Alert – Texas flooding death toll surpasses 100 as Camp Mystic mourners hold memorial service tonight: Live updates

The Texas floods death toll has now hit 104. Kendall County, which sits around 30 kilometers of downtown San Antonio, reported six deaths Monday.

Twenty seven people remain missing and the final death total will almost certainly continue to rise.

The owner of Blue Oak RV Park in Ingram, Texas has described the horrific moment an RV got swept away by flash flooding with a family still inside.

‘It was pitch black. You couldn’t see anything, but you could hear honking and you could hear the screaming,’ Lorena Guen told WOAI-TV.

‘The screaming was unbearable.’

The RV park owner says she checked the water levels at the Guadalupe River community just before going to bed around 2am Friday.

But 90 minutes later she was awoken with a panic as rescue teams descended on the area and water levels had risen ‘a good 40ft in the area’.

Residents were desperately trying to flee the RV park, with Lorena recalling how her tenants rushed out of their homes in their underwear and without shoes.

She said they had no time to grab their belongings, though some managed to flee with their pets, before jumping into their cars and rushing off to seek refuge in higher ground.

All of Guen’s residents except one family-of-five managed to safely flee the rushing water.

‘We’re one of the luckiest ones because we only have five people missing,’ she told the news outlet.

However, she is devastated that one family, whose RV was situated on an island portion of the property, did not make it out safely.

She said the family tried to get out of their camper home, but couldn’t because ‘the waters were rising so much’. Guen added: ‘The force of that water was so insane. Nobody could get into it.’

One Blue Oak resident tried wading through the waist-deep water as debris slashed him in attempt to get to the family.

‘He was yelling, “please throw me your baby” and they couldn’t – and they got swept away,’ Guen recalled.

The RV park owner said the Good Samaritan did manage to get out safely, but he did lose his pets in the tragedy.

She says she does not know how the community is going to recover from the loss.

‘Every single RV is the area was gone. It got washed away,’ she said, adding how a park neighboring Blue Oak had at least 40 residents missing in the immediate aftermath of the disaster.

It is unclear how many have since been pronounced dead or located.

‘We need so much help,’ she added.

Families with ties to Camp Mystic are planning to unite at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in the wake of deadly flooding.

The all-girls summer camp, which is located meters away from the Guadalupe River, has confirmed that 27 campers and counselors died in weekend floods.

Meanwhile, 10 campers and one counselor are still missing.

Organizers of Monday night’s event plan to pray, sing songs, and read verses that are traditionally recited at the camp.

‘While the outpouring of love from everyone has been so appreciated and comforting, we want to make this a special time for Mystic girls and families to be able to be together,’ the group said in a post.

The Texan baseball team said they would donate $1 million towards relief efforts after floods devastated central Texas.

‘It’s important to the entire Astros organization, to send immediate support to our fellow Texans throughout the Hill Country during this devastating time,’ Astros Owner and Chairman Jim Crane, alongside his wife Whitney Crane, said in a statement.

‘There is a lot still unknown as recovery efforts are ongoing, but the Astros are committed to supporting Central Texas communities in the long term through the coming days, months and years to help rebuild and heal.’

The statement added that the organization would also help coordinate sending the team’s fans to send resources to the impacted community.

Cruz was seen vacationing in Athens, Greece, over the weekend while the floods raged in his home state.

He was spotted touring the Parthenon on Saturday evening – a full 24 hours after floodwaters swept through Camp Mystic in Texas leaving more than 20 young girls and their counselors tragically missing.

Photos of the vacationing senator and his wife Heidi were first published by the Daily Beast.

‘A bull*** piece published by a bull*** rag outlet with no credibility, and with no regard for the tragedy in Texas,’ Cruz’s spokeswoman Macarena Martinez wrote on X, sharing the Daily Beast’s story about Cruz.

‘The Senator is on the ground in Texas and arrived as fast as humanly possible. I explained all of this to their two-faced reporter,’ Martinez also added in her reply.

After learning of the tragedy striking his home state and making his way back to America, Cruz participated in a briefing with other Texas officials Monday.

It is unclear when Cruz arrived back in Texas after departing Greece.

