Deadly Texas floods
• Desperate search: Authorities say more than 25 girls are still unaccounted for at Camp Mystic in Kerr County, Texas, where the Guadalupe River rose more than 20 feet in less than two hours during torrential rains that triggered flash flooding in parts of the state yesterday.
• Death toll rises: At least 27 people, including nine children, have died in the flooding, according to local officials. A 9-year-old camper is among the victims, her mother told CNN.
• Massive effort: Rescue and recovery operations continue today after first responders worked through the night, with authorities saying more than 850 people have been brought to safety. The Trump administration is sending resources to help.
• One-in-100-years intensity: Parts of central Texas saw a month’s worth of rain in just a few hours, prompting multiple flash flood emergencies. Hunt, a town near Kerrville, received about 6.5 inches in just three hours early Friday, which is considered a one-in-100-years rainfall event for the area.
The death toll will undoubtedly rise, and some of the dead will be children – perhaps many of the dead. If the girls at the camp remain unaccounted for at this point, it is sadly probable that many of the missing are dead. The force of a flash flood can be tremendous, and some of the deaths come from being hit by debris in the water. This is a very tragic event.
RIP.
I read that they rescued one girl that had climbed up into a tree.
This has to be so very hard on the rescuers too.
The Hill Country of TX is Kerrville-Fredericksburg, where German is still spoken. I grew up nearby, on the flatlands east of San Antone. There are pix of me at age six sitting in the Guadeloupe River.
The Hill Country is, well, hilly. But for rivers and streams to rise 15-20 feet in just a few hours is an awful, fearsome, unconquerable and blessedly rare event.
My friend who was reading Facebook posts told me they had fourteen inches of rain in just over an hour, and that a dam was overwhelmed and burst. Just terrible, such a tragic event. My prayers are with the survivors and families of those who perished.
IIRC, I read once that Texas had the most flood-vulnerable geography in the US. I taught math in San Marcos the year that 25 inches of rain fell in 24 hours. Flooded out a lot of households. I brought in several grocery bags of clothing to help out. After that deluge, there was no rain in San Marcos for 5 months.
One blessing of the flood is that Lake Travis’s level has risen 13 feet. Now about halfway between full and the lowest level from the 2011-13 drought. Which is of no compensation for those who got flooded out.
My sister in Naples FL is considering downsizing and selling her third story condo. As hurricanes flood Naples out every five years or so, she will purchase nothing on the ground floor.
https://travis.uslakes.info/Level/
I used to take young people to camps outside Kerrville… beautiful place to be. The creeks fill and flood quickly, and the Guadalupe is a tricky bugger when the rain comes hard and fast.
Keep praying for the folks downstream too.
We are in mourning today. One of the girls whose bodies have been found was an eight-year-old close friend of my granddaughter. May little Sarah rest in peace.
Kate:
So sad. I’m so sorry.
Kate:
I am so sorry.
My heart is breaking for all of the families.
I’m praying that they will be encircled in arms of love and blessed with an abundance of comfort from the spirit.
A beautiful prayer from Steven Walter that was shared this morning…
“Heavenly Father,
We come before You today with heavy hearts, crying out for the children missing from Camp Mystic in Kerr County, Texas. Lord, You know each one by name. You see them even now, wherever they may be. We ask, Father, that You protect them, shelter them, and bring them swiftly to safety.
Give wisdom, courage, and endurance to the search and rescue teams working tirelessly to find them. Strengthen every parent, sibling, and loved one anxiously waiting for news. Surround them with Your peace that surpasses all understanding, even amid fear and uncertainty.
In this darkness, let Your light shine brightly. May Your presence be felt deeply by every soul touched by this disaster.
We place all these precious lives into Your mighty, loving hands, trusting in Your goodness and mercy…
Amen. “
Thank you for the prayer. Little Sarah’s parents are receiving lots of community love and support, including from a man experienced in counseling for this kind of loss (he lost a child suddenly years ago and has dedicated himself to helping other parents). My granddaughter understands what has happened but of course she can’t comprehend the parents’ grief.
Oh… Kate… praying for you and your friends…no pain matches the loss of a child. The Lord bless and keep you all.
…where the Guadalupe River rose more than 20 feet in less than two hours during torrential rains that triggered flash flooding in parts of the state yesterday.
OMG.
You have minutes, not hours, to get above the waters.
Kate, I’m so sorry for you, your granddaughter and Sarah’s family. Such a heartbreaking event.
