More than 160 people are still missing after deadly Texas floods, governor says – Chicago Tribune

More than 160 people would have disappeared in Texas after the sudden floods of more than 100 people during the fourth weekend in July, state governor said on Tuesday.

The huge leap into the non -recorded number – about three times higher than what was said previously – came after the authorities created a hotline to call families.

Those who have disappeared are in Kerr County, where most of the victims have been recovered so far, said governor Greg Abbott. Many were probably aimed or stayed in the country of the state during the holidays, but did not register in a camp or a hotel, he said at a press conference.

The basses of the county along the Guadalupe river are filled with youth and campsite camps, notably Camp Mystic, the Christian summer camp of the Centenary Boys where at least 27 campers and advisers died. Heads said on Tuesday that five campers and an advisor had still not been found.

The research and rescue teams use heavy equipment to disentangle and peel off layers of trees, find large rocks in the banks and move lots of massive debris which extend for miles in the search for missing people. The crews in the air, helicopters and on horseback as well as hundreds of volunteers are part of one of the largest research operations in the history of Texas.

The sudden flood is the deadliest of the interior floods since the flood of the Big Thompson Canyon in Colorado on July 31, 1976, killed 144 people, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist at Yale Climate Connections. This flood jumped through a narrow canyon filled with people for a holiday weekend, the celebration of the centenary of Colorado.

The officials responsible for locating the victims are faced with questions of intensification of who was responsible for monitoring the weather and the warning that flood waters were rushing to camps and houses.

The republican governor, who made a helicopter visit to the disaster area, rejected a question about who was to blame for death, saying: “It is the word choice of losers.”

“Each football team makes mistakes,” he said. “The losing teams are those who try to emphasize who is to blame. The championship teams are those who say:” Do not worry, guy, we have that. We are going to make sure that we will mark again and we will win this game. “The way the winners are talking about are not to point your fingers.”

Abbott promised that the search for victims would not stop as long as everyone is found. He also said that President Donald Trump has committed to providing all the reliefs that Texas needed to recover. Trump plans to visit the state on Friday.

Devastation scenes at mystical camp

Outside the Mystic camp cabins where the girls had slept, covers and pillows splashed by the mud were dispersed on a grassy hill which leaks towards the river. Debris was also in pink, purple and blue debris decorated with stickers.

Among those who died at the camp, there was a second -year student who loved Pink Sparkles and Bows, a 19 -year -old advisor who loved young girls and the director of the 75 -year -old camp.

The sudden floods broke out before Daybreak on Friday after massive rains sent water at the bottom of the hills in the Guadalupe river, which made it increase by 26 feet (8 meters) in less than an hour. The wall of water overwhelmed people in cabins, tents and trailers along the edge of the river. Some survivors were found hung on the trees.

Some campers had to swim out of the windows of the cabin safe while others maintained a rope while they were heading for higher land. Accelerated videos have shown how flood water covered the roads in a few minutes.

Although it is difficult to attribute a single weather event to climate change, experts say that a warming atmosphere and that the oceans make catastrophic storms more likely.

Where were the warnings?

Questions asked about the actions, if necessary, local officials warned against campers and residents who spent the fourth weekend in July in the picturesque area known for a long time under the name of “Flash flood”.

The leaders of the county of Kerr, where the researchers found around 90 bodies, said that their first priority was to recover the victims, and without revising what happened in the hours preceding the sudden floods.

“Right now, this team here focuses on people at home,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Ben Baker of Texas Game Wardens, at a sometimes tense press conference.

Kerr’s county judge Rob Kelly, chief chief of the county, said in the hours following the devastation that the county had no warning system.

The generations of families in the country of the hills experienced the dangers. A 1987 flood forced the evacuation of a youth camp in the city of Comfort and overwhelmed buses and vans. Ten adolescents were killed.

Local leaders have spoken for years the need for a warning system. The County of Kerr asked for a subsidy of nearly a million dollars eight years ago for such a system, but the request was rejected by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Local residents fell on the foot of the bill themselves, said Kelly.

Continuous recovery and cleaning

Four days have passed since anyone who was found living in the aftermath of Kerr County floods, officials announced on Tuesday.

The bodies of 30 children were one of those who were recovered in the county, which houses the Mystic camp and several other summer camps, said sheriff.

Devastation has spread over several hundred kilometers in central Texas to the outside of the capital of Austin.

Aidan Duncan escaped just in time after hearing the stifled blow from a megaphone urging residents to evacuate the RV riverside park in the city of Hill Country of Ingram.

All its personal effects – a mattress, sports cards, the bird cage of its parakeet – are now seated in mud in front of his house.

“What’s going on right now, it hurts,” said the 17 -year -old. “I literally cried so hard.”

Along the shores of the Guadalupe, Charles Hanson, 91, a resident in a senior life center, swept wood and encroached pieces of concrete and stone, the remains of a playing field structure.

He wanted to help cleanse his neighbors who cannot go out. “We will manage with the best we have,” he said.