Coast Guard rescue swimmer Scott Ruskan saved 165 people in the floods, including many children.

A Camp Mystic counselor has recalled the heartbreaking moment when the Guadalupe River completely flooded the dam and swept away the camp’s waterfront cabins with campers still inside.

Holly Kate Hurley says two cabins that housed elementary school-aged campers were completely ‘wiped away’ by the floods.

‘They gathered all the counselors that were at Cyprus Lake and they told us that two of the cabins with the seven-year-old girls were wiped away and all these girls were missing,’ she told Fox News.

‘And we went back to our cabins and tried to keep up good spirits with these young girls.’

‘I think I was just in shock,’ she added.

Hurley said she is thankful to the Army soldiers who helped them evacuate, but will never forget the horrific sights that followed as parents tried to reunite with their daughters.

‘Seeing little girls run to their parents and just hug them and cry, and also just seeing some parents who were looking for their little girls and they weren’t there… But, that’s just a sight I don’t think I’ll ever forget.’

Hurley was a regular at Camp Mystic, having attended as a camper from the age of ten before joining the staff as a counselor.

Camp Mystic attendee Hadley Hanna died after going missing Friday, a family spokesperson confirmed to CNN.

‘Our families are experiencing unimaginable grief. We are reaching out with a heartfelt request for privacy and compassion,’ the family said in a statement. ‘We appreciate your empathy, your prayers, and understanding.

On Friday, her mother told the outlet, ‘She is the most joyful, happy kid with a smile on her face. She seemed to be loving camp. This was her first year.’

The White House has hit out the ‘depraved’ Democrats who are blaming President Donald Trump for the catastrophic floods in Texas.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt slammed Trump’s critics for suggesting that his cuts to NOAA and FEMA contributed to the devastation.

‘Unfortunately, in the wake of this once-in-a-generation natural disaster, we have seen many falsehoods pushed by Democrats such as Senator Chuck Schumer and some members of the media,’ she said.

‘Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie, and it serves no purpose during this time of national mourning.’

She further alleged the ‘National Weather Service did its job’ despite recent staffing cuts, noting the agency’s office in the region was ‘overstaffed’ when the flash floods erupted.

‘Any person who has deliberately lied about these facts surrounding this catastrophic event, you should be deeply ashamed,’ she added.

Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other Republicans have come under fire for the alleged lack of preparedness from the NWS in wake of the Texas tragedy.

The NWS has faced hundreds of job cuts since Trump took office, though it had begun re-hiring in June.

Just yesterday, White House Deputy Press Secretary Abigail Jackson fired back at critics in a tweet thread.

‘I have seen many uninformed Democrats shamefully spreading Fake News about Texas, so let’s get the facts straight,’ she wrote.

Jackson then cited several meteorologists who said protocol was followed and the NWS was both ‘on the ball’ and ‘did their job and did it well’.

Meanwhile, it appears local officials had no ability to warn the public themselves.

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s top elected official, said yesterday that the county considered a flood warning system along the river that would have functioned like a tornado warning siren about six or seven years ago, before he was elected, but that the idea never got off the ground because of the expense.

‘We’ve looked into it before … The public reeled at the cost,’ Kelly said.

He said he didn’t know what kind of safety and evacuation plans the camps may have had.

‘What I do know is the flood hit the camp first, and it came in the middle of the night. I don’t know where the kids were,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what kind of alarm systems they had. That will come out in time.’

A father who found a little boy’s body while searching for his missing daughter after the Texas floods has now learned that she lost her life too.

Ty Badon got the terrible news about his daughter Joyce Catherine Badon, 21, three days after she was swept away by floods in Hunt, Texas.

Joyce’s mother Kellye Badon broke the terrible news on Facebook Monday afternoon.

‘God showed us the way we should go this morning!’ She wrote.

‘We found our lovely daughter who blessed us for 21 years! ❤️ We pray to be able to find her three friends soon. Thanks to EVERYONE for the prayers and support.

‘God is good! ❤️❤️❤️’

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that President Donald Trump’s heart is with everyone impacted by the Texas floods.

