At least 27 people are dead in Texas floods, while the search for the missing person continues: civil servants

The number of rescuers searched for children from a girls' warehouse and many others on Saturday after a water wall stormed down a river in Hill -Land in Texas during a strong storm in which at least 27 people were killed. There were nine children among the dead.

The destructive, fast -moving water along the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet (8 meters) in just 45 minutes before dawn and washed houses and vehicles away. The danger was not over yet because more heavy rains were expected on Saturday and the warnings and watches for the flash floods for parts of central texas were in force.

Around 27 people were missing by Camp Mystic, said Dalton Rice, City Manager, at a press conference on Saturday. An unknown number of people in other places was not yet taken into account.

“People need to know that today will be a hard day,” said the mayor of Kerrville, Joe Herring, Jr.

Searching helicopters, boats and drones used to search for victims and save stranded people. The total number of the missing was not known, but a sheriff said that about 24 of them were girls who had participated in Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the river.

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Hectic parents and families posted photos of missing relatives and charges for information. “The camp was completely destroyed,” said Elinor Lester, 13, one of hundreds of campers in Camp Mystic. “A helicopter landed and started taking people away. It was really scary.” An angry storm opened her cabin shortly after midnight on Friday, and when the rescuers arrived, they tied a rope where the girls could hold on when they went over a bridge and flooding around her legs.

Larry Leitha, Sheriff of Kerr County, said 27 are confirmed dead, including nine children. The authorities said about 850 people were saved.

The floods in the middle of the night on July fourth holiday surprised many residents, campers and officials. The Texas Hill Country, which is located northwest of San Antonio, is a popular destination for camping and swimming, especially for the summer vacation.

Accuweather said that the private forecast company and the national weather service had sent warnings of potential lining hours before devastating.

“These warnings should have given civil servants a lot of time to evacuate camps like Camp Mystic and bring people to safety,” said Accuweather in a statement that described the Texas Hill County as one of the most fluffy areas in the USA because it is terrain and many water transitions.

Officials defended their actions on Friday, while they said they did not expect such an intensive downpour that the rain for the region was worth months.

A forecast for the national weather service at the beginning of the week had requested up to six inches Rain, said Nim Kidd, head of the Texas Division of Emergency Management. “The amount of rain we saw was not predicted,” he said.

Helicopter, drones that were used in the hectic search for a river measuring device near Camp Mystic, recorded an increase of 22 feet (6.7 meters) in about two hours, said Bob Fogarty, meteorologist at Austin/San Antonio office of the National Weather Service. The display failed after he had recorded a level of 9 meters (9 meters).

“The water moves so quickly that they do not recognize how bad it is until it is up to them,” said Fogarty.

More than 1,000 rescuers were on site. Rescue teams, helicopters and drones were used, with some people picking trees. The US Coast Guard -helicopter flew in to help.

'Pitch Black Wall of Death' in Ingram, Erin Burgess, woke up to thunder and rain in the middle of the night on Friday. Just 20 minutes later, water flocked into her house from the river, she said. She described a painful hour that held onto a tree with her youthful son and waited that the water would go back enough to go up the hill.

“Fortunately, he is over 6 feet big. That is the only thing that saved me, hung on him,” she said.

“My son and I hovered to a tree that we were hanging on it, and my friend and my dog ​​hovered away. He was lost for a while, but we found her,” she said.

The 44 -year -old Matthew Stone from Kerrville said the police came to the doors, but he had not received a warning on his phone.

“We have no emergency warning. There was nothing,” said Stone. Then “a pitch -black wall of death.”

“I was afraid of death” in a reunification center in Ingram, werry and cheered families when the relatives got out of the emergency vehicles. Two soldiers wore an older woman who did not go down a ladder. Behind her, a woman clung a little white dog.

Later a girl stood in a white “camp mystical” T-shirt and white socks in a puddle and sobbed her mother's arms.

Barry Adelman said that water had pushed everyone into the attic in his three-story house, including his 94-year-old grandmother and 9-year-old grandson. The water came through the attic before the decline.

“I was horrified,” he said. “I had to see my grandson in the face and tell him that everything would be fine, but inside I was afraid to death.”

“Nobody knew that this type of flood came” the prediction for the weekend had called for rain, with a flood clock being improved overnight for at least 30,000 people.

Dan Patrick, Governor of Texas, said the potential for heavy rain and flooding covered a large area.

“Everything was done to give them a head that you could rain heavily, and we are not quite sure where it will end up,” said Patrick. “Obviously, when it got dark last night, we came all the morning of the hours, then the storm began to zero.”

The judge of Kerr County, Rob Kelly, the district's election officer, said: “We have no warning system.”

When Kelly urged why more precautions were not taken, Kelly said that nobody knew that this type of flood would come.

Other bags with heavy rain awaited that the slowly moving storm over central texas would probably bring more rain on Saturday. The potential for severe downpours and more floods, said Jason Runyen from the National Weather Service.

The threat could stay overnight and until Sunday morning, he said.

The popular tourism area, which is susceptible to the flooding of the area, is known as “Blitzflutgasse” due to the thin layer of the hill, said Austin Dickson, CEO of the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country, to help donations to react to the disaster.

“When it rains, water does not soak into the ground,” said Dickson. “It hurts down the hill.”

The river tourism industry is an integral part of the Hill Country Economy. Well -known, centuries -old summer camps bring children from all over the country, said Dickson.

“It is generally a very quiet river with a really nice clear blue water that people have been attracted to for generations,” said Dickson.