Nearly 80 dead in Texas after raging flood
There are now nearly 80 people confirmed dead due to the central Texas flood, according to state officials.
Larry Leitha, the Kerr County sheriff, said on Sunday afternoon that 68 people have died in the county, including 40 adults and 28 children. Earlier in the afternoon Texas’s governor Greg Abbott said that ten people in other areas of the state were found dead.
This means there is a total of at least 78 confirmed dead in the entire state of Texas.
According to Leitha, there are still 18 adults and 10 children who are pending identification in the county. And there are 10 Camp Mystic campers missing, along with one counselor.
Key events
People from elsewhere in Texas have converged on Kerr County to help search for the missing.
One of the searches focused on four young women who were staying in a house that was washed away by the Guadalupe River. Adam Durda and his wife Amber, both 45, drove three hours to help, Agence France-Presse reports.
“There was a group of 20-year-olds that were in a house that had gotten washed away,” Durda said.
That’s who the family requested help for, but of course, we’re looking for anybody.
Justin Morales, 36, was part of a search team that found three bodies, including that of a Camp Mystic girl caught up in a tree.
“We’re happy to give a family closure and hopefully we can keep looking and find some of the … you know, whoever,” he told AFP.
Help give some of those families closure. That’s why we’re out here.
Texans also started flying personal drones to help look but local officials urged them to stop, citing a danger for rescue aircraft.
An official has said he was receiving unconfirmed reports of “an additional wall of water” flowing down some of the creeks in the Guadalupe Rivershed, as rain continued to fall on soil in the region already saturated from Friday’s rains.
Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, told a press conference on Sunday afternoon that aircraft were sent to scout for additional flood waters, while search-and-rescue personnel who might be in harm’s way were alerted to pull back from the river in the meantime.
Reuters reports that Kidd said among those killed were three people in Burnet county, one in Tom Green county, five in Travis county and one in Williamson county.
“You will see the death toll rise today and tomorrow,” said Freeman Martin, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, also speaking on Sunday.
Officials said on Saturday that more than 850 people had been rescued, including some clinging to trees, after a sudden storm dumped up to 15 inches (38cm) of rain across the region, about 85 miles (140km) north-west of San Antonio.
Larry Leitha, the Kerr county sheriff in Texas Hill Country, told reporters:
Everyone in the community is hurting.
Expanding on the last post, Donald Trump was asked in relation to the Texas disaster whether he was still planning to phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency and said:
Fema is something we can talk about later. But right now they’re busy working so we’ll leave it at that.
Speaking to reporters at a New Jersey airport, the president was also asked if he was investigating whether some of the cuts to the federal government left key vacancies at the National Weather Service or in emergency coordination. He responded:
They didn’t. I’ll tell you, if you look at that, what a situation that all is – that was really the Biden set-up, that was not our set-up. But I wouldn’t blame Biden for it either. I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe and it’s just so horrible to watch.
Trump said Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, would continue to be in Texas and “we’re working very close” with Texas representatives.
Donald Trump has said cuts to the National Weather Service played no role in the disaster and that now was not the time to talk about his previously stated plan to eliminate Fema, the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The president also said he would probably visit Texas on Friday and described the disaster as “absolutely horrible”.
Summary
The evening is quickly approaching as local residents in Kerrville, Texas, continue to receive flash flood warnings on their devices.
Here are the latest updates:
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About 80 people are dead throughout the state due to the flooding in central Texas, according to state officials. Sixty-eight people are dead in Kerr County, including 40 adults and 28 children.
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Ten Camp Mystic campers are missing, along with one counsellor, the sheriff said. During an afternoon press conference, Abbott confirmed there were 41 known missing people throughout the entire state.
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Former president George W Bush, who also served as governor of Texas, expressed his condolences to the families on Sunday. His wife, Laura Bush, was a counsellor at Camp Mystic years ago.
