- The number of deaths is expected to increase.
- 11 Girls, counselor always absent from the summer camp.
- Total number of failures still not very clear.
The number of deaths of catastrophic floods in Texas reached at least 67 Sunday, including 21 children, while the search for girls who have disappeared from a summer camp entered the third day.
Larry Leitha, the Sheriff of the County of Kerr in Texas Hill Country, the epicenter of the floods, said that the number of dead in Kerr’s county had reached 59 years, including the 21 children.
Leitha said 11 girls and an advisor remained missing from a summer camp near the Guadalupe river, which broke its banks after torrential rains fell into the Texas central region on Friday, the United States independence holidays.
An official of the County of Travis said that four people died there, with 13 not counted people and that officials reported another death in Kendall County. The Burnet County sheriff’s office reported two deaths. A woman was found dead in her submerged car in the city of San Angelo in Tom Green, said the police chief.
Leitha said there were 18 adults and four children still awaiting identification in Kerr County. He did not say if these 22 individuals were included in the number of deaths of 59.
The officials said on Saturday that more than 850 people were saved, including trees, after a sudden storm, a storm up to 15 inches (38 cm) of rain in the region, about 85 miles (140 km) northwest of San Antonio. We did not know exactly how many people in the region still lacked.
“Everyone in the community hurts,” Leitha told journalists.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency was activated on Sunday and deploys resources to the first stakeholders in Texas after President Donald Trump published a major statement in the event of a disaster, the Ministry of Interior Security said in a statement.
Helicopters and the United States Coast Guard helps research and rescue efforts, said the DHS.
Some experts wondered if the reductions of the federal workforce by the Trump administration, including the agency which oversees the National Weather Service, led to the failure of those responsible for predict the gravity of the floods and to issue appropriate warnings before the storm.
Trump administration supervised thousands of employment cuts from the National Weather Service parental agency, the national ocean and atmospheric administration, leaving many meteorological offices, said former director of the NAAA, Rick Spinrad.
He said that he did not know if these staff members reduce the lack of prior warning for the extreme floods of Texas, but that they inevitably degrade the agency’s capacity to provide precise and timely forecasts.
Internal security secretary Kristi Noem, who oversees the NOAA, said that a “moderate” flooded watch published Thursday by National Weather Service had not accurately predicted extreme precipitation and said that the Trump administration was working to improve the system.
The White House did not respond to a request for comments.
Joaquin Castro, a member of the Democratic Congress of Texas, told CNN’s “union” that less staff in the meteorological service could be dangerous.
“When you have sudden floods, there is a risk that if you do not have the staff … To do this analysis, do the predictions in the best way, it could lead to a tragedy,” said Castro.
No more rain
On Sunday, no more rain was expected in the region. The National Weather Service has published flood surveillance for Kerr county until local time.
The disaster took place quickly Friday morning while the rain stronger than the rain quickly led the river waters at 29 feet (9 meters).
Texas governor Greg Abbott, a republican, told a press conference on Saturday that he asked Trump to sign a disaster declaration, which would unlock federal aid for affected people. Noem said Trump would honor this request.
Trump previously described plans to reduce the role of the federal government in the response to natural disasters, leaving the United States to host the burden themselves.
The 11 disappeared girls and the advisor came from the Mystic Camp summer camp, an almost centenary Christian girls camp, which had 700 girls in residence at the time of the flood.
One day after the disaster struck, the camp was a devastation scene. Inside a cabin, the mud lines indicating to what height the water had increased was at least six feet (1.83 m) on the ground. The bed frames, the mattresses and the personal effects sewn of mud were dispersed inside.
Some buildings had broken windows, one had a missing wall.
