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Search teams facing more rain as they mourn dozens of dead at Texas girls' camp

The Christian All-Girls Camp in Central Texas announced on Monday that 27 girls and their counselors perished during the devastating flooding of the 4th of July weekend. Emergency responders are still searching for missing persons and face the possibility of further heavy rains and storms.

Officials have confirmed that the death toll is 78. This includes 28 children. They also said that it will likely rise as teams search through the mud-covered riverbanks, and fly over flood-ravaged landscape. Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha confirmed that the majority of the dead are in the riverfront Hill Country Texas city of Kerrville.

In less than an hour, torrential rains at dawn transformed the Guadalupe River in Kerrville into a raging river. Camp Mystic on the Guadalupe River, a Christian girls' retreat that has been around for nearly 100 years, was ravaged by the waters.

In a Monday statement, the camp said: "Our hearts are broken along with our families who are experiencing this unimaginable tragedies."

Multiple media, including the Austin American-Statesman, reported that Richard "Dick' Eastland 70, co-owner and Director of Camp Mystic died while trying to save children from his camp in the flood.

According to the website of the camp, Eastland has owned the camp with his wife Tweety Eastland since 1974.

George Eastland wrote on Instagram that "if he was not going to die naturally, this was the only way, saving the daughters that he loved and cared about," Eastland’s grandson.

Allison Santorelli is a National Weather Service meteorologist at the Weather Prediction Center of College Park, Maryland. She said that in Hill Country, where the worst flooding took place, an additional 2 to 4 inches would fall.

Santorelli stated that new flooding could be dangerous due to the soil saturated with water and the debris in the river.

The weather service has issued a flood warning for the area until 7 pm on Monday.

On Thursday, state emergency management officials warned that, in advance of the Fourth of July holiday, parts of central Texas could be subject to heavy rains and flash flooding based on National Weather Service predictions.

Confusion of disaster

Dalton Rice, the City Manager, said that twice as much rainfall as had been predicted fell over two branches of Guadalupe, just upstream from the fork, where they converge. This water then rushed into a single channel of the river, which cuts through Kerrville. Rice, along with other officials including Governor Greg Abbott said that the floods, as well as the accuracy of weather forecasts, warning systems and their circumstances, will be examined once the immediate situation is under control. Search-and-rescue efforts were ongoing around the clock with hundreds of emergency workers on the ground tackling a variety of challenges.

Martin, a reporter, told Sunday's reporters: "It is hot, there is mud, people are moving debris and there are snakes."

Thomas Suelzar said that the Texas Military Department's airborne search assets include eight helicopters, and a remotely-piloted MQ-9 Reaper equipped with advanced sensors to conduct surveillance and reconnaissance. The sudden storm that dumped 15 inches of rainfall across the region about 85 miles (140 kilometers) northwest of San Antonio, caused more than 850 people to be rescued. Some were clinging onto trees. Department of Homeland Security reported that the Federal Emergency Management Agency activated Sunday and deployed resources to Texas following President Donald Trump's major disaster declaration. U.S. Coast Guard planes and helicopters are assisting in search and rescue operations.

SCALING BACK THE FEDERAL RESPONSE TO DISASTER

Trump announced on Sunday that he will visit the scene of the disaster, most likely on Friday. He previously announced plans to reduce the federal government's response to natural disasters and leave it to the states to take on more responsibility.

Experts questioned whether the Trump administration's cuts to federal employees, including the agency overseeing the National Weather Service (NWS), led officials to fail to accurately predict flood severity and issue warnings before the storm. Former NOAA director Rick Spinrad stated that Trump's administration had overseen the thousands of job reductions from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the parent agency for the National Weather Service. This left many weather offices with inadequate staffing.

Trump refused to answer when asked Sunday whether federal budget cuts had hampered disaster response efforts or left important job vacancies within the Weather Service, under Trump's supervision.

He referred to his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, saying, "That water issue, that's all, and that really was the Biden set-up." "But I would not blame Biden either." "I would say that this is a catastrophe of 100 years."

Kristi Noem, Homeland Security Secretary at Fox News, said that on Monday there didn't appear to be any specific malfunction in the National Weather Service system.

She said that the alerts were sent out hours before the flood. However, the rapid rise in water levels and the speed at which they occurred was unheard of in this region. Additional reporting by Marco Bello in Comfort, Texas, Sandra Stojanovic, Rich McKay, Alexandra Alper in Atlanta, Tim Reid, Deborah Gembara, Nathan Howard, in Morristown, New Jersey, Ryan Jones, Bhargavacharya, in Toronto, Brendan O'Brien, in Chicago, and Nathan Layne, in New York. Writing and editing by Stephen Coates and Joseph Ax.

(source: Reuters)