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As search and rescue efforts continue, locals are pressing officials about the area’s preparedness to the flooding – and officials are sidestepping those questions. According to reports, the area lacked an alarm system to warn of the incoming flood. Kerr County officials have unsuccessfully attempted to raise enough funds since at least 2018 to establish an alarm system.
Video posted on X by the Texas National Guard shows a group of campers who were evacuated by military members. As the truck drives by, one of the girls waves at the camera. Brown floodwater is seen in the background next to fallen trees.
Texas National Guardsmen evacuate a group of campers needing assistance near Kerrville. Texas Military Department (TMD) personnel have been working around the clock to assist with evacuations and search and rescue operations. pic.twitter.com/tNzyKLncHi
— Texas Military Dept. (@TXMilitary) July 6, 2025
The Kerrville city manager did not answer questions during a press conference on Sunday afternoon regarding concerns by locals there was not enough warning of the incoming flood.
Reports have surfaced showing that, since at least 2018, county officials unsuccessfully attempted to apply for grants for flood warning alarm systems.
Residents claimed they “got no emergency alerts, whatsoever,” a reporter said during the press conference. “Yes or no: did local agencies send out any emergency alerts, blares, sirens of any kind?”
“We don’t want to speculate at this time, we know there’s a lot of speculation and question around it,” said Dalton Rice, the city manager. “Again, there is going to be a full review of this, so we can make sure that we focus on future preparedness.”
“We want to continue to focus on the families at this time, so we’re getting through that.”
People in Kerrville, Texas received alerts on their phones warning of a “severe” emergency alert on Sunday late afternoon.
“A FLASH FLOOD WARNING is in effect for this area” until 6:30 p.m. central time, the alert reads.
“This is a dangerous and life-threatening situation. Do not attempt to travel unless you are fleeing an area subject to flooding or under an evacuation order.”
Several flash flood warnings are in effect throughout central Texas, the National Weather Service also said on Sunday afternoon, as “scattered showers and isolated thunderstorms continue to increase.”
The Kerr County sheriff said on Sunday that search and rescue efforts around the Johnson Creek area were being temporarily suspended, as a rise there could add “one or two feet” of additional water into the Guadalupe River.
“We are pulling our assets out of there right now, to be safe. We’ll determine where it’s safe again to put them back in there,” sheriff Larry Leitha said.
Nearly 80 dead in Texas after raging flood
There are now nearly 80 people confirmed dead due to the central Texas flood, according to state officials.
Larry Leitha, the Kerr County sheriff, said on Sunday afternoon that 68 people have died in the county, including 40 adults and 28 children. Earlier in the afternoon Texas’s governor Greg Abbott said that ten people in other areas of the state were found dead.
This means there is a total of at least 78 confirmed dead in the entire state of Texas.
According to Leitha, there are still 18 adults and 10 children who are pending identification in the county. And there are 10 Camp Mystic campers missing, along with one counselor.
Journalists have pressed the governor and local officials about a lack of alarm systems near the camps and how people affected could have been warned about the flood.
A report from KXAN, an NBC affiliate in Austin, said that Kerrville did not have an outdoor warning alarm system. The report says that while the National Weather Service and the local city Facebook page warned people to “move to higher ground,” the campers at Camp Mystic would likely not have seen the alert, due to the no electronic devices rule.
Additionally, the KXAN story says that since at least 2018, the Kerr County government has repeatedly applied for grants to install a flood warning system.
The Times later reported that Camp Mystic is 15 miles up the river from Kerrville, with a local resident saying the flood alert system may be impractical.
Texas’s governor Greg Abbott, when asked about the lack of sirens near the camps said it will be “something that will be looked at.”
Kerr County in Texas, where many of the flood deaths took place, did not have a warning alarm system to warn locals about the flood, the New York Times reported earlier.
NPR correspondent Sergio Martínez-Beltrán reports that as Texas’s governor Greg Abbott holds his ongoing press conference, people in Kerrville received an emergency alert, reading: “High confidence of river flooding at North Folks of river. Move to higher ground.”