‘Wall of water’ threat hangs over Texas as evacuees are told to get to higher ground: Live updates

Floodwaters along the Llano River – just 95 miles north of Camp Mystic – rose at an alarming rate on Friday

Further peril has been forecast in Texas where officials are warning that another ‘wall of water’ is set to deluge Kerry County.

So far, the deadly floods have already claimed the lives of at least 80 people, including 28 children.

The Chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, Nim Kidd, revealed officials are working to identify where the water could be swelling.

‘Another thing I’m getting right this minute during this press conference is reports of an additional wall of water coming down some of the creeks going into the forks,Kidd said at a press conference.

‘And I want you to think about that for a second. If you’re not from that area and you don’t know the low water crossings, you could find yourself in a very dangerous situation.’

He revealed parts of the river are being evacuated in anticipation of another flood.

‘This is the live updates that we’re getting right now from the field is there are unconfirmed at this point reports of additional water coming in. And as the governor mentioned, there’s rain still falling on the area,’ Kidd said.

‘We’ve got DPS aircraft that are flying up to try to find this wall of water right now, and the people in the reported areas, again, unconfirmed, that are on our communication systems.

‘We’re asking them to get out of the water and out of the way so that we don’t wind up having to do additional rescues.’

Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt’s wife has spoken of the family’s heartbreak after learning their young relative is among the fatalities from the Camp Mystic flood.

Janie Hunt, 9, was killed when flood waters ravaged the christian girls’ camp, located along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County.

‘Our hearts are broken by the devastation from the floods in Wimberley and the tragic loss of so many lives — including a precious little Hunt cousin, along with several friend’s little girls,’ Tavia Hunt, Clark’s wife, said on Instagram.

‘How do we trust a God who is supposed to be good, all knowing and all powerful, but who allows such terrible things to happen — even to children?

‘That is a sacred and tender question — and one the Bible doesn’t shy away from. Scripture is filled with the cries of those whose hearts have been shattered, who still wrestle to trust the same God they believe allowed the pain.’

Janie was the great-granddaughter of late billionaire William Herbert Hunt, whose bother was the founder of the Kansas City Chiefs.

The National Weather Service issued another flash flood warning.

Almost 6,000 residents in central Texas are being urged to relocate to higher ground.

Among the affected areas are Ingram and Hunt, the site of Camp Mystic where at least five girls were killed and 10 left missing following the deadly flood.

The warning lasts until 7.30pm CDT on Sunday.

Tanya Burwick, 62, was killed by the Texas flood as she headed to work at a Walmart early Friday in the San Angelo area.

When Burwick didn’t show up for work, her employer filed a missing persons report and sent a colleague to look for her.

Police investigating her disappearance found Burwick’s unoccupied SUV fully submerged later that day. Her body was found the next morning blocks from the vehicle.

‘She lit up the room and had a laugh that made other people laugh,’ said Lindsey Burwick, who added that her mom was a beloved parent, grandparent and colleague to many.

For many victims, the issue wasn’t about politics or who failed, but that no one warned them as the water rose, leaving them in the dark until it was far too late.

Donald Trump revealed he plans to visit flood-ravaged Texas in the next few days.

The president said he is likely to travel to the state on Friday and said he has held off so far to allow rescue workers to do their jobs.

Asked if he was going to Texas, Trump said: ‘Probably on Friday. We want to leave a little time.

‘I would have done it today, but we’d just be in their way, probably Friday.’

The president’s comments came after he signed a disaster declaration for the floods to secure federal assistance.

He and the First Lady previously expressed their condolences to those who lost loved ones after Kerrville was pounded by deadly flash floods.

‘Melania and I are praying for all the families impacted by this horrible tragedy,’ he said.

First responders desperately searching for the missing girls from Camp Mystic have been forced to evacuate after a flash flood warning was put in place for Kerr County.

The National Weather Service said, ‘Tributaries of the Guadalupe River north of Ingram and Kerrville will contain a quick rise in water that will eventually add up to 2 feet of a rise along the Guadalupe River from Ingram to just downstream from Kerrville.’

The White House has pushed back on critics blaming the National Weather Service for providing insufficent warning on the Texas flood.

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, told NBC News the accusations were ‘disgusting’ lies to target political opponents.

‘False claims about the NWS have been repeatedly debunked by meteorologists, experts, and other public reporting,’ Jackson said.

‘The NWS did their job, even issuing a flood watch more than 12 hours in advance.’

The National Weather Service sent out a flash flood warning for Kerr County until at least 6:30 p.m. CT.

‘Tributaries of the Guadalupe River north of Ingram and Kerrville will contain a quick rise in water that will eventually add up to 2 feet of a rise along the Guadalupe River from Ingram to just downstream from Kerrville,’ the agency said.

