Officials said more than 850 people had been rescued, including some who were clinging to trees, after a sudden storm dumped up to 15 inches of rain in an area around the Guadalupe River, about 85 miles (137 km) northwest of San Antonio.
“We are kind of looking at this in two ways called the known missing, which is the 27 ... We will not put a number on the other side because we just don’t know,“ Rice said.
“We know that the rivers rise, but nobody saw this coming,“ said Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the top local official in the region.
The U.S. National Weather Service said the flash flood emergency has largely ended for Kerr County, following thunderstorms that dumped more than a foot of rain. That is half of the total the region sees in a typical year. A flood watch remained in effect until 7 p.m. for the broader region.
Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said an unknown number of visitors had come to the area for an Independence Day celebration by the river.
Camp Mystic had 700 girls in residence at the time of the flood, according to Patrick. Another girls’ camp, Heart O’ the Hills, said on its website that co-owner Jane Ragsdale had died in the flood but no campers had been present as it was between sessions.
Earlier on Saturday, Trump said he and his wife Melania were praying for the victims. “Our Brave First Responders are on site doing what they do best,“ he said on social media.
Videos posted online showed bare concrete platforms where homes used to stand and piles of rubble along the banks of the river. Rescuers plucked residents from rooftops and trees, sometimes forming human chains to fetch people from the floodwater, local media reported.
Noem said a “moderate” flood watch issued the previous day by the National Weather Service did not accurately predict the extreme rainfall and said the Trump administration was working to upgrade the system.
“People’s ability to prepare for these storms will be compromised. It undoubtedly means that additional lives will be lost and probably more property damage,“ he said.
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