The death toll due to catastrophic floods in Texas reached at least 78 on Sunday, including 28 boys, since the search for girls missing in a summer camp continued, and the fears of more floods caused evacuations of voluntary responders.
Larry Leitha, Sheriff of Kerr County in Texas Hill Country, said 68 people had died on floods in his county, the epicenter of floods, including 28 children.
The Governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, speaking at a press conference on Sunday afternoon, said that another 10 had died in another part of Texas and confirmed that 41 were missing.
President Donald Trump sent his condolences to the victims and said he would probably visit the area on Friday. His administration had been in contact with Abbott, he added.
“It is a horrible thing that took place, absolutely horrible. Then we say that God bless all the people who have passed so much, and God bless, God bless the state of Texas,” he told journalists as he left New Jersey.
Among the most devastating flood impacts occurred in the Mystic Summer Camp camp, a Camp of Christian girls of almost cents where 10 mystical campers and a counselor were still missing, according to Leitha.
“It was horrible to see for what those young children passed,” said Abbott, who said he toured the area on Saturday and promised to continue efforts to locate the disappeared.
The floods occurred after the nearby Guadalupe River broke its banks after the torrential rain fell in the central area of Texas on Friday, the United States Independence Day holidays.
The head of the Texas Emergency Management Division, Nim Kidd, said the destruction killed three people in Burnet County, one in Tom Green County, five in Travis County and another in Williamson County.
“You will see that the death toll increases today and tomorrow,” said Freeman Martin, director of the Texas Public Security Department, also speaking on Sunday.
The authorities said on Saturday that more than 850 people had been rescued, including some clinging to the trees, after a sudden storm threw up to 15 inches (38 cm) of rain throughout the region, about 140 kilometers northwest of San Antonio.
Kidd said he was receiving unconfirmed reports from “an additional wall of water” that flows by some of the streams on the Guadalupe River, while the rain continued to fall on the ground in the region already saturated with Friday’s rains.
“We are evacuating parts of the river at this time because we are worried that another river wall falls into those areas,” he said, referring to volunteers from outside the area seeking to help locate the victims.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency was activated on Sunday and is deploying resources for the first to respond in Texas after Trump issued a great disaster statement, said the Department of National Security. The helicopters and aircraft of the United States Coast Guard were helping search and rescue efforts.
Federal Federal Disaster Response
Trump has previously outlined plans to climb the role of the federal government in the response to natural disasters, leaving the states to support the load more.
Some experts questioned whether the federal workforce cuts by the Trump administration, even to the agency that supervises the National Meteorological Service, led to a failure of the officials to precisely predict the seriousness of the floods and issue appropriate warnings before the storm.
The Trump administration has supervised thousands of employment cuts of the Maternal Agency of the National Meteorological Service, the Oceanic and Atmospheric National Administration, leaving many weather offices with little personal, said former director of NOAA, Rick Spinrad.
Spinrad said he did not know if these personnel cuts were considered the lack of early warning for the extreme floods of Texas, but that they would inevitably degrade the capacity of the agency to offer precise and timely forecasts.
Trump retreated when asked Sunday if the federal government cuts limited the disaster response or left key employment vacancies in the National Meteorological Service under Trump’s supervision.
“That water situation, which everything is, and that was really the biden configuration,” he said, referring to his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden. “But I wouldn’t blame Biden for that. I would only say that this is a 100 -year -old catastrophe.”
He refused to answer a question about FEMA, saying only: “They are busy working, so we’ll leave it like that,” Trump said.
The Secretary of National Security, Kristi Noem, who supervises FEMA and NOAA, said that a “moderate” flood surveillance issued Thursday by the National Meteorological Service had not precisely predicted the extreme rain and said that the Trump administration was working to improve the system.
Joaquin Castro, an American Democratic congressman from Texas, said CNN “State of the Union” program that least personnel in the weather service could be dangerous.
“When you have sudden floods, there is a risk that if you don’t have the staff … to do that analysis, make predictions in the best way, it could lead to tragedy,” Castro said.
‘Complete devastation’
Katharine Somerville, a counselor on the side of Lake Cypress of the Mystic Camp, on the ground higher than the Guadalupe River side, said that their 13 -year -old campers were afraid since their cabins suffered damage and lost power in the middle of the night.
“Our cabins at the top of the Tippity hills were complete Fox News Sunday.
Somerville said the campers under their care were placed in military and evacuated trucks, and that everyone was safe.
The disaster was quickly developed on Friday morning as the heaviest rain that the leak took to the river waters quickly to 29 feet (9 meters).
A day after he hit the disaster, the summer camp, where 700 girls were in residence at the time of floods, was a devastation scene. Within a cabin, the mud lines indicated how high the water had increased at least at at least six feet (1.83 m) from the floor. The bed frames, mattresses and personal belongings covered with mud were scattered inside. Some buildings had broken windows, and one had a missing wall.
