• Death toll mounts: At least 104 people have died across six counties during the catastrophic flooding in central Texas. The majority of those killed were in Kerr County, where 28 children have died. Many were at the beloved Camp Mystic when flooding struck early on July Fourth.
• Rescuers not giving up: Two dozen people are still missing with a massive search underway involving hundreds of volunteers and more than 20 state agencies, according to Gov. Greg Abbott, who will hold a news conference Tuesday. “We will never presume they’re dead,” one volunteer told CNN.
• Forecast improves: Central Texas is expected to be much drier Tuesday after days of rain and ongoing flood risks. A handful of showers and thunderstorms could dot the region in the afternoon but are unlikely to trigger significant flood threats. The drier forecast is expected through the end of the week.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday announced he is sending members of California’s Urban Search and Rescue Team to Texas to assist with efforts related to the impacts of severe flooding in the Lonestar State.
“California stands with all those who have lost loved ones, homes, and livelihoods in the devastating aftermath of these summer floods in Texas.
The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is working in close coordination with the Federal Emergency Management Agency on the deployment, the release from Newsom’s office said.
Other states, including Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado and Florida, have also announced they are sending specialized personnel to assist in search and rescue operation in Central Texas.
Joyce Catherine Badon, 21, was found dead following the devastating floods in Hunt, Texas, her father told CNN.
Ty Badon said his daughter’s body was found Monday after several days of searching.
“My only ask is to please keep praying for me, Kellye, and our son Nick as we live our lives without Joyce Catherine being with us here on Earth,” he told CNN.
In an interview with CNN’s Ed Lavandera on Saturday, Ty Badon said Joyce Catherine was staying with friends at a cabin when the flooding hit early Friday morning. He said she was on the phone with her friend’s father who owns the cabin and told him the others had been “washed away” by floodwaters.
“Then a few seconds later, the phone went dead … we presume that she got washed away as well,” he said.
Badon traveled more than 350 miles from Beaumont to Hunt to help search for his daughter and three of her friends, all of whom went missing on Friday.
Country singer Pat Green has shared that he and his family “suffered a heartbreaking and deeply personal loss” as a result of the devastating floods that hit central Texas over the weekend.
“We are grieving alongside countless Texans whose lives have been upended by this tragedy,” Green wrote in a statement posted to his Instagram on Monday.
In a separate post on Instagram, his wife, Kori Green, shared Green’s brother John, his wife, Julia, and two of their children remain missing after being swept away in flooding in Kerrville, Texas.
“Right now, we kindly ask for privacy and space as we mourn, support each other, and begin to process what comes next for our family,” Green’s statement said. “Thank you for your love, prayers, and compassion.”
A woman who was rescued by her neighbor during the deadly flash flooding in Texas told CNN some alerts came through to her phone, but waters rose rapidly in the dark of night, which made it difficult to react.
Leigh-Anne Aiken whose home was located along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, said the only flood alert she noticed was from 1:40 a.m.
“To be honest, this was in the hours that I was asleep and there have been so frequent these different types of flood warnings, that I didn’t really register that,” Aiken told CNN’s John Vause.
“I couldn’t tell you honestly if it was a warning or a watch.”
Meanwhile, the water was rising while everybody was asleep, she said.
“It was pitch dark. The power was out. We’re in the water. If I hadn’t already been living on the property for some time … and been familiar with it. I would have been swept away because I wouldn’t know which way to go,” she said.
Aiken said she kept hearing loud noises from the storm and when she put her feet on the ground around 5 a.m., she was already in ankle deep in water.
She quickly called her neighbor and told him water had entered her cabin.
“And he came right away. By the time he got to me, which wasn’t long, and I had grabbed one of my dogs and he grabbed my larger dog, the water was already rising up to our knees, probably, when we walked out of my cabin and went up to his (cabin), which was higher ground. But within 15 minutes from my cabin into his and with the dogs elevated the the water was from the ankle to the waist.”
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said lives might have been saved if flood warning sirens had been installed along the Guadalupe River, calling for such systems to be in place by next summer.