‘President Trump loves you. We are praying for you, and he will be traveling to see you later this week,’ she said during a press conference today,

She then confirmed Trump’s visit to central Texas is tentatively scheduled for Friday.

‘But of course, we want to do it at the most appropriate time on the ground for state and local officials. We don’t want to interrupt the recovery efforts,’ Leavitt added.

At least 91 people have been killed in the Texas floods, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed this afternoon.

‘Ninety-one innocent souls have now perished. Everyone here at the White House, including the President, is praying for the victims’ families and friends,’ she said during a press conference.

Leavitt added that President Donald Trump ‘swiftly’ sigfned an emergency declaration for Kerr County, which was hard-hit by the devastation.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt branded the catastrophic flooding in Texas as a ‘national tragedy’ and vowed the Trump Administration is ‘treating it as such’.

She slammed accusations that the National Weather Service was insufficient in its alerts about the deadly floods.

‘The National Weather Service provided early and consistent warnings. They gave out timely flash flood alerts. There were record-breaking lead times in the lead up this catastrophe,’ she said.

‘There is ongoing flood monitoring and these offices were well staffed. In fact one of the offices was actually overstaffed – they had more people than they need.

‘So any claim to the contrary is completely false and it’s just said that people are pushing these lies.’

A Texas father has spoken about the harrowing moment he discovered a little boy’s dead body as he searched for his own daughter in the aftermath of the horrific floods.

Ty Badon was scouring the epicenter of the carnage in the rural town of Hunt over the weekend when he stumbled across the boy, who is one of at least 80 victims.

‘My son and I were walking, and what I thought was a mannequin… it was a little boy, about eight or 10 years old, and he was dead,’ Badon told CNN.

The anguished father said he was searching for his 21-year-old daughter, Joyce Catherine, and his voice broke at the end of the interview as he asked for prayers.

Badon said the last time anyone had contact with his daughter was on July 4, when the floods hit, as she spoke on the phone along with three of her friends.

The group of four were staying in a cabin owned by another parent in the picturesque community, which sits around 120 miles west of Austin, Texas.

Badon, a Beaumont resident, said his daughter told the owner of the cabin that two of the group had been washed away while she was on the phone.

‘A few seconds later, the phone went dead, and that’s all we know,’ Badon said.

Sen. Ted Cruz picked his own daughter up from a central Texas summer camp just one week before the catastrophic floods struck.

The lawmaker’s daughter was staying at a camp down the road from Camp Mystic, where 27 campers and staff were killed by raging floods over the weekend.

‘Our girls have gone to camp here for a decade,’ Cruz said during a press briefing Monday.

‘Texas is grieving right now. The pain, the shock of what has transpired these last few days has broken the heart of our state.’

He added: ‘The children, the little girls who were lost at Camp Mystic, that’s every parent’s worst nightmare.’

Cruz added that he had been in communication with President Donald Trump, who he says told him that ‘anything Texas needs, the answer is yes’.

This is the dramatic moment a baby was pulled from the floodwater in Texas.

The San Angelo Police Department shared the video on Facebook, describing it as a ‘powerful display of teamwork and courage.’

Footage shows a man, thought to be the child’s dad, hoisting the youngster in the air as he is submerged in water up to his stomach.

San Angelo’s only confirmed flood fatality has been identified as Tanya Burwick, 62, a longtime employee at a local Walmart.

Burwick was reported missing on July 4 after her SUV was swept away in rapidly rising floodwaters. Her vehicle was later found submerged and unoccupied.

Police said Burwick’s body was discovered around 9:15 a.m. on July 5, several blocks away from where her SUV had been located.

‘This is nothing short of a miracle that we only have one fatality, given the amount of homes washed off foundations and the speed of this flooding,’ said Police Chief Travis Griffith.

‘My heart and prayers are with the family of the deceased.’

A Trinity University football coach has confirmed that his daughter is among the 10 campers missing from Camp Mystic.

Wade Lytal, the offensive coordinator for the Division III team, is desperately looking to locate his daughter Kellyanne Lytal.

‘Asking for all prayers for a miracle for my baby girl Kellyanne. She is one of the Mystic Campers who is still unaccounted for,’ he wrote on X.

