Texas Flood Death Toll Hits 111, Over 180 Missing/ Newslooks/ WASHINGTON/ J. Mansour/ Morning Edition/ At least 111 people, many children, have died in Texas floods, with over 180 still missing as search efforts continue. Officials face scrutiny over emergency warnings amid rising concerns about extreme weather events. Families, including country singer Pat Green’s, mourn loved ones swept away.
Texas Flood Tragedy Quick Looks
- Death toll from Texas floods climbs to 111
- Over 180 people remain missing, many in Kerr County
- Country singer Pat Green loses four family members
- Camp Mystic sees 27 fatalities, several still unaccounted for
- Search hindered by storms, hopes fading for survivors
- Debate over delayed emergency warnings intensifies
- Extreme rainfall blamed on shifting climate patterns
- Texas legislature to convene special session for review and relief
Deep Look
Texas Flood Death Toll Rises To 111 As Searchers Battle Debris And Rising Questions About Emergency Response
KERRVILLE, Texas — The grim toll from catastrophic flooding in central Texas surged on Tuesday, with officials confirming at least 111 deaths, many of them children, as rescuers pressed on amid mountains of debris and fading hope of finding more survivors.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the number of missing people has now surpassed 180, underscoring the scale of one of the deadliest U.S. flood disasters in decades.
The floods, unleashed by torrential rains before dawn on July Fourth, devastated large swaths of the Texas Hill Country, turning towns like Kerrville into disaster zones as floodwaters roared through the Guadalupe River basin.
Heavy Losses At Summer Camp
Kerr County has borne the brunt of the tragedy, with 94 confirmed fatalities, about a third of them children. Among the dead are 27 campers and counselors from Camp Mystic, a nearly century-old all-girls Christian summer camp along the Guadalupe River near Hunt, Texas. The camp’s director was also among the victims.
Five campers and one counselor from Camp Mystic remain missing, along with another child unconnected to the camp, Abbott said.
Outside Kerr County, another 15 flood-related deaths have been confirmed across Texas’s Hill Country region, while some reports suggest the toll beyond Kerr County may be even higher at 22. Officials brace for the possibility that numbers will rise as floodwaters recede and search efforts intensify.
Country Singer Shares Personal Loss
San Antonio-born country musician Pat Green shared heartbreak on social media, revealing his younger brother, sister-in-law, and two of their children were swept away in the floods.
“Obviously, this is a tragedy I never imagined,” Green posted. “Our hearts are shattered.”
Search Operations Continue
Despite periodic thunderstorms hampering operations, search crews from federal agencies, neighboring states, and even Mexico continue scouring the flood zone. However, no one has been found alive in Kerr County since last Friday.
“The work is extremely treacherous, time-consuming,” said Lieutenant Colonel Ben Baker of the Texas Game Wardens. “It’s dirty work. The water is still there.”
Volunteers like U.S. Army veteran Sandi Gilmer have been finding personal belongings amid the debris, including a waterlogged family photo album.
“I don’t know how many people in this album are alive or deceased,” Gilmer said as she flipped through photos 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.”
Disaster Unfolded In Hours
More than a foot of rain fell within an hour before dawn on Friday, sending a torrent of water cascading down the Guadalupe River. The force of the flood uprooted trees, flipped vehicles, and left piles of mangled debris strewn along riverbanks.
City Manager Dalton Rice said double the rain forecasted ultimately fell over two branches of the Guadalupe just upstream of their confluence at Kerrville. The resulting surge hit the town in a two-hour window that left virtually no time for mass evacuations.
Officials have faced heated questions over whether earlier alerts or evacuations could have saved lives. While the state emergency management agency warned of possible flash floods on Thursday, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said his office only began receiving emergency calls between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. Friday—hours after the National Weather Service issued its initial flash flood alert at 1:14 a.m.
“We’re in the process of trying to put together a timeline,” Leitha told reporters, declining to specify who was in charge of issuing local warnings or evacuation orders.
Climate Change And Policy Fallout
Scientists have pointed to climate change as a driving factor behind more frequent and severe flooding events across Texas and other parts of the U.S., citing warmer, wetter weather patterns contributing to record-breaking rainfall.
Governor Abbott announced that a special session of the Texas legislature will convene later this month to investigate the state’s flood preparedness and emergency response, as well as to allocate funding for relief and recovery.
For now, the focus remains on finding every missing person. “We need to find every single person who is missing. That’s job number one,” Abbott emphasized.
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