Key events
Closing summary
It’s just before 9pm in central Texas and we’re about to close this live blog. Here’s a recap of the latest key news lines, and you can find our full report here. Thanks for following along.
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The death toll from flash floods that have wreaked devastation in central Texas passed 100 by Monday late afternoon and was expected to rise further as more victims were found and additional rain threatened the region.
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Camp Mystic confirmed that 27 children and counsellors died. Ten girls and a counsellor from the Christian girls’ summer camp beside the Guadalupe River were still unaccounted for, officials said on Monday.
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Search-and-rescue personnel clawing through tons of muck-laden debris as aircraft flew overhead and hopes of finding more survivors dimmed. Weather forecasts on Monday predicted up to four more inches of rain in Texas Hill Country, with isolated areas possibly receiving up to 10in (25cm).
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The bulk of the death toll from Friday’s flooding was concentrated around the riverfront Hill Country town of Kerrville, including the Camp Mystic grounds. By Monday afternoon, the bodies of 84 flood victims – 56 adults and 28 children – were recovered in Kerr county, most of them in Kerrville, the local sheriff said.
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Twelve other flood-related fatalities were confirmed across five neighbouring south-central Texas counties as of midday Sunday, state and local officials said, and 41 other people were still listed as missing outside Kerr county.
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The flooding disaster caused an estimated $18-22bn in total damage and economic loss, according to a preliminary estimate from AccuWeather.
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Contextualising the disaster, AccuWeather climate expert and senior meteorologist Brett Anderson said: “A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture, which can unleash extreme rainfall rates that rivers, streams and drainage systems are struggling to handle. We face a future with warmer air and higher ocean temperatures, increasing the odds of more extreme rainfall events and more people in harm’s way living and visiting in flood-prone and high-risk areas.”
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The White House conflated concerns over whether adequate warnings were sent out to people soon enough with accusing the administration of responsibility for the flooding. “That was an act of God, it’s not the administration’s fault the floods hit when it did,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters, insisting “there were early and consistent warnings”. Questions have been raised over whether the flood alerts were sent quickly and widely enough and if Donald Trump’s job cuts hampered the National Weather Service’s work.
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Leavitt also attacked “some members of the media” as well as Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate minority leader who has reportedly called for an investigation from the commerce department inspector general into whether the weather service had enough staff in offices that would have forecast the storms.
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Authorities overseeing the search for Texas flood victims have said they will wait to address questions about weather warnings and why some summer camps did not evacuate ahead of the catastrophic flooding.
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Authorities lost one of their aviation assets on Monday when a privately operated drone collided in restricted airspace over Kerr county with a search helicopter, forcing the chopper to make an emergency landing. No injuries were reported but the aircraft was put out of commission, the sheriff’s office said.
– With news agencies
In another survival story, a Texas man says he is blessed to be alive after floods left him stranded with nothing but a small meter box to cling on to, CNN is reporting.
Christian Fell told the network he woke up to thunder in the early morning hours of 4 July to find half of his home ripped away by flash flooding.
“I get up to investigate, and when I swing my feet over the side of the bed I realised I was standing in water,” said Fell, who lives in Hunt, the location of the all-girl Camp Mystic that has confirmed it lost 27 campers and counsellors to the floods.
Fell said he clung to the electric box on the side of his home for three hours.
He told CNN:
It definitely is, I think, a blessing that the meter box was there, because I don’t even think I remembered was on that side of the building.
As I started to climb it, I just realised I needed to get out of the water as quickly as I could and just find something to hold on to so the water couldn’t take me away.
As he clung to the meter box, Fell says the rapid flood waters carried away cars with their hazard lights flashing on and off, the report continues.
The prospect of death certainly crossed his mind, he added.
Standing there with nothing else to hold on to but a metal pipe screwed into a wall – it’s not like an ideal situation.
In the area of Austin, the Texas capital, the flooding’s death toll has risen to at least 13 while 15 people are still reported missing, local media is reporting.
The Austin American-Statesman cites officials as saying seven have been confirmed dead in Travis county, two in Williamson county and four in Burnet county.
The newspaper also reports that parts of Travis county pounded by flood waters over the weekend were bustling on Monday with volunteers and residents organising support for those affected.
Volunteers brought food and bottled water to residents, some of whom didn’t have running water in their homes, the newspaper says, quoting a woman, Kaleena Schumaker, as saying watching the community come together has been amazing.
The Statesman’s report continues:
Schumaker said she was sleeping when her daughter called her about 1:50 a.m. Saturday to tell her about the flooding … Schumaker said she rushed through the door of the trailer [where she lives] to save the family’s goats. In hindsight, she realized that probably was a bad idea. By the time she reached their pen, the water had risen from her calves to her hips.
“I got stuck kind of,” Schumaker said.
She had to turn around, leaving the goats.
The family, four adults and seven children, escaped to higher ground along with two cats and nine kittens. The goats floated away.
Now, trying to figure out where to start with recovery is overwhelming. They don’t have running water … “Our bills are gone, our papers are gone,” Schumaker said.