The worried father also shared a video of his little girl performing a solo during her elementary school Christmas recital.

‘I’ll never forget when she told me she had a lead solo in the Christmas Pageant,’ Lytal continued. ‘She is absolutely fearless.’

A Texas pediatrician has been fired after claiming that Trump supporters got what they voted for following the tragic floods in the state.

Dr Christina Propst sparked massive backlash after she took to Facebook to share a now-deleted message where she appeared to take glee in the floods that have left 82 dead, including at least 28 children.

‘May all visitors, children, non-MAGA voters and pets be safe and dry,’ the post read. ‘Kerr County MAGA voted to gut FEMA. They deny climate change. May they get what they voted for. Bless their hearts.’

A screenshot of Propst’s post was shared on X over the weekend, sparking demands that she be fired and even have her medical license revoked.

‘There is no room in medicine, nor in civilized society, for this kind of hate,’ wrote one X user. ‘Patients, save yourselves and your children from Christina Propst!’

A mother drove four hours in stormy weather to rescue her young sons from the devastating floods in central Texas.

Keli Rabon’s sons Braeden, 9, and Brock, 7, had been at Camp La Junta in Kerr County for just one day when the flooding broke out on Friday.

Rabon told the Today Show how she first received a text from the camp that they were losing power and cell service due to floods and wicked weather.

But wihtin a few hours, after looking at the ‘magnitude’ of the floods, the mother says it ‘became clear this was a very serious situation’.

‘I had no way of contacting the boys, no electronics were allowed at the camp. And the camp was relying on very minimal communication so I had to just hop in the car and mama instincts just kicked in – I had to do what I can to get to my babies,’ she said.

Camp Mystic counselor Chloe Childress is among the 27 campers and staff at the Christian summer camp killed in the disaster.

The Kinkaid School graduate was about to start studying at the University of Texas at Austin in the fall.

‘Whether it was sharing her own challenges to ease someone’s burden or quietly cheering a teammate or classmate through a tough day, Chloe made space for others to feel safe, valued, and brave,’ Jonathan Eades, the head of The Kinkaid School, wrote in a letter to the school community.

‘She understood what it meant to be part of a community, and more than that, she helped build one.’

Her family, in a statement to, said Childress ‘lived a beautiful life that saturated those around her with contagious joy, unending grace, and abiding faith’.

Childress, 19, had spent previous summers at Camp Mystic and returned as a ‘counselor to the place she loved so dearly’, her family added.

‘Chloe was looking forward to dedicating her summer days to loving and mentoring young girls at Camp Mystic,’ the statement said.

‘Our family was shocked to hear of the horrific tragic flooding in the hill country, and we were devastated to learn that our precious Chloe was among the victims. While we know that her joy is now eternal and her faith has become sight, our hearts are shattered by this loss and the similar heartbreak of other families like ours.’

Longtime high school teacher Jeff Wilson, 55, died while camping near the Guadalupe River with his wife and son.

‘Jeff worked in #HumbleISD for 30 years at both Humble High School and Kingwood Park High School. He was a beloved teacher and co-worker to many and will be deeply missed,’ the school district said.

His wife, Amber Wilson, and their 12-year-old son, Shiloh, are still considered missing.

According to their relatives, the family was camping in the area to attend a youth rodeo.

Authorities have warned people to stay away from the hard-hit flood regions in central Texas as rescue missions are underway.

Personal drones and sightseers flocking to the area near the Guadalupe River are hampering rescue efforts, officials said during a press conference today.

‘Volunteers, stay out of the way because if we start getting weather reports and all the other complications that are out there, we then have to pull off of those search-and-rescue missions to be able to communicate to those volunteers to get off, to make sure that they don’t become victims themselves,’ Kerrville city manager Dalton Rice said today.

‘Keep personal drones out of the air. Helicopters, we do have other assets that are continuing the search as well.’

In hard-hit Kerr County alone, 75 bodies have been recovered since the unprecedented storms began over the weekend. Officials said those included 48 adults and 27 children.

An additional 14 deaths were reported in other counties, bringing the statewide death toll to 89.

Kerr County officials also said nine children and 15 adults remain unidentified as of this morning.

