KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Public officials in charge of finding victims of the devastating flooding in Texas pushed away intensifying questions Tuesday about who was monitoring the weather that killed more than 100 people and warning that floodwaters were barreling toward camps and homes.
Leaders in Kerr County, where searchers have found 87 bodies, said their first priority is recovering victims, not reviewing what happened in the hours before the flash floods inundated the state's Hill Country.
“Right now, this team up here is focused on bringing people home,” Lt. Col. Ben Baker of the Texas Game Wardens, said during a sometimes tense news conference where officials were questioned about the timing of their response.
Hope of finding survivors was increasingly bleak. Four days have passed since anyone was found alive in the aftermath of the floods in Kerr County, officials said Tuesday.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott planned to make another visit Tuesday to Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 campers and counselors died during the floods. Officials said Tuesday that five campers and one counselor have still not been found.
President Donald Trump planned to visit Friday and called the flooding “an unprecedented event.”
Scenes of devastation at Camp Mystic
Outside the cabins at Camp Mystic where the girls had slept, mud-splattered blankets and pillows were scattered on a grassy hill that slopes toward the river. Also in the debris were pink, purple and light blue luggage decorated with stickers.
Among those who died at the camp were a second grader who loved pink sparkles and bows in her curly hair, a 19-year-old counselor who enjoyed mentoring young girls and the camp's 75-year-old director.
The flash floods erupted before daybreak Friday after massive rains sent water speeding down hills into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet (8 meters) in less than an hour. The wall of water overwhelmed people in cabins, tents and trailers along the river's edge, pulling them into the water. Some survivors were found clinging to trees.
Some campers had to swim out of cabin windows to safety while others held onto a rope as they made their way to higher ground. Time-lapse videos showed how floodwaters covered roads in a matter of minutes.
Although it's difficult to attribute a single weather event to climate change, experts say a warming atmosphere and oceans make catastrophic storms more likely.
Where were the warnings?
Questions mounted about what, if any, actions local officials took to warn campers and residents who were spending the July Fourth weekend in the scenic area long known to locals as "flash flood alley."
Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said that sending out warnings isn't “as easy as pushing a button.” Answers about who did what and when will come later, public officials said.
Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s chief elected official, said in the hours after the devastation that the county does not have a warning system.
Generations of families in the Hill Country have known the dangers. A 1987 flood forced the evacuation of a youth camp in the town of Comfort and swamped buses and vans. Ten teenagers were killed.
Local leaders have talked for years about the need for a warning system. Kerr County sought a nearly $1 million grant eight years ago for such a system, but the request was turned down by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Local residents balked at footing the bill themselves, Kelly said.
Some camps were aware of the dangers Friday and monitored the weather. At least one moved several hundred campers to higher ground before the floods. But many people didn't move or were caught by surprise.
Recovery and cleanup goes on
The bodies of 30 children were among those that have been recovered in Kerr County, home to Camp Mystic and several other summer camps, the sheriff said.
The devastation spread across several hundred miles in central Texas all the way to just outside the capital city of Austin.
Nineteen deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, local officials said.
Aidan Duncan escaped just in time after hearing the muffled blare of a megaphone urging residents to evacuate Riverside RV Park in the Hill Country town of Ingram.
All of his belongings — a mattress, sports cards, his pet parakeet’s bird cage — now sit in caked mud in front of his home.
“What’s going on right now, it hurts,” the 17-year-old said. “I literally cried so hard.”
Search-and-rescue teams used heavy equipment to untangle trees and move large rocks as part of the massive search for missing people. Hundreds of volunteers showed up to help with one of the largest search operations in Texas history.
Along the banks of the Guadelupe, 91-year-old Charles Hanson, a resident at a senior living center, was sweeping up wood and piling pieces of concrete and stone, remnants from a playground structure.
He wanted to help clean up on behalf of his neighbors who can’t get out. “We’ll make do with the best we got,” he said.
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Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Joshua A. Bickel in Kerrville, Texas; Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas; and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.
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