We live in the Hill Country. Some commenters may recall that we moved from Vancouver WA to Texas a little over a year ago. Kerrville is such a gorgeous town; we drove through it on our way to our new home, and I remarked to my husband we should have looked there! It was that picturesque. We are completely fine in our home about 25 miles north of San Antonio. Lots of rain, and a power outage caused by lightning, but otherwise counting our blessings.
My heart breaks for the missing girls and I pray for a miracle that some may be found alive.
Ah, Kate, I’m sorry. Seeing your little granddaughter’s pain and bewilderment must be so hard. Such a terrible thing, it doesn’t bear thinking about.
Kathy & Kate – thank you for the prayer, and your concern for your grand-daughter.
@ John G > “no pain matches the loss of a child”
Or of a grand-child. Somehow the deaths of the young people is more grievous than that of us old folks, who are by nature closer to the eternal gateway.
We lived in San Antonio 1987-1990 and went to the Kerrville Folk Festival a couple of times. It is truly a beautiful place. We wanted to settle somewhere in the area, but there was nothing in AesopSpouse’s line of work (patents) and although I could have gotten something in computer programming, it wasn’t cost effective to pay the care givers for 5 kids.
San Antonio itself flooded somewhere almost every year, because the street drainage was abysmal.
Scrolling down the CNN live-blog that Neo linked contains some useful information further back in time.
I can’t link individual segments (or couldn’t figure out the secret) so here is what I found. That the bulk of the flooding hit overnight contributed greatly to the disaster.
Count the time backward from about 5 pm EDT (I detest this relative clock system, instead of just printing what time the post was added).
*********
9 hr 17 min ago
City manager explains how floodwaters converged in Guadalupe River right at Kerrville
From CNN’s Hanna Park
Men survey damage left by a flooded Guadalupe River in Kerrville, Texas, on Friday.
Men survey damage left by a flooded Guadalupe River in Kerrville, Texas, on Friday. Eric Gay/AP
Kerrville, Texas was hit especially hard by flash flooding after heavy rain swelled two forks of the Guadalupe River before they converge and flow “through the city,” City Manager Dalton Rice said at a news conference Friday.
Storms late Thursday into Friday “dumped more rain than what was forecasted on both of those forks,” Rice said, describing how the river swelled from 7 feet to 29 feet in a short amount of time during the night.
“All of that converged at the Guadalupe, and that’s where we saw those very quick rising floods,” Rice said.
Rice also noted not all areas along the river have alarms to flag flooding. The alarms are typically “further downstream,” he said, in places such as in Comfort, which sits about 15 miles southeast of Kerrville.
*********
13 hr 4 min ago
Speed of flash flooding caught residents by surprise
From CNN’s Hanna Park
A flooding Guadalupe River leaves fallen trees and debris in its wake, in Kerrville, Texas, on Friday.
A flooding Guadalupe River leaves fallen trees and debris in its wake, in Kerrville, Texas, on Friday. Eric Gay/AP
The flash floods that swept through Kerrville, Texas, on Friday forced many residents to flee for their lives — some by boat, others via treacherous routes through downed power lines.
“We had to drive over live power lines to get out of here because the only other way we could go was underwater,” Candice Taylor told CNN affiliate KENS.
Taylor pushed back on any suggestion that residents should have been prepared for the magnitude of the flooding.
“Anybody who says anything like, ‘This was forecasted. Why didn’t you watch the news?’ That’s callous,” Taylor said.
Zerick Baldwin also marveled at the intensity and speed of the flooding – while being thankful he canceled plans to camp along the Guadalupe River after fishing.
“If I would’ve slept in my truck or something, I would have been gone…The waters came so quickly. If I had stayed, I wouldn’t have even known what hit,” Baldwin told KENS.
******
15 hr 23 min ago
Floods took many by surprise, despite weather warnings
From CNN’s Laura Sharman
A flood gauge marks the height of water flowing over a road near Kerrville, Texas, on Friday.
A flood gauge marks the height of water flowing over a road near Kerrville, Texas, on Friday. Eric Gay/AP
Officials said they were caught off guard by the heavy downpour that led to flash flooding in Texas on Friday.
Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, told a news conference on Friday night that the National Weather Service (NWS) forecast “did not predict the amount of rain that we saw.”
It echoed sentiments earlier Friday from Kerr County judge Rob Kelly, who said: “We have floods all the time… We had no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what’s happened here. None whatsoever.”
On Thursday afternoon, the NWS had issued a flood watch that highlighted Kerr County as a place at high risk of flash flooding through the night.
