Flash floods swept through parts of Texas over the Fourth of July holiday weekend, killing at least 104 people and leaving dozens missing, including girls attending a Christian summer camp.
The devastation has triggered widespread grief and growing scrutiny over the state’s emergency response system.
One of the hardest-hit locations was Camp Mystic, which confirmed on Monday that 27 campers and staff members lost their lives in the floodwaters.
The camp, situated in the Texas Hill Country—an area west of Austin and northwest of San Antonio—found itself in the path of a powerful and sudden deluge.
The flooding has prompted urgent questions about the adequacy of early warning systems and the timing of emergency evacuations. The Hill Country’s geography, marked by steep cliffs and the Balcones Escarpment, makes it highly susceptible to flash floods.
“When warm air from the Gulf rushes up the escarpment, it condenses and can dump a lot of moisture. That water flows down the hills quickly, from many different directions, filling streams and rivers below,” explained Hatim Sharif, a civil and environmental engineering professor at The University of Texas at San Antonio.
Meteorologists attribute the extreme rainfall to a mix of weather systems. Tropical Storm Barry, though already weakened after making landfall in eastern Mexico, contributed significant moisture.
“First and foremost, you had Barry,” said CBS News Philadelphia meteorologist Kate Bilo. She noted the storm’s remnants, combined with a low-level jet stream and upper-level disturbance, created the perfect storm.
“Nothing was really moving so you just had all of this rain coming down over the same areas and heavy, heavy rainfall rates because of all of that deep, deep moisture in the atmosphere,” Bilo added.
Flash flood watches were issued by midday Thursday, escalating to emergency warnings by 4 a.m. Friday. By 5:20 a.m., residents in the Kerrville area witnessed waters rising rapidly. The Guadalupe River surged by an astonishing 26 feet in just 45 minutes.
In Kerr County alone—home to numerous youth summer camps—84 deaths were confirmed, including 27 children. Other counties also reported fatalities, pushing the total to over 100. Among the missing are ten girls and a counselor from Camp Mystic.
Families have begun identifying some of the young victims, including 8-year-old Linnie McCown of Austin, 8-year-old Eloise Peck of Dallas, and 9-year-old Lila Bonner of Dallas. Also confirmed dead was 18-year-old Chloe Childress, a camp counselor from the Houston area and recent graduate of the Kinkaid School.
One volunteer in Comfort, Texas, recounted discovering personal belongings near Ingram along the river. “I hope I find the person to return their belongings, not to find closure,” they said.
Among the dead was Camp Mystic’s owner and director, Dick Eastland, who reportedly died while attempting to rescue campers. Tributes to him and other victims have flooded local media and obituary pages in Kerrville.
Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said the number of missing remains uncertain, especially with the influx of holiday visitors. “We don’t even want to begin to estimate at this time,” he said Saturday.
Survivors described the flood as a “pitch black wall of death” and criticized the lack of timely alerts. Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said, “Nobody saw this coming,” calling it a “100-year flood”—a term denoting rare events, though increasingly outdated in the face of climate change.
Despite the National Weather Service issuing warnings early Friday morning, many questioned why no evacuation orders were issued sooner, especially for vulnerable areas like youth camps. Officials admitted that repeated false alarms in the past may have led to desensitization.
Kelly acknowledged the shock felt by authorities. “We had no reason to believe that this was gonna be any, anything like what’s happened here. None whatsoever,” he told CBS Evening News.
Efforts to implement a more effective flood alert system had previously stalled due to funding and local opposition. Former Kerr County Commissioner Tom Moser said a grant application for such a system had been denied. “There was local resistance over the possibility that the sirens could inadvertently be triggered, causing unwanted noise in the community,” he noted.
Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick pledged state support for funding emergency systems. “If they can’t afford to do it, then let us do it,” Patrick said. “We have a special session starting two weeks from today, and I think we can take that up and do some other things of funding these sirens.”
A scheduled news briefing on Sunday was abruptly ended after officials faced repeated questions over delays in warnings and evacuations.
Meanwhile, rescue operations continue, despite the threat of further rainfall. Volunteers, search dogs, drones, and emergency crews are combing debris-filled areas, some of which are infested with snakes and hard to access.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem commended the U.S. Coast Guard, which she said had rescued over 200 people. Aerial footage showed the Coast Guard conducting dramatic evacuations near Kerrville amid rising floodwaters.
Entire neighborhoods and campgrounds have been wiped out. “It’s going to be a long time before we’re ever able to clean it up, much less rebuild it,” Judge Kelly said after surveying the damage from a helicopter.
Some residents fear that their communities may never fully recover, recalling similar devastation left unaddressed after Hurricane Helene last year.
On Sunday, President Trump signed a major disaster declaration for Kerr County and pledged to visit the area on Friday. “I would have done it today, but we’d just be in their way,” he said. “It’s a horrible thing that took place, absolutely horrible.”
At the Vatican, Pope Leo offered prayers during Sunday Mass for those affected by the tragedy. “I express my sincere condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones, in particular their daughters who were at summer camp, in the disaster caused by the flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas in the United States.”
