic, a century-old children’s summer camp in the Texas Hill Country, said on Monday that they lost 27 campers and counsellors, confirming their worst fears after a wall of water slammed into cabins built along the edge of the Guadalupe River.

“We have been in communication with local and state authorities who are tirelessly deploying extensive resources to search for our missing girls,” the camp said in a statement.

Residents of Kerr County began clearing mud and salvaging what they could from their demolished properties as they recounted harrowing escapes from rapidly rising floodwaters late on Friday.

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 neighbour was trapped in her attic, they went back and rescued her.

“Then they were able to reach their tool shed up higher ground, and neighbours throughout the early morning began to show up at their tool shed, and they all rode it out together,” Mr Brown said.

Governor Greg Abbott said 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, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said.

Ten other deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, according to local officials.

The governor warned that additional rounds of heavy rain lasting into Tuesday could produce more dangerous flooding, especially in places already saturated.

Families were allowed to look around the camp from Sunday morning. One girl walked out of a building carrying a large bell. 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.

Nearby crews operating heavy equipment pulled tree trunks and tangled branches from the river. With each passing hour, the outlook of finding more survivors became even more bleak.

Volunteers and some families of the missing came to the disaster zone and searched despite being asked not to do so.

Authorities faced growing questions about whether enough warnings were issued in an area long vulnerable to flooding and whether enough preparations were made.

President Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration on Sunday for Kerr County and said he would likely visit on Friday: “I would have done it today, but we’d just be in their way.

“It’s a horrible thing that took place, absolutely horrible,” he told reporters.

Governor 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.