At least 70 dead in Texas flash floods

At least 70 deaths—including the deaths of 21 children—have now been confirmed in the central Texas flash floods, according to the latest update from officials, though several children from a summer camp remain unaccounted for as blame swirls over preparedness and whether residents were properly alerted.

escue teams are searching for a group of 11 campers who were attending Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River, as well as one counselor, Leitha said.

More than 850 people have been rescued across Kerr County, which saw some of the worst flooding, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said.

“We’re seeing bodies recovered all over, up and down,” Kerrville City Manager Rice Dalton said Sunday, as search-and-rescue operations focused on finding the remaining missing campers.

President Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration for Kerr County on Sunday morning, while Abbott declared Sunday a “day of prayer.”

W. Nim Kidd, director of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, faulted the National Weather Service for not predicting “the amount of rain we saw,” though alerts were issued beforehand and as it became clear the region was facing a flash flood emergency.

The NWS issued a flash flood watch Thursday afternoon that noted Kerr County, where much of the flooding began early Friday morning, was a particularly vulnerable area, along with more urgent flash flood emergency alerts in the overnight hours as the disaster unfolded.

The NWS was one of several federal agencies targeted by the controversial cost-cutting efforts of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency, and has recently laid off nearly 600 employees—around the same amount of staffers it lost in the 15 previous years, the Texas Tribune reported.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the Trump administration would “honor” a federal disaster declaration from Abbott, who also declared Sunday a “day of prayer” as first responders search for the missing campers.