The authorities said that emergency workers had rescued more than 230 people so far after flooding along the Guadalupe River and would keep working through the night.
Search and rescue teams were working throughout the night in Central Texas after flooding that began early Friday swept through a summer camp and homes, killing at least 24 people and leaving as many as 25 girls missing from the camp.
The girls were at Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River in Hunt, in Kerr County, according to the county sheriff. Desperate parents posted photos of their children online, seeking any information, and others went to reunification centers to try to find missing loved ones. An unknown number of other people were also missing, Kerr County said in an update on Friday night, citing the sheriff, Larry Leitha.
Texas officials said that they had faced the difficult choice between having residents shelter in place or evacuate to higher ground, which could have led to vehicles being swept away.
Early Thursday afternoon, the National Weather Service issued a broad flood watch for parts of south-central Texas, including Kerr County, warning that a slow-moving storm system was expected to bring anything from scattered showers to intense storms through Friday morning.
Such warnings are common when conditions are favorable for a weather event, and are often followed by a warning when a dangerous event is occurring or about to occur.
Nim Kidd, the chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, said a National Weather Service advisory issued Thursday “did not predict the amount of rain that we saw.” Officials and residents have said they were caught off guard by the torrential rain that led to deadly flooding in the early hours of Friday.
Sheriff Larry Leitha of Kerr County said that the number of people missing was still 23 to 25 people.
Texas officials said they could not provide an update on the number of people who remain unaccounted for. Earlier on Friday, they said some 20 girls attending a camp were missing.
The Texas National Guard made 237 rescues and evacuations from the floods, using helicopters and rescue swimmers, said Maj. Gen. Thomas M. Suelzer, the commander of the guard at a news conference.
Freeman F. Martin, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said emergency workers would continue searching for survivors around the clock, working in shifts. “We will not stop until we find every last person,” he said. He said he hoped the weather on Saturday would make their job easier.
Sheriff Larry Leitha of Kerr County provided an updated death toll from the flooding, saying 24 bodies had been found.
Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas signed an emergency disaster declaration encompassing several counties in central Texas affected by the deadly floods. The order will expedite state funding for the areas that experienced significant damage.
Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas said during an evening news conference that emergency workers were still in a “search and rescue posture,” as officials remained hopeful more flood victims would be found alive.
A flood watch expired at 7 p.m. but a flood warning will stay in effect overnight as well as river flood warnings, according to the National Weather Service’s offices in Abilene and San Angelo, Texas.
Gov. Greg Abbott will hold a news conference at 9 p.m. Central time, according to the governor’s office. It will be live-streamed on the Texas Division of Emergency Management’s Facebook page.
The city of Kerrville is asking residents to minimize nonessential water usage, according to a Facebook post. The city’s water treatment plant is not working.
The Archdiocese of San Antonio said that a Catholic charities mobile relief unit was at Notre Dame Church in Kerrville, Texas, to pass out food, clothing, hygiene products and water. Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller and Bishop Michael Boulette are also in Kerrville to support family members, the archdiocese said.
Her children appeared lively and happy when they hopped on a large white pickup truck Friday evening outside an elementary school used as a reunification center for parents whose children were rescued from a camp overtaken by floodwaters overnight.
But their mother, Serena Hanor Aldrich, cautioned there was no telling how they would be affected by what might be a tragedy enveloping Camp Mystic, a Christian retreat in Central Texas.
Officials with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department say they’ve reached Camp Mystic in pickup trucks and are beginning to bring campers out. The road to the camp had been impassable all day.
A flash flood watch was in effect through parts of west-central Texas until 7 p.m. local time on Friday, and forecasters said isolated showers and thunderstorms were likely through the weekend. Though expected to be less intense than the storms early Friday, Weather Service forecasters in San Angelo noted that because of the rain that had already fallen, even small amounts of additional precipitation could exacerbate the flooding hazards.
As Texans reel from the deadly flooding in Kerr County, it can be overwhelming for residents who were displaced or have loved ones who are missing to process the disaster and assess their next steps.
Officials are still frantically searching for the missing, many of whom are children, and the authorities have offered guidelines on what families of missing people can do and how residents can find some relief.
Downed power lines, flooded roads and spotty cellphone service were among the challenges rescue workers in Texas were facing on Friday as they searched for survivors of a deadly flood along the Guadalupe River.
As many as 500 emergency personnel from numerous local and state agencies were deployed to the affected area on Friday. They were using 14 helicopters and several boats to search for people who survived the flood and to guide ground teams, officials said.
Camp Mystic, the Christian summer camp for girls on the Guadalupe River where at least 20 children were missing in catastrophic flooding on Friday, is nearly a century old. Its facilities include a recreation hall that was constructed in the 1920s from local cypress trees.
In a brief email to parents on Friday morning, Camp Mystic said it had sustained “catastrophic level floods.” The camp has two sites along the river near Hunt, Texas.
Judge Rob Kelly, the chief elected official in Kerr County, said at a news conference that “we do not have a warning system” and that “we didn’t know this flood was coming.”
The scenes in Kerrville, Texas, and surrounding Kerr County were filled with anxious waiting, and some relief, on Friday.
After at least 20 people were reported missing — many of them young girls — parents on social media circulated photographs of their daughters who were unaccounted for, pleading for help locating them.