Further to the previous post, Senator Ted Cruz said recent government spending cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Weather Service did not delay any Texas flood warnings.
“There’s a time to have political fights, there’s a time to disagree. This is not that time,” the Texas Republican said, quoted by the AP.
“There will be a time to find out what could been done differently. My hope is in time we learn some lessons to implement the next time there is a flood.”
Ted Cruz has had quite a week. On Tuesday, the Texas senator ensured the Republican spending bill slashed funding for weather forecasting, only to then go on vacation to Greece while his state was hit by deadly flooding, a disaster critics say was worsened by cuts to forecasting, reports Oliver Milman.
Cruz, who infamously fled Texas Texas for Cancun when a crippling winter storm ravaged his state in 2021, was seen visiting the Parthenon in Athens with his wife, Heidi, on Saturday, a day after a flash flood along the Guadalupe River in central Texas killed more than 100 people, including dozens of children and counsellors at a camp.
The Greece trip, first reported by the Daily Beast, ended in time for Cruz to appear at the site of the disaster on Monday morning to decry the tragedy and promise a response from lawmakers.
… The National Weather Service has faced scrutiny in the wake of the disaster after underestimating the amount of rainfall that was dumped upon central Texas, triggering floods that caused the deaths and around $20bn in estimated economic damages …
Before his Grecian holiday, Cruz ensured a reduction in funding to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s efforts to improve future weather forecasting of events that cause the sort of extreme floods that are being worsened by the human-caused climate crisis.
You can read the Guardian’s full report here:
Rescue helicopter collides with private drone
The city of Kerrville has called on people to ground their drones while search operations continue, saying a private drone has collided with a helicopter and forced it out of action.
On X, Texas lawmaker Chip Roy said “URGENT” above city hall’s message, which warns that flying a drone in a restricted area is not just illegal but puts rescuers and the public at serious risk.
The city hall statement says in full:
PLEASE GROUND YOUR DRONES UNTIL CURRENT FLOOD SEARCH AND RESUE OPERATIONS ARE COMPLETE.
This afternoon, a private drone illegally operating in restricted airspace collided with a helicopter involved in emergency operations in Kerr County. The helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing, and a critical piece of response equipment is now out of service until further notice.
This was entirely preventable.
Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) are not suggestions. They are federal airspace rules designed to protect lives during emergency situations. When you fly a drone in restricted areas, you’re not just breaking the law – you’re putting first responders, emergency crews, and the public at serious risk.
Here are some of the latest images from central Texas coming in over the newswires as the search continues for survivors or remains of people swept up in the flash flooding.
Authorities overseeing the search for flood victims in central Texas have said they will wait to address questions about weather warnings and why some summer camps did not evacuate ahead of the catastrophic flooding.
The Kerr county officials spoke only hours after the operators of Camp Mystic announced they lost 27 campers and counsellors to the flood waters, the Associated Press reports.
Search-and-rescue teams, meanwhile, carried on with the search for the dead, using heavy equipment to untangle trees and wading into swollen rivers. Volunteers covered in mud sorted through chunks of debris, piece by piece, in an increasingly bleak task.
Authorities vowed that one of the next steps would be investigating whether enough warnings were issued and why some camps did not evacuate or move to higher ground in a place long vulnerable to flooding that some local residents refer to as “flash flood alley”.
That would include a review of how weather warnings were sent out and received. One of the challenges was that many camps and cabins were in places with poor cellphone service, said Kerrville city manager Dalton Rice.
We definitely want to dive in and look at all those things. We’re looking forward to doing that once we can get the search and rescue complete.
Some camps were aware of the dangers and monitoring the weather. At least one moved several hundred campers to higher ground before the floods.
The weather service first advised of potential flooding on Thursday and then sent out a series of flash flood warnings in the early hours of Friday before issuing flash flood emergencies.
Authorities and elected officials have said they did not expect such an intense downpour, the equivalent of months of rain. Some residents said they never received any warnings.
A spokesperson for the Texas military department told a news conference there had been 525 rescues and evacuations.
At least 104 dead in Texas floods
In Kerr County, at least 84 bodies have been recovered which includes 56 adults and 28 children.
Kerr County Sheriff’s Office said: “At present, 10 Camp Mystic campers and one counselor remain unaccounted for.
“We share our deepest condolences with all affected by this tragedy.”
The Houston Astros are donating $1 million to support the recovery from the flooding that has devastated Texas.
The baseball team said in addition to the initial “short-term” investment in relief efforts, the Astros Foundation will start an initiative to mobilize their fan base to provide sustained support for rebuilding and recovery.
“It’s important to the entire Astros organization to send immediate support to our fellow Texans throughout the Hill Country during this devastating time,” Astros owner and chairman Jim Crane and his wife Whitney Crane said in a statement.
“There is a lot still unknown as recovery efforts are ongoing, but the Astros are committed to supporting Central Texas communities in the long term through the coming days, months and years to help rebuild and heal. We also want to acknowledge and personally thank all of the First Responders for their continued heroic efforts.”
NFL teams the Houston Texans and Dallas Cowboys announced over the weekend that they each are donating $500,000 to the recovery efforts.
