A desperate search for flood victims in Texas intensified Sunday after the Guadalupe River gushed over its banks in darkness days earlier, swallowing homes and vehicles and leaving a staggering toll of destruction.At least 68 people have died in flooding triggered by unrelenting rain that drenched central Texas, officials announced, and most of the deaths have been reported in the Kerr County area, about 85 miles northwest of San Antonio.
Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said at a news conference Sunday that 38 of the bodies recovered in the county have been adults and 21 were children.
Anguished parents were waiting for word Sunday on the 11 children still missing from Camp Mystic, a Christian girls’ camp at the river’s edge. A camp counselor is also being sought, Leitha said.The National Weather Service said Kerr County, located in Texas Hill Country, was inundated by as much as 15 inches of rain triggered by intense thunderstorms − half of the total the region sees in a year. The Guadalupe River rose more than 26 feet in just 45 minutes, weather.com reported.
Crews have been working around the clock, scouring riverbanks littered with mangled trees and rubble. Rescuers have pulled residents from rooftops and found some survivors still clinging to trees. As search and rescue operations remain underway, meteorologists warned about additional rain worsening flooding across central Texas.
“We will not stop until every single person is found,” Leitha vowed.