Phones across waterlogged Kerrville received an emergency alert Sunday warning of ‘high confidence of river flooding,’ according to the New York Times.

‘Move to higher ground,’ the alert said.

Governor Greg Abbott told reporters on Sunday that heavy rain is expected in the Concho Valley and near Kerrville over the next 24 to 48 hours, which could lead to additional flash flooding.

‘If you’re in any of those areas, you need to realize you’re in an area that is already saturated with water,’ he said.

‘But for another, when more water comes down, it could lead to rapid flash flooding events,

Abbott said that flash flooding could still pose a danger for some regions of Texas over the next few days as ‘more heavy rainfall’ is expected.

He noted that ‘nothing expected at this time to the magnitude of what was seen in Kerrville’ but cautioned that the threat still remains.

Gov. Greg Abbott confirmed 69 people were killed as a result of the catastrophic flooding.

He told reporters on Sunday that 59 people in Kerrville and 10 people from Central Texas died after the Guadalupe River flooded and surged by up to 30 feet above its usual water level on Friday.

At least 41 people are missing across the state, including 11 campers and one camp counselor from Camp Mystic.

Referring to his wife, the former US President and Texas Governor wrote: ‘Laura and I are holding up our fellow Texans who are hurting.

‘We are heartbroken by the loss of life and the agony so many are feeling.’

His wife once worked as a counselor at Camp Mystic, according to Texas Monthly.

Speaking from her home in Dublin, Ireland, O’Donnell placed the blame for the flooding squarely on the president’s shoulders.

‘What a horror story in Texas. The flash floods in Texas, the Guadalupe River. Fifty-one dead, more missing – children, at a camp,’ she said, speaking on TikTok.

‘When the president guts all of the early warning systems and the weather forecast abilities of the government, these are the results that we’re going to start to see on a daily basis.

‘Because he’s put this country in so much danger by his horrible, horrible decisions and this ridiculously immoral bill that he just signed into law… people will die as a result, and they’ve started already. Shame on him.’

O’Donnell moved from the USA to Ireland shortly after Trump was elected for a second term, saying she could not stand to live in Trump’s America.

Houston Mayor John Whitmire issued an apology statement after an insensitive TikTok video by an outgoing employee about the Texas floods was blasted online.

The former City of Houston employee identified on social media as Sade Perkins, accused the Camp Mystic retreat of being ‘whites-only’ and implied that people should not care about the search for the missing girls as much because of this.

‘I know I’m probably going to get canceled for this,’ she said in the video, ‘Camp Mystic is a whites-only, girls Christian camp’.

‘I think that context needs to be said in this matter,’ she added. ‘This is no shade to the girls, I hope they all get found…

‘But they want you to have sympathy for these people, they want you to get out of your bed and to come out of your home and to go find these people… meanwhile they (the government) are deporting your family members.’

Whitmire condemned the comments as ‘deeply inappropriate’.

‘The comments shared on social media are deeply inappropriate and have no place in decent society, especially as families grieve the confirmed deaths and the ongoing search for the missing,’ he said in the statement.

‘The individual who made these statements is not a City of Houston employee. She was appointed to the City’s Food Insecurity Board by former Mayor Sylvester Turner in 2024, and her term expired in January 2025.’

Whitmire added that he has ‘no plans to reappoint her’ and the city is ‘taking immediate steps to remove her permanently from the board’.

Perkins is also a non-resident fellow at Princeton University, according to her social media.

Hunt resident Robert Modgling said he was part of a search effort for survivors on the morning of July 4.

‘We were looking for survivors all morning long,’ Modgling, 55, told the New York Times.

‘There’s a handful of people that were rescued initially, and after that there just weren’t any. That part’s over.’

He recalled the ‘horrible’ moment he found the body of a girl, aged around seven, pinned to a tree by the floodwater.

‘I’ve got a daughter who’s about that age,’ he said. Police took custody of the girl’s body, he added.

Trump said that ‘as a mother’ her ‘soul aches’ for the families who have lost children in the floods. The death toll, currently at 67, includes 21 children.

The president’s daughter also praised the first responders for displaying ‘breathtaking courage’ and camp counselors who tried their best to save the young girls.

‘To the sweet souls we’ve lost – may you rest in eternal peace, your spirits carried gently by love and remembrance,’ Trump wrote. ‘You will never be forgotten’.

Obama said: ‘The flash flooding in Central Texas is absolutely heartbreaking. Michelle and I are praying for everyone who has lost a loved one or is waiting for news — especially the parents.

‘And we’re grateful to the first responders and rescue teams working around the clock to help.’

Victims of the flash floods wrecking havoc on Central Texas are infuriated as local officials blame the National Weather Service (NWS) for failing to warn communities of the dire threat before it was too late.

Rescue teams are frantically searching for missing victims, including 11 girls and a counselor who were at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the river in Kerr County, when tragedy struck.