A flash flood emergency warning was issued for Kerr County at 4.03 a.m. local time, followed by a “particularly dangerous situation” warning for Kerrville at 5.34 a.m.
“Automated rain gauges indicate a large and deadly flood wave is moving down the Guadalupe River,” forecasters wrote.
CNN can’t resist a jab at the Trump administration even in the midst of a disaster.
They insinuate, without evidence, that DOGE is partly to blame.
Never mind that there is no connection demostrated between the personnel cuts advised by Musk’s team and the actual warning system in operation.
In almost all the cases of cuts to federal agencies, AFAIK, they are ditching the useless apparatchiks, people working on useless programs, and useless consultants.
It’s mostly Democrats who threaten to apply cuts first to the most essential people (see: Obama), so they assume everyone else does the same.
**********
32 min ago (a bit before 5pm EDT)
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem defended the government response and the National Weather Service in the wake of the tragic flooding in Texas that has left 32 people dead, including 14 children.
“When President Trump took office…he said he wanted to fix, and is currently upgrading the technology. And the National Weather Service has indicated that with that and NOAA, that we needed to renew this ancient system that has been left in basic the federal government for many, many years, and that is the reforms that are ongoing,” Noem said.
The president’s domestic mega-bill, which he signed into law at the White House on Friday, does make cuts and even closes some weather research labs that are vital to forecast improvement. The Department of Government Efficiency, formerly led by Elon Musk, has also cut hundreds of employees at NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the NWS.
Asked about the impact of those cuts, Noem continued to defend the government and the president, saying that she will bring “concerns back to the federal government.”
“I do carry your concerns back to the federal government, and to President Trump, and we will do all we can to fix those kind of things that that may have felt like a failure to you and to your community members, but we know that everybody wants more warning time, and that’s why we’re working to upgrade the technologies have been neglected by far too long,” Noem said.
Still, this storm was extremely unpredictable and truly unprecedented, the water rising very high very quickly.
********
The neglect of infrastructure at these and other agencies has been a bipartisan project.
Gotta get those subsidies out to the wind and solar companies first!
(She said, without producing any citations as evidence…..)
Here in CO, we get flash flood warnings on the TV. I think it started after the Big Thompson flood of 1976. It killed 176 people, some never found. Several yrs ago there was a big fire far up the Poudre. We get flash flood warnings because the trees and undergrowth hasn’t grown back. Half inch up there, means a lot of water feeding into the river.
Maybe 10 yrs ago we had another flood by us. Several dams upriver broke, and all that water came down. Happened so fast. Communities along the river were hit hard. Lyons was hammered. A bridge by us was washed out at night, one car went in but the driver got out. A neighbor and I went down with flashlights to warn driver until the road department could set up barriers. It was out for a yr.
Water comes down hard and fast.
“CNN can’t resist a jab at the Trump administration even in the midst of a disaster.
They insinuate, without evidence, that DOGE is partly to blame.”
Leftists online are not insinuating. They’re stating this as fact.
Kate, I’m very sorry for your family’s loss, and have hopes there will be more survivors found. It’s a dreadful tragedy. Rainfalls in Texas sometimes take on a freakish tenacity – a small town near us once had 36″ of rain in a single day, concentrated within a fairly small region.
And that’s the problem. Depending upon where these freakish downpours happen, the outcome can be catastrophic because of coincidences of rain rate, topography and drainage patterns. Areas in Houston, which is very flat, can have terrible flooding from a few inches of rain, whereas just a few miles away, the same amounts can drain uneventfully and be a non-issue. With so many varied outcomes possible, it becomes impossible to form prediction or early warning systems that can inform with enough time to react.
RIP and prayers for swift resolution and recovery in Kerrville.
Kate my heart goes out to the families and dear friends of those lost.
I’ve read reports that the level rose 30 feet in about 45 minutes, and unfortunately it happened between 4 and 5 am, when people were in deepest sleep. There’s no cell reception to speak of at those remote campsites. The weather service expected rain from Tropical Storm Barry, which had drifted up in to the hill country NW of San Antonio, but the winds conspired to stall it right over Kerrville, and instead of 3-7 inches (bad enough with canyons downstream) it was 12 inches in an hour. That’s a sudden disaster in hill country with narrow valleys. There was a flood warning 12 hours ahead and a flash flood warning 3 hours ahead, but again, it was the middle of the night and campers were mostly out of communication. Two dozen or more small girls were in two cabins right on the river; it’s unlikely any will be found alive now, though of course rescuers are still looking frantically. The other losses were more spread out, and many were saved.
