AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The seek for victims of lethal flooding in Texas Hill Nation is headed into its third week as officers attempt to pin down precisely how many individuals stay lacking and lawmakers put together to debate authorities’ preliminary response and offering higher warning programs.
Flash floods killed a minimum of 135 folks in Texas over the Fourth of July vacation weekend, with most deaths alongside the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, about 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of San Antonio. The Hill Nation is of course susceptible to flash flooding as a result of its dry, dirt-packed soil can’t absorb heavy rain.
The Texas Legislature is scheduled to convene Monday for a particular session. Gov. Greg Abbott initially referred to as lawmakers again to the Texas State Capitol in Austin for different causes, however he and legislative leaders have added flooding-related points to the agenda.
How many individuals stay lacking?
State officers had been saying about 160 folks had been unaccounted for after the flooding in Kerr County alone, however they now say about 100 stay lacking in Kerr and different counties.
Kerr County officers mentioned the variety of lacking folks decreased as victims had been recovered, contact was made with individuals who had been discovered protected, and a few experiences had been discovered to be unsubstantiated or falsified. Additionally, they mentioned, the lacking listing fluctuates as experiences come right into a hotline.
The floods laid waste to the Hill Nation. Trip cabins, youth camps campgrounds fill the riverbanks and hills of Kerr County, and Camp Mystic, a century-old Christian summer season camp for women in a low-lying space alongside the Guadalupe. At the least 27 of its campers and counselors died.
The flooding expands lawmakers’ agenda
Abbott referred to as the particular session hoping legislators would go a measure to manage a booming enterprise in THC merchandise after he vetoed a invoice that might have banned them. And because the flooding, President Donald Trump has instructed the Republicans who management state authorities to redraw congressional districts to assist the GOP’s probabilities of retaining a U.S. Home majority in subsequent yr’s midterm elections.
Abbott mentioned lawmakers would additionally evaluate authorities’ dealing with of the flooding and take into account enhancing warning programs for Hill Nation residents. Kerr County doesn’t have a warning system as a result of state and native businesses missed alternatives over the previous decade to finance one.
Trump and Abbott have pushed again aggressively in opposition to questions on how nicely native authorities responded to forecasts of heavy rain and the primary experiences of flash flooding. The president referred to as a reporter “evil” for elevating such points and mentioned he thought “everybody did an unimaginable job below the circumstances.” Abbott dismissed a query about who was responsible for the deaths as “the phrase alternative of losers” and used an analogy that started: “Each soccer workforce makes errors.”
“The way in which winners discuss is to not level fingers,” he concluded.
President Donald Trump speaks as first woman Melania Trump, left, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott hear throughout a roundtable dialogue with first responders and native officers at Hill Nation Youth Occasion Heart in Kerrville, Texas, throughout a tour to watch flood harm, Friday, July 11, 2025. (AP Picture/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
Lawmakers plan to go to the hardest-hit county
Abbott has designated payments coping with early warning programs and emergency communications as priorities for the Legislature’s particular session, scheduled to final 30 days.
The Home and Senate have fashioned particular committees on flooding and catastrophe preparedness, and so they’re planning a July 31 go to to Kerrville, the seat of hardest-hit Kerr County, to listen to feedback from residents.
The committees are scheduled to start with a joint listening to Wednesday to think about the state’s response to the deadly floods; planning for floods; infrastructure for managing floods; and communications amongst first responders.
One invoice already launched by Republican Rep. Don McLaughlin would require the state’s high public well being official to set constructing requirements for youth camps in 100-year floodplains — which FEMA defines as a high-risk space with a 1% likelihood of flooding in any given yr.
Throughout a latest information convention, Republican state Rep. Drew Darby, a member of the Home’s committee, mentioned lawmakers can’t carry again flood victims or undo the flooding.
“However what we will do is be taught from it,” he mentioned.
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Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas. Related Press writers Jamie Stengle in Dallas and Jim Vertuno in Austin contributed.
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