At least 24 people are reported dead and many more are missing, including girls from a Christian summer camp, after catastrophic river flooding hit central Texas Thursday and Friday.
Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said by Friday evening 24 people have been killed in the flooding, according to theThe New York Times.
Texas officials said earlier Friday about 20 girls from a nearby camp were missing. It’s currently unclear how many people are missing as of Friday night.
Governor Greg Abbott signed an emergency disaster declaration Friday night to expedite state funding for the areas most severely impacted. Abbott said emergency crews were still in a “search and rescue posture” at a news conference Friday night.
Earlier Friday, Gov. Abbott said in a statement, “The State of Texas today has mobilized additional resources in addition to the resources sent in preparation for the storms. I urge Texans to heed guidance from state and local officials and monitor local forecasts to avoid driving into flooded areas.”
Ahead of the storms, the state activated emergency response resources in Central Texas in preparation for continued heavy rainfall and flash flooding threats.
Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly told reporters one of those killed had been found “completely naked” and without identification.
Camp Mystic, the camp the missing girls were attending, said it had notified the parents of those unaccounted for, according to The Austin American-Statesman’s Tony Plohetski. An image, sent to local station KSAT, showed girls in the Kerr County camp wading through water overnight.
Law enforcement has responded to dozens of emergency calls and one man told KABB his brother, sister-in-law, and their two children were lost, along with their house. Nearby, in Ingram, an RV park had been swept away.
Kerr County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Clint Morris told the station it is “an extremely active scene, countywide.”
“This may be a once-in-a-lifetime flood” for the county, he said, noting authorities have responded to multiple calls for high-water rescues. The state has called in the National Guard to assist in the efforts. Kelly later told reporters the county does “not have a warning system.”
The floods came while people were asleep. As many as 10 inches of rain fell in the area, causing the flash flooding of the Guadalupe River. The river rose to nearly 35 feet on Friday, reaching its second-highest height on record. An additional one to three inches of rain are expected to fall before they subside on Friday night.
The flooding came as residents in the Northeast were spending their Fourth of July holiday cleaning up from strong thunderstorms that swept through the region Thursday night, bringing heavy rain, wind and hail.
The storms are being blamed for at least three deaths in central New Jersey, including two men in Plainfield who died after a tree fell onto a vehicle they were traveling in during the height of the storm, according to a city Facebook post.
The men were ages 79 and 25, officials said. They were not immediately publicly identified.
“Our hearts are heavy today,” Mayor Adrian O. Mapp said in a statement. “This tragedy is a sobering reminder of the power of nature and the fragility of life.”
The city canceled its planned July Fourth parade, concert and fireworks show. Mapp said the “devastating” storms had left “deep scars and widespread damage” in the community of more than 54,000 people and it was a time to “regroup and focus all of our energy on recovery.”
Continuing power outages and downed trees were reported Friday throughout southern New England, where some communities received large amounts of hail. There were reports of cars skidding off the road in northeastern Connecticut.
With reporting from The Associated Press.