My prayers for the Kerr County residents & visitors suffering from the severe and sudden flooding of the Guadaloupe River.
As well for those first responders & their support teams in the difficult ongoing searches.
May God’s love, strength, and comfort surround all affected.
Kate, I, too, am so sorry for your family’s and Sarah’s family’s great loss.
As long as the Gulf is there and limestone bedrock especially in the hill country there will be flash floods.
Some more notes from the CNN report:
(1) Why this camp was particularly hard-hit.
“Camp Mystic, a private Christian summer camp for girls in Hunt, is located close to the water and was trapped between a cliff and the quickly rising river. At least one girl is confirmed dead and 27 are reported missing at Camp Mystic.
“There was nowhere for these kids to go. The buildings were washed out, just carved out from the inside,” Sorter said.”
(2) Some light in the darkness. Every loss is a tragedy, but that so many survived is a miracle.
“[Camp Mystic], which is nestled in Hunt, an unincorporated community in western Kerr County, Texas, hosts about 750 kids overall.”
(3) People are like this in a disaster.
“Daric and Heidi Easton, restaurant owners in downtown Kerrville, Texas, have pivoted to providing food for first responders and individuals affected by catastrophic flooding in the area….The couple have utilized the restaurant’s connections and resources, including a customer’s helicopter, to transport food and supplies to hard-to-reach areas. “We directly loaded food onto the helicopters, that were then flown to Camp Mystic,” Easton said. …
Easton said his own daughter is around the age of the girls missing from that camp. “I can’t imagine what these parents are going through, and I don’t need to. I just need to make sandwiches,” he told CNN
“If I keep making sandwiches, people can still be fed. If responders are fed, then they can save lives,” Easton said.”
(4) This will be one of those catastrophes where almost everyone knows someone who was affected, including their own families.
“In the midst of sorrow, [Texas Rep. Chip Roy] recalled moments of hope, including a student from his child’s school who had been missing during the flood but was later found safe.
“I got a call and an update this morning, my kids’ school. There was one of their schoolmates was missing, and one of the kids, she was on a mattress for two, three hours in the middle of the night,” Roy said. That little girl has since been reunited with her mother.
“They’re the kind of blessings that we should be celebrating while we’re also mourning the loss of life,” he added.”
AND
“A US Congressman says his two daughters were evacuated from Camp Mystic, the hard-hit summer camp for girls in Hunt, Texas, where more than 20 campers are still missing.
Rep. August Pfluger announced he and his wife were “now reunited” with their daughters in a post on X Saturday.”
AND
“The families of Sarah Marsh and Lila Bonner, two campers who went missing from Camp Mystic, the girls’ summer camp in Kerr County, Texas, that was affected by devastating flooding, confirmed to CNN that they have passed away.”
[May be Kate’s Sarah?]
(5) A chart showing how fast the water rose, and how high.
“Guadalupe River in Kerrville, Texas, surged more than 22 feet in hours
The calm, shallow section of the river in Central Texas rose dramatically in the early hours on July 4, cresting above major flood stage [22 feet] after torrential rains.”
Line chart shows a rapid water level rise on the Guadalupe River near Hunt, Texas.
[From before July 4 to about 1 am the level of the river is .2 feet.
There is a short rise to about 2 feet, then a nearly vertical line within an hour.]
3:45 a.m., July 4: Levels begin to spike
4:45 a.m., July 4: Gauge offline for three hours at about 23 feet.
Note: All times in Central Time. Data as of July 5, 2025, at 12 p.m. CT.
Source: NOAA’s National Water Protection Service (Gauge: HNTT2)
Graphic: Matt Stiles, CNN
How terrible! These poor defenseless girls – and the loss their families have to endure.
Flash flooding is incredibly dangerous. Really frightening how quickly conditions deteriorate.
Kate, I am so sorry to hear about little Sarah. May her family and friends find comfort and strength.
Thanks to all for your sympathy. AesopFan, yes, that was our granddaughter’s friend Sarah. Played together, in and out of each other’s houses. Our family were here for the weekend, to see our new house. We spent Friday checking online sources, pacing, and praying for the little one. This morning, I am crying for those other more than twenty families and their friends whose young girls still have not been found. At least we know that young Sarah is in the arms of the loving God in whom we, and her family, trust. These other families are still in the torture of hoping against hope that their girls will be found clinging to trees somewhere. God bless the rescue crews who are still out there desperately looking. May God comfort all these families, and those of the other people who have been lost.
