Death toll rises to 24, several campers unaccounted for amid ‘catastrophic flooding’ in Texas

KERR COUNTY, Texas — The death toll from dev­as­tat­ing floods in cen­tral Texas has risen to 24, Kerr Coun­ty Sher­iff Lar­ry L. Lei­tha told reporters dur­ing a news con­fer­ence Fri­day evening.

Heavy rain pound­ed Kerr Coun­ty ear­ly Fri­day, lead­ing to dead­ly and “cat­a­stroph­ic” flood­ing, the sher­iff said.

Chil­dren are among the dead, said Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who has tak­en on the duties of act­ing gov­er­nor..

The num­ber of peo­ple unac­count­ed remains unknown, offi­cials said.

“It was a hol­i­day week­end here,” Lei­tha said. “We have a lot of campers here, and we do not know that num­ber at this time.”

There are sev­er­al major camps in the area, and at one of them, Camp Mys­tic, up to 25 of its 750 campers are unac­count­ed for, accord­ing to Lei­tha.

That does not mean they’ve been lost — they could be in a tree, they could be out of com­mu­ni­ca­tion. We are pray­ing for all of those miss­ing to be found alive,” Patrick said at a news con­fer­ence.

Camp Mys­tic said in a let­ter to par­ents, “If your daugh­ter is not account­ed for, you have been noti­fied. If you have not been per­son­al­ly con­tact­ed, then your daugh­ter is account­ed for.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the state remains in a search and res­cue pos­ture hours after dev­as­tat­ing flood­ing tore through cen­tral Texas.

He said two state search and res­cue teams, the Texas Nation­al Guard and a host of oth­er agen­cies are con­tin­u­ing to con­duct res­cues Fri­day night.

“They will con­tin­ue in the dark­ness of night … They will be non­stop, seek­ing to find every­body who is unac­count­ed for,” Abbott said dur­ing a news con­fer­ence Fri­day night

The gov­er­nor signed a dis­as­ter dec­la­ra­tion for the affect­ed coun­ties.

Up to 12 inch­es of rain has already fall­en in Kerr Coun­ty, about 60 miles north of San Anto­nio, with the rain ongo­ing through the evening.

Dozens of peo­ple were res­cued Fri­day morn­ing and search efforts are ongo­ing, Kerr Coun­ty Judge Rob Kel­ly said.

“This came at night, when peo­ple were asleep in bed,” Ker­rville May­or Joe Her­ring said at an ear­li­er news con­fer­ence, over­come with emo­tion. “Please pray for our com­mu­ni­ty.”

The Guadalupe Riv­er in Kerr Coun­ty rose a whop­ping 26 feet in 45 min­utes, Patrick said. The riv­er reached its sec­ond-high­est height on record, sur­pass­ing a 1987 flood lev­el, the Nation­al Weath­er Ser­vice said.

While most res­i­dents should avoid trav­el­ing, “those near creeks, streams, and the Guadalupe Riv­er should imme­di­ate­ly move to high­er ground,” the sher­if­f’s office warned.

At one camp­ground along the Guadalupe Riv­er, peo­ple filmed videos of them­selves evac­u­at­ing when they noticed flood water encroach­ing under their vehi­cle. Oth­er videos showed cars and cab­ins sub­merged.

“I was up all night keep­ing an eye on weath­er alerts. 2 a.m. there was a riv­er flood warn­ing. The riv­er was a good dis­tance from our site, so we thought we would be fine,” one camper, Katie, told ABC News via Insta­gram. “At about 5:30am, we heard bang­ing on our RV door, yelling for us to get out now. The Guadalupe Riv­er had risen rapid­ly. We got the kids in the truck and were pre­pared to leave our camper behind if need be. We were able to hook up our camper and get it out too.”

“The riv­er was up to the back of our camp­site when we left. The riv­er was rag­ing and you could hear trees and objects break­ing,” she said. “It was a very scary sit­u­a­tion, but we are very blessed by the work­ers at the park for wak­ing peo­ple up and get­ting us out of there. Pray­ing for every­one affect­ed by the flood­ing