At least six people have been killed and children at a summer camp are missing amid ‘catastrophic’ flooding of the Guadalupe River in central Texas.
The river rose more than 22 feet overnight Thursday and swept away parts of several small towns in Kerr County. Heavy rains also hit Hill Country and contributed to evacuations.
Directors at Camp Mystic, a Christian girls camp in Hunt, on Friday said that some kids are not accounted for and could have been caught in the flooding.
The directors, Britt and Catie Eastland, told the Austin American-Statesman that the floods washed out the roads and called for air assistance.
As parents desperately tried to communicate with their children, the top official in the region, Kerry County Judge Rob Kelly, encouraged them to reach out to the camps.
‘We have a lot of camps. I don’t know any specifics about any of the individual camps, but what I do know is everyone is doing their very best trying to identify as much as they can,’ he said.
He added that officials were not aware of the floods coming before they hit.
The river reached its second-highest level on record near Hunt, according to the National Weather Service. Flash flooding emergency
Around 10.30am, heavy rain continued to pummel Bandara, Medina, Kendall, Kerr and Gillespie counties. Flash flood emergency warnings are in effect in south and central Kerry County.
Kelly confirmed six deaths to Hearst Newspapers but said ‘we are afraid there may be more. They are still looking.’
‘Suffice it to say, this has been a very devastating and deadly flood,’ he said.
Dozens of people have been rescued from the water, he added
Governor Greg Abbott has called the flooding ‘devastating’ and said that the state is deploying ‘all available resources’.
‘That includes water rescue teams, sheltering centers, the National Guard, the Texas Department of Public Safety,’ stated Abbott.
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