Ten Camp Mystic campers and one counselor still remain unaccounted for.

Kerrville city manager Dalton Rice says search and rescue operations will continue today following the ‘unprecedented’ floods that wreaked havoc on his community.

‘We are still currently in the primary search phase, which is the rapid one. They are running it. We have different segments that are gridded out,’ he told reporters.

Law enforcement sources expect the death toll to surpass 100.

Rep. Buddy Carter says his two 12-year-old granddaughters were at Camp Mystic with their four cousins when the deadly flooding broke out.

His eldest son, who was ‘obviously very upset’, called Carter in a panic, saying how the campground had been ravaged by flash floods and they ‘couldn’t get in touch with anyone,’ the congressman told WSB-TV.

Carter said the family frantically waited for notification that staff had seen the girls, noting how it was ‘quite a relief’ when they finally got the news.

But the family also received heartbreaking news: Carter’s granddaughters’ cousin Janie Hunt was missing.

‘That cabin she was in was washed away, it was one of the ones closest to the river,’ Carter told the news outlet. Janie did not survive the tragedy.

The congressman says he is is ‘forever thankful’ to the first responders who airlifted his granddaughters to safety.

He added the situation was ‘very traumatic’ for his granddaughters, who will be going to counseling today to try and cope with what happened.

Their father even slept on their bedroom floor last night to provide the girls with some comfort during this ‘difficult’ time, Carter said.

‘I was able to speak to the parents of Janie today and very fortunately was able to get President Trump to speak to them as well,’ he added, noting how Trump offered the Hunt family ‘his thoughts and prayers as well’.

A 13-year-old girl who survived the deadly flash floods that ravaged Camp Mystic has revealed the chaos that ensued before campers were evacuated.

Stella Thompson had returned to the all-girls Christian camp for the sixth summer in a row before the wicked weather destroyed the camp.

She was sleeping in a cabin on the Cypress Lake side of the campgrounds when the storms woke her early Friday morning, NBC 5 reports.

Thompson says her cabin lost power overnight and at daybreak they were ordered to stay inside, but it wasn’t until she heard helicopters buzzing overhead that she knew something was wrong.

Cabins near Cypress Lake are located on higher ground and are distanced from the Guadalupe River, meaning they were not as badly impacted by the flooding.

Thompson, who recalled how the lake appeared ‘muddy brown and higher’, remembers seeing camp leaders driving through the grounds to check on cabins in the rain.

She says girls in her cabin were instructed to grab dry clothing from their trunks so that counselors could pass them out to other campers.

They were also told to expect campers stationed by the river to join their cabins.

But Thompson alleges the plans kept changing rapidly and eventually they were told that riverside campers were being evacuated and airlifted to nearby hospitals.

‘When we got that news, we were all kind of hysterical, and the whole cabin was praying a lot and terrified – but not for ourselves,’ she told the news outlet.

The scared campers near the lake were evacuated by military trucks later that evening, but by that point the campground ‘didn’t look like Camp Mystic anymore’, she said.

Thompson recalled how trees were uprooted, rescuers were searching water for survivors, and vehicles and personal belongings were riddled across the camp.

‘I think while it was going on I sort of felt a numbness,’ she added. ‘Saying it out loud is making me realize what actually happened and how bad it actually is.’

Crews are trudging through debris and wading into swollen riverbanks this morning in search for victims of the catastrophic Guadalupe River floods that killed more 80 people in Texas – including more than two dozen campers and counselors from an all-girls Christian camp.

With more rain on the way, the risk of more flooding is still high in saturated parts of central Texas.

Authorities said the death toll was sure to rise as crews looked for the many people who were still missing.

Gov. Greg Abbott said Sunday that 41 people were unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.

In the Hill Country area, home to several summer camps, searchers have found the bodies of 68 people, including 28 children, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said.

Ten other deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, according to local officials.

As the raging Guadalupe River burst its banks and wreaked havoc in central Texas, a young woman named Joyce Badon sent a haunting text message that may have been her last.

Triggering one of many frantic search efforts, Badon pleaded for help from a house along the river, according to Louis Deppe, leader of a group of volunteers trying to help the Badon family find their daughter.