As search, rescue and recover efforts are underway – with Donald Trump signing a ‘major disaster declaration’ to support first responders – local officials have accused the NWS of rolling out warnings too late, especially in Kerr County where the devastation has been the greatest.

As of 1pm. Sunday, 67 people had been recorded dead in the floods, including 21 children, mostly concentrated in Kerr County.

The five girls who have been confirmed dead at Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas have been named and pictured, as eleven remain missing.

Their beloved director of Camp Mystic, Richard ‘Dick’ Eastland, 70, also died while trying to save girls as a month’s worth of rain dropped in a matter of minutes.

Eight-year-olds Renee Smajstrla, Sarah Marsh, Eloise Peck were confirmed among the dead, along with Janie Hunt, Lila Bonner, who were both nine.

The youngest campers at the scenic site in Kerr County, Texas were sleeping in cabins just 225 feet from the Guadalupe River when it broke its banks at around 4am on the Fourth of July.

The camp’s younger attendees slept on low-laying ‘flats’ whereas the older girls’ cabins are on higher ground, about 600 feet from the water.

This meant that when the banks broke and water rushed into the camp, the youngest girls were hit by the deluge first.

The majority of the missing girls are from the camp’s younger cohort.

At least five girls from the camp have been confirmed dead, each aged eight or nine, and 11 children are still missing. One counselor is missing.

Survivor Elinor Lester, 13, described the scene of horror to ABC7. ‘The camp was completely destroyed,’ she said. ‘A helicopter landed and started taking people away. It was really scary.’

The National Weather Service has extended a flood watch for the Kerr County region until 7pm on Sunday as heavy rain continues.

Meteorologists said the warning covers parts of Hill Country, the Interstate 35 corridor and some areas just east of this region.

Another flood watch is in place for Johnson and Tarrant counties, including the Fort Worth metro area, until 1.30pm.

Texas’s Division of Emergency Management predicted the number of dead as a result of catastrophic flooding in Kerrville would top 100.

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

‘Our state assets and local partners are continuing to search for live victims,’ the head of TDEM W. Nim Kidd told reporters at a press conference Saturday.

‘Our hope and prayer is that there is still people alive that are out there.’

As of Sunday morning, 59 had been confirmed dead, and another 12 campers missing.

Of the dead, 38 are adults and 21 are children, local officials said.

The declaration comes amid a swirl of criticism of the Trump administration for making major cuts to federal funding, impacting agencies like FEMA which lead the response to natural disasters.

‘I just signed a Major Disaster Declaration for Kerr County, Texas, to ensure that our Brave First Responders immediately have the resources they need,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social.

‘These families are enduring an unimaginable tragedy, with many lives lost, and many still missing.

‘The Trump Administration continues to work closely with State and Local Leaders.

‘Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was on the ground yesterday with Governor Greg Abbott, who is working hard to help the people of his Great State.

‘Our incredible U.S. Coast Guard, together with State First Responders, have saved more than 850 lives. GOD BLESS THE FAMILIES, AND GOD BLESS TEXAS!’

As of 9 a.m. Sunday, 59 people had been recorded dead in the floods in Kerr County, including 21 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha said at a news conference.

In Ingram, Erin Burgess woke to thunder and rain in the middle of the night. Just 20 minutes later, water was pouring into her home, she said. She described an agonizing hour clinging to a tree with her teen son.

‘My son and I floated to a tree where we hung onto it, and my boyfriend and my dog floated away. He was lost for a while, but we found them,’ she said.

The hills along the Guadalupe River in central Texas are dotted with century-old youth camps and campgrounds where generations of families have come to swim and enjoy the outdoors.

The area is especially popular around the July Fourth holiday, making it more difficult to know how many are missing.

‘We don’t even want to begin to estimate at this time,’ Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said earlier.

‘I urge every Texan to join me in prayer this Sunday — for the lives lost, for those still missing, for the recovery of our communities, and for the safety of those on the front lines,’ Greg Abbott said in a statement.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has said she has ‘activated US Coast Guard and FEMA resources’ to help those impacted by the Texas floods.

The director of Camp Mystic was killed while trying to save girls from the horrific flooding that swept through the Texas summer camp.

Richard ‘Dick’ Eastland, 70, was killed while trying to rescue campers from the rushing waters, reported KSAT.

His nephew, Gardner Eastland, confirmed the death in a Facebook post on Saturday. Eastland’s wife, Tweety, was found safe at their home, according to The Kerrville Daily Times.

Twenty-seven girls are missing from Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas, and five of their fellow campers have died after the rushing waters destroyed the all-girls private Christian summer camp.

Ricky Gonzalez told CNN about the moment he and his friends only just managed to escape the Airbnb where they were spending their Fourth of July weekend.

‘Some of us don’t know how to swim. The water was almost 30 feet deep. I can’t swim personally,’ he said.

