Flash flooding in Texas over the July Fourth holiday weekend ripped homes from foundations, swept cars away and killed at least 82 people, with dozens more still missing.
Among the fatalities are at least 27 children and counselors from Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp, where the search for missing campers is ongoing.
More than 1,000 local, state and federal responders are working to find the missing among the debris. Drones and helicopters are also being used to search flooded riverbanks.
“We remain in a search-and-rescue posture right now,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told reporters. “They will be nonstop, seeking to find everybody who is unaccounted for.”
Intense rainfall across South Central Texas early on Friday morning caused the Guadalupe River to rise 22 feet in just two hours, a National Weather Service meteorologist told the Texas Tribune. The river reached 29.5 feet before the measuring gauge was overtaken by flood waters and stopped transmitting.
“The Guadalupe River went from probably just a typical lazy river, a little bit of slow motion, to a wall of water with height rises of 30 feet of fast-moving water in less than an hour,” said AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter on the AccuWeather Network. “And there's nothing worse than fast-moving water, it will destroy everything in its path."
Flood events are common in the region, which has been called “Flash Flood Alley.”
"This is perhaps the most flash-flood vulnerable part of the country,” Porter said. "Because of the fact that you have complex terrain, lots of hills and valleys that water can pour into and often times access to Gulf moisture and moisture from the Eastern Pacific.”
Given the region’s history, Porter is among several meteorologists and officials wondering why warnings weren’t heeded and more people weren’t evacuated ahead of the flooding.
“This heartbreaking catastrophe in Central Texas is a tragedy of the worst sort,” Porter said. “AccuWeather warned of imminent flash flooding well in advance. Had these warnings been heeded, lives could have been saved.”
AccuWeather issued flash flood warnings for the areas around 12:44 a.m. on Friday, and the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning at 1:14 a.m. The flash flood warning was upgraded to a flash flood emergency for south central Kerr County around 4:03 a.m.
But prior to the warning, federal forecasters had called for just four to eight inches of rain in the area. Rainfall totals in the area wound up exceeding 18 inches in some places.
“Listen, everybody got the forecast from the National Weather Service, right?” Texas Department of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd told reporters. “You all got it, you’re all in media, you got that forecast. It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw.”
Some are saying cuts at the NWS — part of President Donald Trump’s efforts to slash budgets and personnel at the NWS as well as its parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — led to inaccurate forecasts and late warnings.
A key position at the local NWS office — warning coordination meteorologist — has remained vacant since April. The person who had been serving in the role took an early retirement package offered to employees as part of the Trump administration’s effort to reduce the government workforce. One of the role’s chief responsibilities is ensuring ample and timely warning to Central Texas counties.
Five other seats in the local NWS office also remain unfilled.
At a press conference, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said the flooding event was “unprecedented” and that Trump is planning to fix aging technology at NOAA.
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