“Had we had sirens along this area, up and down…that would have blown very loudly, it’s possible that that would have saved some of these lives,” Patrick told Fox News on Monday.
Patrick added that if the city can’t afford such sirens, “then the state will step up.”
“We need to have these in place by the next summer, when the next season comes when people are floating down the river,” Patrick said.
His comments come as local officials face questions about whether officials could have done more to avert the tragedy.
In recent years, multiple efforts in Kerr County to build a more substantial flood warning system have faltered or been abandoned due to budget concerns, leaving the epicenter of this weekend’s floods without emergency sirens that could have warned residents about the rising waters.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will hold a news conference at 6 p.m. ET in Kerrville on the state’s response to the flood devastation, according to a news release from the governor’s office.
Abbott will also receive a briefing on the state’s response.
Prior to the briefing and news conference, he and Dustin Burrows, speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, will take an aerial tour to survey the damages caused by the floods and visit Camp Mystic.
Abbott said Monday that more than 20 state agencies are responding to flooding across Texas. Additionally, 1,750 personnel and more than 975 vehicles and other assets have been deployed, the governor said in a statement.
Tactical and law enforcement personnel from the Department of Public Safety are also assisting, the governor said.
At least 104 people have died in flooding in Texas, according to local officials across the region.
It comes as rescue crews are still searching for dozens of missing people.
Here’s a breakdown by county:
- 84 deaths in Kerr County
- 7 deaths in Travis County
- 6 deaths in Kendall County
- 4 deaths in Burnet County
- 2 deaths in Williamson County
- 1 death in Tom Green County
The forecast in central Texas looks like it will be much drier today than the past several days.
A handful of showers and thunderstorms could dot the region this afternoon, but these storms aren’t likely to present much of a flood threat. A similar setup is possible Wednesday. Thursday and Friday should be dry and mostly sunny in the region.
Despite the region forecast to finally dry out, some rivers may rise even after the rain fully stops.
The Llano River has risen several feet since yesterday morning and was nearly at minor flood stage by the mid-afternoon. The San Saba River is forecast to hit minor flood stage this afternoon.
Much of the Guadalupe River has returned back closer to normal levels and is not currently forecast to flood again in the coming days.
As officials in central Texas search for the people still missing after devastating flooding last week and over the weekend, the emergency response to the extreme weather has left many unanswered questions.
More than 100 people were killed in the rapidly-rising water.
Here are some of the questions:
- What actions did Kerr County officials take to warn residents about the potential “considerable” flood threat?
- Why wasn’t there an organized evacuation effort there in the three hours or so between the dire flood warning from the National Weather Service and the time the river overflowed its banks?
- Why did some nearby communities (such as Comfort in Kendall County) seem to act on the same weather information in a more serious way?
- Did Camp Mystic have a flood emergency plan and weather emergency radios and were they used during the flooding?
During extreme weather, it is critical for meteorologists to ensure their forecasts and information about alerts are delivered to local emergency management personnel so they can warn people on the ground, one former administrator said.
It’s “what a lot of people call the last mile,” Richard Spinrad, former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration administrator, told CNN.
This, he said, is where there might have been a communication breakdown during the fast-moving flooding in Texas that started Thursday night and killed more than 100 people.
Though officials are still working to figure out exactly what happened in Texas, Spinrad said typically a “warning coordination meteorologist” is in direct communication with local emergency personnel and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. That person makes sure messages from federal agencies are received by the right people, he said.
Spinrad, who led NOAA during the Biden administration, compared these kind of emergency alerts to moments when a tornado about to touch down rather than warnings about an impending hurricane. Having multiple different types of warning systems is important, he said.
“When a tornado is bearing down, you’ll get that wireless emergency alert and in many towns and localities, there will also be a siren system which emergency authorities have access to. So you want to do everything in your capacity,” he said.
About the Texas alerts: The two Texas National Weather Service offices most closely involved in forecasting and warning about the flooding on the Guadalupe River — Austin-San Antonio and San Angelo — are missing some key staff members due to Trump administration cuts, but still issued a slew of watches and warnings about the flood danger.