NATIONAL NEWS

Searchers in helicopters and on horseback scour Texas flood debris for the missing

Jul 8, 2025, 10:50 PM

HUNT, Texas (AP) — As the search in Texas continued Wednesday for more than 160 people believed to be missing days after a destructive wall of water killed over 100 people, the full extent of the catastrophe had yet to be revealed as officials warned that unaccounted victims could still be found amid the massive piles of debris that stretch for miles.

“Know this: We will not stop until every missing person is accounted for. Know this also: There very likely could be more added to that list,” Gov. Greg Abbott said during a news conference Tuesday.

Abbot said officials have been seeking more information about those who were in the state’s Hill Country during the Fourth of July holiday but did not register at a camp or a hotel and may have been in the area without many people knowing.

The lowlands of Kerr County along the Guadalupe River, where most of the victims of the flash flooding have been recovered so far, are filled with youth camps and campgrounds, including Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 campers and counselors died. Officials said Tuesday that five campers and one counselor have still not been found.

Crews in airboats, helicopters and on horseback along with hundreds of volunteers are part of one of the largest search operations in Texas history.

The flash flood is the deadliest from inland flooding in the U.S. since Colorado’s Big Thompson Canyon flood on July 31, 1976, killed 144 people, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist with Yale Climate Connections. That flood surged through a narrow canyon packed with people on a holiday weekend, Colorado’s centennial celebration.

Public officials in charge of locating the victims are facing intensifying questions about who was in charge of monitoring the weather and warning that floodwaters were barreling toward camps and homes.

Abbott promised that the search for victims will not stop until everyone is found. He also said President Donald Trump has pledged to provide whatever relief Texas needs to recover. Trump plans to visit the state Friday.

Scenes of devastation at Camp Mystic

Outside the cabins at Camp Mystic where the girls had slept, mud-splattered blankets and pillows were scattered on a grassy hill that slopes toward the river. Also in the debris were pink, purple and blue luggage decorated with stickers.

Among those who died at the camp were a second grader who loved pink sparkles and bows, a 19-year-old counselor who enjoyed mentoring young girls and the camp’s 75-year-old director.

The flash floods erupted before daybreak Friday after massive rains sent water speeding down hills into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet (8 meters) in less than an hour. Some campers had to swim out of cabin windows to safety while others held onto a rope as they made their way to higher ground.

Just two days before the flooding, Texas inspectors had signed off on the camp’s emergency planning. But five years of inspection reports released to The Associated Press don’t provide any details about how the camp would instruct campers about evacuating and specific duties each staff member and counselor would be assigned.

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

Where were the warnings?

Questions mounted about what, if any, actions local officials took to warn campers and residents who were in the scenic area long known to locals as “flash flood alley.”

Leaders in Kerr county, where searchers have found about 90 bodies, said their first priority is recovering victims, not reviewing what happened in the moments before the flash floods.

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s chief elected official, said the county does not have a warning system.

Generations of families in the Hill Country have known the dangers. A 1987 flood forced the evacuation of a youth camp in the town of Comfort and swamped buses and vans. Ten teenagers were killed.

Local leaders have talked for years about the need for a warning system. Kerr County sought a nearly $1 million grant eight years ago for such a system, but the request was turned down by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Local residents balked at footing the bill themselves, Kelly said.

Recovery and cleanup goes on

The bodies of 30 children were among those that have been recovered in the county, which is home to Camp Mystic and several other summer camps, the sheriff said.

The devastation spread across several hundred miles in central Texas all the way to just outside the capital of Austin.

Aidan Duncan escaped just in time after hearing the muffled blare of a megaphone urging residents to evacuate Riverside RV Park in the Hill Country town of Ingram.

All his belongings — a mattress, sports cards, his pet parakeet’s bird cage — now sit caked in mud in front of his home.

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

___

Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Joshua A. Bickel in Kerrville, Texas, Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.

National News

FILE - The logos for streaming services Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus and Sling TV are pictured on a r...

Associated Press

A ‘click-to-cancel’ rule, intended to make cancelling subscriptions easier, is blocked

A “click-to-cancel” rule, which would have required businesses to make it easy for consumers to cancel unwanted subscriptions and memberships, has been blocked by a federal appeals court just days before it was set to go into effect. The Federal Trad Commission’s proposed changes, adopted in October, required businesses to obtain a customer’s consent before […]

19 minutes ago

President Donald Trump, left, listens as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick speaks with reporters be...

Associated Press

Trump appointees have ties to companies that stand to benefit from privatizing weather forecasts

WASHINGTON (AP) — As commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick oversees the U.S. government’s vast efforts to monitor and predict the weather. The billionaire also ran a financial firm, which he recently left in the control of his adult sons, that stands to benefit if President Donald Trump’s administration follows through on a decade-long Republican effort to […]

1 hour ago

Officials ride a boat as they arrive to assist with a recovery effort at Camp Mystic along the Guad...

Associated Press

How Americans think the government should respond to natural disasters, according to recent polls

WASHINGTON (AP) — Most of the U.S. adults who have experienced major flooding in the past five years think climate change was at least a partial cause, according to polling conducted earlier this year, before the deadly Texas floods. But while Americans largely believed the federal government should play a major role in preparing for […]

2 hours ago

Associated Press

Ohio awards $310 million to US defense contractor for 4,000-worker advanced manufacturing facility

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Defense contractor Anduril Industries has been awarded a $310 million grant from Ohio’s job creation office, as the company prepares to build a massive advanced manufacturing facility near Columbus. JobsOhio, the state’s job creation office, announced execution of the 30-year economic development agreement Wednesday. The deal calls for Costa Mesa, California-based […]

2 hours ago

Associated Press

3 dead as flash flooding hits mountain village of Ruidoso in New Mexico, officials say

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Three people have died in a mountain village in southern New Mexico that is a popular summer retreat after monsoon rains triggered flash flooding that was so intense an entire house was swept downstream, officials said. A man and two children were swept away Tuesday by floodwaters, the village of […]

2 hours ago

Trash piles up around dumpsters in Philadelphia as thousands of city workers remained on strike Mon...

Associated Press

Philadelphia workers and city reach a deal to end strike that halted residential trash pickup

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A union representing thousands of city workers in Philadelphia and the city have reached a deal to end a strike that halted residential curbside trash pickup and affected other services, officials said Wednesday. Nearly 10,000 blue-collar employees from District Council 33 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees had […]

3 hours ago

Searchers in helicopters and on horseback scour Texas flood debris for the missing