Flooding rains rapidly overwhelmed the Guadalupe River in Texas on Friday, killing at least 24 people and prompting a frantic and ongoing rescue effort that continued through the night and into Saturday.
Parents were desperate for news about campers who remain missing from Camp Mystic, a Christian girls camp at the river's edge. On Friday evening, about two dozen campers were unaccounted for.
The camp is located in central Texas' Kerr County, about 60 miles northwest of San Antonio. A few miles away along the river, another girls' camp said its director was killed in the flooding. The Heart O' the Hills Camp said it was not in session and most people who were at camp when flooding hit have been accounted for, but camp officials received word that Director Jane Ragsdale had died.
"We are mourning the loss of a woman who influenced countless lives and was the definition of strong and powerful," the camp said on its website.
Five of the 24 confirmed victims are from Harris County, where Houston is located, said Harris County Judge Linda Hidalgo: "All of Texas is impacted by this tragic event."
A "24/7" rescue effort was underway, Gov. Greg Abbott said at a news conference Friday evening. Over 200 people were rescued from the floodwaters, said Maj. Gen. Thomas M. Suelzer, the commander of the Texas National Guard.
Abbott shared a video to social media of a responder dangling from a helicopter to rescue someone stranded in a tree with floodwaters below.
"Rescue teams worked throughout the night and will continue until we find all our citizens," the Kerrville Police Department said Saturday morning.
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told reporters Friday that his office has been in contact with the White House multiple times. President Donald Trump told state officials “whatever we need, we will have,” Patrick said.
Flooding threat continues on Saturday, forecasters say
As rescuers continue their search for missing people on Saturday, forecasters at the National Weather Service said the threat of catastrophic flooding and heavy rainfall was not yet over. That's because the system dumping rain over central Texas has slowed as it crawls over the state.
The weather service in Austin and San Antonio said a flood watch was in effect in the region until at least 7 p.m. local time on Saturday. Between 2 and 4 inches of additional rain are expected, with isolated amounts up to 10 inches, the weather service said.
"It is very difficult to pinpoint where exactly the isolated heavy amounts will occur in this pattern," the weather service said, warning people to pay attention to the weather.
The danger has extended to Travis, Williamson and Burnet counties, where very dangerous flash flooding is ongoing Saturday morning. Between 5 and 12 inches of rainfall has fallen there, the weather service said, calling it a "Particularly Dangerous Situation with life-threatening flash flooding."
A flood that came with terrifying swiftness
The flooding began sometime after 4:00 a.m., when extreme rains of as much as 12 inches an hour hit, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in a press conference Friday afternoon.
The National Weather Service had issued a flood watch for parts of south-central Texas, including Kerr County, on Thursday. It warned that a slow-moving system could potentially bring major storms to the area.
The rain that fell was even more intense.
At 2:03 a.m. the National Weather service issued its fifth warning of the evening, each of which had been more strident than the last.
This one said "This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW! Life threatening flash flooding of low water crossings, small creeks and streams, urban areas, highways, streets and underpasses."
Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said he had been jogging along the Guadalupe River trail at 3:30 a.m. and saw only light rain and no signs of flooding.
By 5:00 a.m. officials were beginning to get phone calls, and he and the area fire chief went to a local park to survey the scene.
"Within an hour and a half, [the river] had already risen over 25 feet," Rice said. "Within a matter of minutes it was up to 29 feet."
Meteorologist Matthew Cappucci explained in a post on X that rainfall in the area totaled over 10 inches, but "annual rainfall for this region is about 28-32 inches."
"Imagine 4 months’ worth of rain falling in a 6-hour window," he said.
The stretch of the Guadalupe River near Bergheim, Texas, located about 35 miles north of San Antonio "rose 40 FEET IN 3 HOURS," he added.
‒ Doyle Rice and Elizabeth Weise
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