That it happened so suddenly in the middle of the night — and on a holiday when many people had gone to the Hill Country – the flood would have caught most by surprise.
My daughter is supervising the sale of a foreclosed house in Kerrville, and has been driving up there and back to San Antonio every week for months. We visited Comfort last month – and we know the Hill Country pretty well. We’ve been on the edge of catastrophic floods several times. San Antonio itself is terribly vulnerable – just a couple of weeks ago, an intersection near our house was flooded out suddenly at 5:00 in the morning: a dozen cars waiting at a stoplight were carried away, and the drivers drowned. The city is threaded by creeks and rivers: Leon and Salado Creek, and the San Antonio River itself, and that morning, almost 7 inches of rain fell in an hour.
Now reporting that the NWS issued a flood watch 12 hours ahead, and a flood warning 3 hours ahead. The problem is that places the warning at around 2am and unless there is some way for the warning to be broadcast to wake people up it’s not going to be heard. The timing was terrible. During daytime hours I suspect the death toll would be much less.
According to a local Texas TV station, the county does not have an emergency alert system — so alerts going out to cell phones or camp operators, for instance, didn’t happen. This is a local problem that surely will be looked at closely. However, flood warnings that were issued talked of a 7-inch river rise. The 26-foot wall of water was not forecast and probably could not have been in time to get people out,
Leftists who are trying to blame this on Trump spending cuts have diseased souls.
“Leftists who are trying to blame this on Trump spending cuts have diseased souls”
Yes they do. However, from the left minions I follow, such a response is not surprising. The things they have been saying the last 9 months show the depravity of their thoughts. The amazing part is that they are convinced we are the truly evil ones. There’s no bridging the gap anymore.
But, it seems, they have to blame their diseased souls on someone…
Unfortunately.
RIP victims and heroes alike…
Here’s a video showing how fast the Guadaloupe River rose:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzBXML29dTY
Pay attention to the times the reporter mentions – it was so fast!
Do take a look at Roger Pielke’s blog today. Among other things, he points to a record flood in 1987 which exceeded the rise of this one, and notes the gaping lack of any effective warning system.
I believe the death toll is now 59…and rising.
Kate:
Words fail me as usual.
The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? – David Bently Hart
https://www.amazon.com/Doors-Sea-Where-Was-Tsunami/dp/0802866867
Come Ye Disconsolate – Baylor A Cappella Choir (Men)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNqzhfB4y1I
Confirmed dead now total 78.
A truly terrible way to die, from a sound slumber into a cement mixer full of trees, cars, trash and filty water.
om-
Thanks for the link to Come Ye Disconsolate, sung at that great Texas university, Baylor.
I am watching the communist party wind up the media in an effort to blame Trump for the human loss in this flood. I can hear their wheels grinding and grinding. I have something to offer to this effort. I sit on our local river committee. Sometime between 2023 and 2024 we were advised that the meteorlogical stations on the river were no longer function (old age) and were being pulled out. The plan was to replace with newer larger stations that combined the functions of several smaller units. Sooo . . when the NYT tells you that the loss of life in TX is Trump’s fault, please understand that the reduction in meterological units monitoring our river began at least two years ago. I am assuming that this was also happening in other states.
The mother of our little lost friend has posted on social media, first, a prayer, and second, a comment that the political blaming is not at all helpful to grieving families. (And this mother is, I am told, very left-wing in her views.)
The ghouls need to stop it. Making political points over the bodies of the dead is monstrous. So far, I have seen nothing to indicate this could have been avoided. By the time the extreme flood warnings went out, it was too late for many people, and it is virtually impossible to predict this kind of apocalyptic rainfall on a specific location.
Not to make light of a terrible tragedy, but here is Stevie Ray’s “Texas Flood.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQuY7dHfWrM&list=RDOQuY7dHfWrM&start_radio=1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KC5H9P4F5Uk&list=RDKC5H9P4F5Uk&start_radio=1
It is a sad song about flooding & some of its difficulties, but it’s also about ending a relationship. Nothing as bad as death.
The only thing I knew about Texas weather was that it gets very hot and muggy. There’s flooding in Texas??
In the late 70’s I was in San Diego at the end of their 7 year drought, and got caught in an extreme downpour on the freeway that cumulatively (there was more than one of these) caused thousands of car accidents. Not me fortunately.
Then in the 2012 time frame, an in-law was a student at San Diego State, and had his car washed off the street and into an adjacent gully, totaling the car.