HUNT, Texas (AP) — More than 160 people are believed to be missing in Texas four days after flash floods killed over 100 people during the July Fourth weekend, Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday.
Many of those who are not accounted for were staying in state’s Hill Country but did not register at a camp or hotel.
The lowlands along the Guadalupe River in central Texas are filled with youth camps and campgrounds that are especially popular around summer holidays, which has made it more difficult to know how many people are missing.
The big jump in the number of missing came after authorities set up a hotline for families to call.
“We will not stop until every missing person is accounted for,” Abbott said during a news conference in Hunt, Texas, after taking a helicopter tour of the area.
The 161 missing were believed to be in Kerr County, where most of the victims have recovered, Abbott said.
The governor said President Donald Trump has pledged to provide whatever relief Texas needs to recover.
“He could not stop talking about how sad he was for all the little girls who have lost their lives.” Trump planned to visit the state Friday.
Meanwhile, public officials in charge of finding victims of the devastating flooding pushed away intensifying questions about who was monitoring the weather and warning that floodwaters were barreling toward camps and homes.
Leaders in Kerr County, where searchers have found 87 bodies, said their first priority is recovering victims, not reviewing what happened in the hours before the flash floods inundated the state’s Hill Country.
“Right now, this team up here is focused on bringing people home,” Lt. Col. Ben Baker of the Texas Game Wardens, said during a sometimes tense news conference where officials were questioned about the timing of their response.
Hope of finding survivors was increasingly bleak. Four days have passed since anyone was found alive in the aftermath of the floods in Kerr County, officials said Tuesday.
Abbott planned to make another visit Tuesday to Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 campers and counselors died during the floods. Officials said Tuesday that five campers and one counselor have still not been found.
Scenes of devastation at Camp Mystic
Outside the cabins at Camp Mystic where the girls had slept, mud-splattered blankets and pillows were scattered on a grassy hill that slopes toward the river. Also in the debris were pink, purple and blue luggage decorated with stickers.
Among those who died at the camp were a second grader who loved pink sparkles and bows in her hair, a 19-year-old counselor who enjoyed mentoring young girls and the camp’s 75-year-old director.
The flash floods erupted before daybreak Friday after massive rains sent water speeding down hills into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet (8 meters) in less than an hour. The wall of water overwhelmed people in cabins, tents and trailers along the river’s edge, pulling them into the water. Some survivors were found clinging to trees.
Some campers had to swim out of cabin windows to safety while others held onto a rope as they made their way to higher ground. Time-lapse videos showed how floodwaters covered roads in a matter of minutes.
Although it's difficult to attribute a single weather event to climate change, experts say a warming atmosphere and oceans make catastrophic storms more likely.