Torrential rains starting the night before the Independence Day holiday caused the river to rise the height of a two-story building in less than hour, flooding parts of Kerr County, including several children’s camps, tearing down trees and tossing cars as if they were toys.

A heartbreaking photo shows an entire cabin of Camp Mystic girls and counselors who were washed away in the horrific Texas floods.

The 13 girls and two counselors were staying in Camp Mystic’s Bubble Inn cabin, which, alongside the Twins cabin, housed the youngest of the girls, aged 8 to 10.

The cabins were less than 500 feet from the river and thus took in water from two directions – the Guadalupe river and a creek nearby, making the girls’ escape particularly challenging.

The bodies of nine of the girls and counselor Chloe Childress, 18, have been found as of Monday morning, while counselor Katherine Ferruzzo and four campers remain missing.

Those confirmed dead are: Janie Hunt, Margaret Bellows, Lila Bonner, Lainey Landry, Sarah Marsh, Linnie McCown, Winne Naylor, Eloise Peck, Renee Smajstrla and Mary Stevens.

By: MaryAnn Martinez, Texas Bureau Chief for DailyMail.com

The Texas Division of Emergency Management predicted the number of dead as a result of catastrophic flooding in Kerrville on July 4 would top 100, Daily Mail can exclusively reveal.

In an email sent out Saturday, the state disaster office told partners the number of dead would surpass 100, two different sources confirmed to Daily Mail.

The estimate of the dead is vastly different than the message state officials are projecting publicly, insisting that they are still searching for people who are alive, and refusing to say rescue efforts have shifted to recovery of remains.

DNA testing will be used to help identify the remains of the flood victims, a state source told Daily Mail.

Families have been asked for blood draws or other records to help identify the bodies of loved ones who have been recovered.

The emergency warning system alerting Texas residents of the deadly floods was working sufficiently, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has claimed.

Noem was questioned this morning on Fox & Friends about any potential breakdowns in the warning system, but insists none have been found.

‘The National Weather Service put out the alerts when they received them and, unfortunately, in many places in our country we have flash floods like this that do occur, and the notification was proactive and out there,’ she told the news channel.

‘Would everybody like more time? Absolutely. So many situations when we see terrible events like this and these national weather disasters, more notification is always extremely helpful.’

Noem added that President Donald Trump has been ‘working to put in new technology and a new system’ at the National Weather Service ‘because it has been neglected for years’.

‘It’s an ancient system that needed to be upgraded and so President Trump recognized that right away and got to work on it when he came into office in January but that installation is not complete and that technology isn’t fully installed.’

At least 82 people were declared dead – with dozens more missing – when torrential rains created a near-Biblical flash flooding that caught thousands of Lone Star residents by surprise.

Most of the fatalities have occurred at the epicenter of the floods in Kerr County, where Camp Mystic, a girls’ summer camp, was washed away early on July 4.

At least 28 bodies, including those of 10 children, have yet to be formally identified. Here are the faces of the disaster so far.

The National Weather Service warns thunderstorms heavy rains of up to three inches and could cause more flooding across the Texas Hill Country today.

Some areas could see rain that exceeds five inches which will ‘quickly lead to flooding’, the NWS said in an advisory.

Rain is already falling near Williamson County this morning and is expected to increase throughout the day.

The heaviest storms are currently near Killeen, a city in Bell County, where a flash flood warning is currently in effect.

Austin, San Antonio and the surrounding areas are among the areas predicted to be impacted by today’s storm, according to the NWS forecast.

Officials warn the risk of heavy rainfall remains across the region.

Meteorologist note it is hard to pinpoint exactly where storms will break out, but warn the ‘rainfall rates will be very intense in the heaviest showers and storms’.

The slow-moving storms could cause more flash flooding and renewed river flooding in the coming hours, especially in the regions that were hardest hit by torrential rainfall over the weekend.

‘Any additional heavy rainfall over hardest hit areas of the past few days will lead to rapid runoff and flash flooding,’ the NWS added.

Floods are most likely to occur in areas that are currently under a flood watch – which is in effect until 7pm today for communities along the I-35 corridor, the Hill Country and the Edwards Plateau.