At least 13 people were dead after flash flooding hit south-central Texas early Friday, officials said, with more than 20 girls at a summer camp still unaccounted for.<\/p>\n
“We have identified 13 fatalities,” Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha told a press conference after devastating floods swept through the region northwest of San Antonio, warning more casualties were likely.<\/p>\n
Some of the dead were children, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said.<\/p>\n
“About 23” girls were unaccounted for from Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River, which rose 26 feet (eight meters) in 45 minutes overnight, Patrick added.<\/p>\n
“That does not mean they’ve been lost, they could be in a tree, they could be out of communication,” he said.<\/p>\n
Patrick read out a message from the director of the summer camp, which had some 750 campers over the July 4 long weekend, reporting that it had “sustained catastrophic level of flooding.”<\/p>\n
“We have no power, water or Wi-Fi,” the message said.<\/p>\n
State and local officials warned against residents traveling to the area which includes camp grounds dotted along the river, with dozens of roads “impassable.”<\/p>\n
Videos on social media showed houses and trees swept away by the overnight flash flood caused by heavy overnight rainfall of 12 inches — one-third of Kerr County’s average annual rainfall.<\/p>\n
Texas Governor Greg Abbott shared a video on X of a victim being plucked from the top of a tree by a rescuer dangling from a helicopter, as floodwaters raged below.<\/p>\n
– ‘Another wave’ –<\/p>\n
“Air rescue missions like this are being done around the clock. We will not stop until everyone is accounted for,” he said.<\/p>\n
Freeman Martin, director of the state’s public safety department, said the flood was a “mass casualty event.”<\/p>\n
About 500 rescue personnel and 14 helicopters were deployed, with the Texas National Guard sending rescue teams and the US Coast Guard joining efforts.<\/p>\n
“The rain has let up, but we know there’s another wave coming,” Martin warned, saying more rain would be hitting areas around San Antonio and Austin.<\/p>\n
“We didn’t know this flood was coming,” Kerr County judge Rob Kelly said earlier on Friday, adding that the region has “floods all the time.”<\/p>\n
“This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States,” he added, referring to the Guadalupe River that flows through the region.<\/p>\n
Forecasters issued a flood warning for Kerr County, urging those living near the Guadalupe River to “move to higher ground.”<\/p>\n
In mid-June, at least 10 people were killed by flash flooding in San Antonio following torrential rains.<\/p>\n
bur-jb\/aks\/acb<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At least 13 people were dead after flash flooding hit south-central Texas early Friday, officials said, with more than 20 girls at a summer camp still unaccounted for. “We have identified 13 fatalities,” Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha told a press conference after devastating floods swept through the region northwest of San Antonio, warning more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1969,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[198],"tags":[576,144],"class_list":["post-1967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-miscellaneous","tag-flood","tag-us-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}