KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Texas parents frantically posted photos of their young daughters on social media with pleas for information as at least 27 campers from an all-girls summer camp were unaccounted for Friday after floods tore through central Texas overnight.
At least 43 people, including 15 children, died in Kerr County after a storm unleashed nearly a foot of rain just before dawn Friday and sent floodwaters gushing out of the Guadalupe River through the region known for its century-old summer camps. Many more are still missing, and authorities said about 850 people had been rescued so far.
State officials said 27 girls from Camp Mystic, a riverside Christian camp in Hunt, Texas, still were unaccounted for.
“I’m asking the people of Texas, do some serious praying," Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said. “On-your-knees kind of praying that we find these young girls.”
Flood turns storied Camp Mystic into a nightmare
The camp was established in 1926. It grew so popular over the following decades that families are now encouraged to put prospective campers on the waitlist years in advance.
Photos and videos taken before the flood are idyllic, showing large cabins with green-shingled roofs and names like “Wiggle Inn,” tucked among sturdy oak and cypress trees that grow on the banks of the Guadalupe River. In some social media posts, girls are fishing, riding horses, playing kickball or performing choreographed dance routines in matching T-shirts. Girls ranging in age from 8 to 17 years old pose for the camera with big smiles, arms draped across the shoulders of their fellow campers.
But the floodwaters left behind a starkly different landscape: A pickup truck is balanced precariously on two wheels, its side lodged halfway up a tree. A wall is torn entirely off one building, the interior empty except for a Texas flag and paintings hung high along one side. A twisted bit of metal — perhaps a bedframe — is stacked next to colorful steamer trunks and broken tree limbs.
First responders are scouring the riverbanks in hopes of finding survivors. Social media posts are now focused on the faces of the missing.
Gov. Greg Abbott vowed that authorities will be relentless and work around the clock to rescue and recoverin victims, adding that new areas were being searched as the water recedes.
“We will find every one of them,” he said.
More rain fell around Austin, and a massive search continued in the nearby Hill Country.
At least three people died and 10 others were missing in Travis County, home to the state capital.
Two people died in Burnet County, where a firefighter was among the missing after he was swept away by floodwaters while responding to a rescue, county Emergency Management Coordinator Derek Marchio said.
Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said 32 bodies had been recovered so far in the devastated Hill Country: 18 adults and 14 children.
Authorities were coming under scrutiny over whether the camps and residents in places long vulnerable to flooding received proper warning and whether enough preparations were made.
The hills along the Guadalupe River in central Texas are dotted with century-old youth camps and campgrounds where generations of families have come to swim and enjoy the outdoors. The area is especially popular around the July Fourth holiday, making it more difficult to know how many are missing.
A raging storm fueled by incredible amounts of moisture woke up her cabin just after midnight Friday, and when rescuers arrived, they tied a rope for the girls to hold as they walked across a bridge with water whipping around their legs, she said.
Frantic parents and families posted photos of missing loved ones and pleas for information.
On Saturday, the camp was mostly deserted. Helicopters roared above as a few people looked at the damage, including a pickup truck tossed onto its side and a building missing its entire front wall.
Among those confirmed dead were an 8-year-old girl from Mountain Brook, Alabama, who was staying at Camp Mystic, and the director of another camp just up the road.
The flooding in the middle of the night caught many residents, campers and officials by surprise in the Hill Country, which sits northwest of San Antonio.
AccuWeather said the private forecasting company and the National Weather Service sent warnings about potential flash flooding hours before the devastation.
“These warnings should have provided officials with ample time to evacuate camps such as Camp Mystic and get people to safety,” AccuWeather said in a statement that called the Hill Country one of the most flash-flood-prone areas of the U.S. because of its terrain and many water crossings.
Officials defended their actions while saying they had not expected such an intense downpour that was the equivalent of months' worth of rain for the area.
One National Weather Service forecast earlier in the week "did not predict the amount of rain that we saw,” said Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
2 Young Texas Campers Share How They Survived: “Oh, My God, We’re Floating!”
From the K-LOVE Family, our deepest condolences:
‘Pitch black wall of death’
In Ingram, Erin Burgess woke to thunder and rain at 3:30 a.m. Just 20 minutes later, water was pouring into her home directly across from the river, she said. She described an agonizing hour clinging to a tree and waiting for the water to recede enough so they could walk up the hill to a neighbor's home.
“My son and I floated to a tree where we hung onto it, and my boyfriend and my dog floated away. He was lost for a while, but we found them,” she said.
Of her 19-year-old son, Burgess said: “Thankfully he’s over 6 feet tall. That’s the only thing that saved me, was hanging on to him.”
Matthew Stone, 44, of Kerrville, said police came knocking on doors at 5:30 a.m. but that he had received no warning on his phone.
“We got no emergency alert. There was nothing," Stone said. Then: "a pitch black wall of death.”
Stone said police used his paddle boat to help rescue a neighbor. He and the rescuers thought they heard someone yelling “help!” from the water but couldn't see anyone, he said.
‘I was scared to death’
At a reunification center set up in Ingram, families cried and cheered as loved ones got off vehicles loaded with evacuees. Two soldiers carried an older woman who could not get down a ladder. Behind her, a woman in a soiled T-shirt and shorts clutched a small white dog.
Later, a girl in a white “Camp Mystic” T-shirt and white socks stood in a puddle, sobbing in her mother’s arms.
Barry Adelman, 54, said water pushed everyone in his three-story house into the attic, including his 94-year-old grandmother and 9-year-old grandson. The water started coming trough the attic floor before finally receding.
“I was horrified,” he said. “I was having to look at my grandson in the face and tell him everything was going to be OK, but inside I was scared to death.”
Popular tourism area prone to flooding
The area is known as “flash flood alley” because of the hills’ thin layer of soil, said Austin Dickson, CEO of the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country, which was collecting donations to help nonprofits responding to the disaster.
“When it rains, water doesn’t soak into the soil,” Dickson said. “It rushes down the hill.”
River tourism industry is a key part of the Hill Country economy, said Dickson. Well-known, century-old summer camps bring in kids from all over the country, he said. Between Hunt and Ingram are many river homes and cabins for rent.
“It’s generally a very tranquil river with really beautiful clear blue water that people have been attracted to for generations,” Dickson said.
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Fingerhut reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Associated Press reporters Adrian Sanz in Memphis, Tennessee, Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City, John O'Connor in Springfield, Illinois, and Susan Haigh in Norwich, Connecticut, also contributed.