‘We made sure all the floaties were inflated, air mattresses, coolers, getting everything ready, just in case that we need to, you know — survive.

Gonzalez added that he was FaceTiming his sister at the time, ‘basically giving my last goodbye’.

He said that at one moment, ‘it crossed my mind that some of us aren’t going to make it out alive’.

‘In my mind, I was just thinking, “Well, I might see some of my friends pass away this morning,”‘ Gonzalez said.

Luckily, a family took the group in, gave them food and drove them to the airport.

Georgia-based Republican Congressional candidate Kandiss Taylor has claimed the floods were ‘fake’ in a bizarre social media post.

‘Fake weather. Fake hurricanes. Fake flooding. Fake. Fake. Fake,’ Taylor wrote on X on Saturday, the day after the floods deluged central Texas.

She later back-pedaled after facing criticism, claiming she ‘wasn’t talking about Texas’ and was instead ‘referring to legislation being proposed due to weather modification’.

Dozens of children are still missing from Camp Mystic, where an all-girls Christian school was staying over when the floods hit.

Highland Park United Methodist Church, where former President and Texas governor George Bush used to pray, has issued a statement.

‘The situation unfolding in the Texas Hill Country is deeply heartbreaking—but even in the midst of such sorrow and uncertainty, we hold on to hope and the promise that God is near to those who suffer,’ the church said in a message to followers.

‘This crisis affects many in our HPUMC family and our local Park Cities community, including generations of women and families touched by Camp Mystic. 

‘One of the girls unaccounted for, Hadley Hanna, is a part of our church family. Please pray for her safety and for her parents, Doug and Carrie, along with her two sisters.

‘In times like these, it’s natural to feel a wave of emotion—grief, confusion, fear. Yet as followers of Jesus Christ, we trust that we are never alone in our sorrow.

‘You can help these families and others affected by the flooding in Central Texas by donating online. We are currently working with partners to assess the greatest needs.I hope you’ll join us in worship tomorrow.’

The Guadalupe River, which runs through several towns around 100 miles south-west of Austin, broke its banks on July Fourth, causing the monster floods.

Communities including Kerrville and Ingram have been devastated by the deluge, and dozens of children who were camping at nearby Camp Mystic are still missing.

The Peruvian-American Pope offered his ‘sincere condolences’ and prayers for the families in central Texas, including 27 children who are still missing from an all-girls Christian summer camp located along the river which burst its banks.

‘I would like to express sincere condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones – in particular their daughters who were at summer camp – in the disaster caused by the flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas in the United States,’ he said during his Sunday Angelus prayer at the Vatican.

‘We pray for them,’ he added.

The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch for several counties including Kerrville County in Texas, which has seen the worst of the flooding so far.

Meteorologists have warned that ‘flooding caused by excessive rainfall is possible’ in the region until 1pm on Sunday.

The warning covers Bandera, Bastrop, Bexar, Blanco, Burnet, Caldwell, Comal, Gillespie, Guadalupe, Hays, Kendall, Kerr, Lee, Llano, Medina, Travis and Williamson counties.

Officials have predicted another two to four inches will fall on average over the area, with up to 10 inches possible in the worst-hit regions.

The National Weather Service escalated the alert to a flash flood warning at 1am Friday, followed by a more serious Flash Flood Emergency by 4.30am.

But by this point, water was already pouring into families’ homes.

Many Texans have blamed the slow updates as part of the reason at least 52 people have lost their lives and dozens remain missing.

The National Weather Service fired around 600 people in recent months as part of Donald Trump’s sweeping cuts to federal services.

It had recently begun the process of hiring 100 new employees.

Trump has also proposed cuts to FEMA and NOAA, federal agencies which conduct climate research and help prepare states for natural disasters.

Greg Abbott described a scene of pure horror on Saturday as he visited Camp Mystic.

The scenic site was at the epicenter of the flooding, and dozens of children were camping there when the deluge struck.

Reece Zunker and his wife Paula are among those who died in the devastating floods, and their two young children are still missing.

The couple’s family and local soccer team confirmed their deaths on social media, while one relative said their house was spotted ‘floating down the Guadalupe River’.

Tivy Boys Soccer team paid tribute to their coach in a Facebook post, saying he ‘rebuilt the soccer program and left a legacy’.

‘His passion for his players, students, co-workers, community and his family will never be forgotten,’ the team wrote.

Dozens of people commented on the post to share the ‘incredible’ impact he had on their lives.

Officials have said 52 people have been confirmed dead, including 15 children, since the deluge began in central Texas on Thursday.

The majority of those who died were in Kerrville County, where the Guadalupe River broke its banks in the early hours of the Fourth of July.

Rescuers were continuing to comb the river for dozens of missing people on Sunday. The death toll is expected to rise.