The death toll from the July 4 flash flood that ravaged a swath of central Texas Hill Country rose on Tuesday to at least 109, many of them children, as search teams pressed on through mounds of mud-encrusted debris looking for scores of missing people.
According to figures released by governor Gregg Abbott, authorities were searching for more than 180 people whose fate remained unknown four days after one of the deadliest US flood events in decades.
Most fatalities and the search for additional victims were concentrated in Kerr County and the county seat of Kerrville, a town of 25,000 residents transformed into a disaster zone when torrential rains struck the region early on Friday, flooding the Guadalupe River basin.
The bodies of 94 flood victims, about a third of them children, had been recovered in Kerr County by Tuesday, Abbott said at a news conference after touring the area by air.
The Kerr County dead include 27 campers and counselors from Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old all-girls Christian summer retreat on the banks of the Guadalupe near the town of Hunt. The camp director also died.
Five girls and a camp counselor were unaccounted for on Tuesday, Abbott said, along with another child not associated with the camp.
As of Tuesday, 15 other flood-related fatalities had been confirmed across a swath of Texas Hill Country known as "flash flood alley", the governor said, bringing the total of lives lost to 109. Reports from local sheriffs and media have put the number of flood deaths outside Kerr County at 22.
However, authorities said they were bracing for the death toll to climb as flood waters recede and the search for victims gains momentum.
Law enforcement agencies have compiled a list of 161 people "known to be missing" in Kerr County alone, Abbott said. The roster was checked against those who might be out of touch with loved ones or neighbours because they were away on vacation or out of town, according to the governor.
He said 12 people were missing elsewhere across the flood zone, a sprawling area northwest of San Antonio.
"We need to find every person who is missing. That’s job number one," Abbott said.
On Tuesday, San Antonio-born country singer Pat Green disclosed on social media that his younger brother and sister-in-law and two of their children were among those "swept away in the Kerrville flood".
Hindered by intermittent thunderstorms and showers, rescue teams from federal agencies, neighbouring states and Mexico have joined local efforts to search for missing victims, though hopes of finding more survivors faded as time passed. The last victim found alive in Kerr County was on Friday.
"The work is extremely treacherous, time-consuming," Lt-Col Ben Baker of the Texas game wardens said at a press conference.
"It's dirty work. The water is still there."
A water-soaked family photo album was among the personal belongings found in flood debris by Sandi Gilmer, 46, a US army veteran and certified chaplain volunteering in the search operation along the Guadalupe at Hunt.
"I don't know how many people in the album are alive or deceased," she said, flipping through images of two toddlers and a gray-haired man.
"I didn't have the heart to step over it without picking it up and hoping to return it to a family member."
More than 30cm of rain fell in the region in less than an hour before dawn on Friday, sending a wall of water cascading down the Guadalupe that killed dozens of people and left mangled piles of debris, uprooted trees and overturned vehicles.
Public officials have faced days of questions about whether they could have alerted people in flood-prone areas sooner.
The state emergency management agency warned on Thursday, on the eve of the disaster, that parts of central Texas faced a flash floods threat, based on National Weather Service forecasts.
However, twice as much rain as predicted fell over two branches of the Guadalupe upstream of the fork where they converge, sending all the water racing into the single river channel where it slices through Kerrville, city manager Dalton Rice said.
Rice said the outcome was unforeseen and unfolded in two hours, leaving too little time to conduct a precautionary mass evacuation without the risk of placing more people in harm's way.
Scientists have said extreme flood events are growing more common as climate change creates warmer, wetter weather patterns in Texas and other parts of the country.
At an earlier news briefing on Tuesday, Kerr County sheriff Larry Leitha rebuffed questions about the county's emergency operations and preparedness and declined to say who was ultimately in charge of monitoring weather alerts and issuing flood warnings or evacuation orders.
He said his office began receiving emergency calls between 4am and 5am on Friday, several hours after the local National Weather Service station issued a flash flood alert.
"We're in the process of trying to put (together) a timeline," Leitha said.
Abbott said a special session of the Texas legislature would convene later this month to investigate the emergency response and provide funding for disaster relief.
Reuters
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