Death Toll Rises to 43 in Texas Floods as Rescuers Scour for Missing

The Washington Post

13:06 JST, July 6, 2025

KERRVILLE, Texas – A nightmarish search-and-rescue operation continued in Kerr County on Saturday, as authorities frantically fanned out along the roiling Guadalupe River looking for survivors of the fierce flooding that has killed at least 43 people, 15 of them children.

The death toll was expected to rise. Officials do not know how many remain missing, but managers at one beloved summer camp said that 27 girls were unaccounted for as of late Saturday afternoon.

Anguish was everywhere. Parents raced to the scene, intending to search for their children themselves. At a local reunification center, family members hugged and sobbed. They spoke hurriedly into cellphones and scanned for photographs of their missing loved ones. Online, they posted desperate pleas for information. And at news conferences, police officers and elected leaders alike struggled to compose themselves.

“People need to know – today will be a hard day,” said Joe Herring Jr., the mayor of Kerrville, one of the hardest hit cities. His voice caught as he spoke. “It will be a hard day.”

Rain fell in sheets as first responders combed over the Guadalupe and several other already-swollen rivers. The downpours prompted additional evacuations and flash flood warnings in and around the Texas Hill Country. The forecast offered little relief: More rain was predicted for Saturday night into Sunday.

Swarms of emergency personnel, working in difficult and dangerous conditions, pledged to carry on. They flew helicopters and drones, steered boats and scoured on foot.

“We are literally walking every inch of the Guadalupe from the east side of Kerr County to the west side of Kerr County,” said Jonathan Lamb, a sergeant with the local sheriff’s office. He added: “Our focus remains on the missing and their loved ones, and we’re not going to stop until we find and return every missing person.”

Authorities were holding out hope – it remained a search-and-rescue, not a recovery mission – but Lamb said the grief is “probably going to be just about more than we can bear.”

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s top elected leader, spent the morning at a funeral home. The scene was horrific.

Parents were identifying children. Some victims had been in the water so long their fingerprints were no longer usable.

“When you see that many small body bags, it’s just, I can’t even begin to explain it,” Kelly said in an interview with The Washington Post.

The first 36 hours also brought stories of relief and hope. So far, more than 850 people have been saved, some clinging to trees or floating on mattresses.

The catastrophe unfolded quickly, just before dawn Friday. With parks and summer camps along the river crowded for the Fourth of July holiday, nearly 2 trillion gallons of rain washed over the region. In one part, the Guadalupe rose from 7 feet to 29 feet in just a few hours.

The torrents cut a long path of destruction. Floodwater filled houses and swept away camper vans. It toppled trees and crashed through concrete.

This part of Texas is known as “Flash Flood Alley,” and it is one of the deadliest places in the country for that type of disaster. The same rolling hills and rugged valleys that make the area so picturesque tend to supercharge surging water, sending rainfall rushing into rivers that soon overflow.

Yet, the speed and severity of the flooding appeared to catch many off guard. Meteorologists warned about a worrying incoming storm Thursday, but at first, there was little sign it would be so vicious.

The most dire alerts came in the overnight hours, and many residents said they didn’t see them in time. At about 4:30 a.m. Friday, the National Weather Service notified residents of “a life-threatening situation.”

At a news conference, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem said without elaborating that the agency was using “ancient technology” to issue alerts and that the Trump administration would work on upgrading it. In a statement, however, the Weather Service said its reports gave localities hours of lead time.

Officials have deflected questions about what more should have been done to prepare for the floods, with Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) asking observers to stop “finger-pointing.” Every level of government, he maintained, was doing everything possible to help.

Kelly, the county judge, lives on the Guadalupe and said he never expected the storm to get so bad.

“We didn’t know,” he told reporters Saturday. “We know we get rains. We know the river rises. But nobody saw this coming.”

A similar tragedy occurred some 40 years ago, when 10 teens, also attending a summer camp, were killed and 33 others injured after flooding along the Guadalupe River.

But the death toll from the latest event quickly surpassed that of July 1987, with local officials saying it was the worst flooding they had ever seen.

At an RV park just outside of Kerrville, it initially seemed like a typical summer rainstorm, said Lorena Guillen, who owns the property. As the deluge picked up, Guillen checked for evacuation orders and called the sheriff’s office for advice. The answer, she said, was: “We don’t know.”

A few hours later, water was rapidly swallowing the park. Guillen dashed door to door, pulling people in pajamas and underwear to higher ground. As she went, lives floated by: cabins from nearby campgrounds; cars with people still inside, honking for help.

Before the inundation, there were 28 RVs parked at Guillen’s park. After, they were all gone. Six of her tenants remain missing and one of her employees, Julian Ryan, is among those who died.

“There was no warning,” Guillen said.

Authorities have not identified all the victims, but more information about some emerged Saturday. There were young and old among them. Campers and counselors.

Ryan, who worked for Guillen at a restaurant near the RV park, died while helping rescue his mother, his fiancée and their children. His family told local media that he cut his arm while punching through a window as they evacuated their house, which was filling with water fast. He lost blood quickly, and the ambulance couldn’t make it in time.

Members of another family, the Eads, were separated in the swift waters. Brian and Katheryn Eads had parked their RV at a campground on the riverbank. Brian was later rescued; Katheryn, who went by Kathy, was not.

“Katheryn was a hope and a light to all who knew her,” one of her former colleagues told The Post.

Several victims – and the 27 children who remained missing – were connected to Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp that is nearly a century old. When the storm arrived, more than 700 children were at the camp, part of a cherished summer tradition in Texas.

Renee Smajstrla, 8, was photographed smiling as she sat on the camp’s stone steps the day before the floodwaters came. “She will forever be living her best life at Camp Mystic,” her uncle wrote in a memorial post on Facebook.

Richard “Dick” Eastland, the director of Camp Mystic, and Jane Ragsdale, director of Heart O’ the Hills, another camp just upriver, were also among the deceased.

Eastland was found alongside the bodies of three young campers, whom he had died trying to save.

“Dick died doing what he loved,” said Craig Althaus, who worked on the property for 25 years and described finding survivors in trees and on cabin roofs. “Taking care of those girls.”

Stuart Gross, a retired medical technician at the local fire department, spent years responding to flood events. But on Friday, he found himself on the other side, evacuating his riverside residence. He knew the Guadalupe was dangerous, and he was expecting a flash flood, but he didn’t get any alerts.

By 5 a.m. Saturday, he got a knock on the door from emergency personnel urging him to leave. As he fled, he could hear first responders work. Gross spoke to neighbors who heard the chilling cries for help.

“The screams of children they couldn’t reach,” Gross said. “You can’t stop Mother Nature.”

Uncertainty reigned as the search wore on. On social media, local news feeds were crowded with family members sharing descriptions and photos of lost loved ones and pets. Residents reported spotty cell service, and officials asked the public for patience.

“I can’t tell you how long it’s going to take, it’s going to take a while,” Kerr County Sheriff Larry L. Leitha said at a news conference.

At the Kerrville reunification center, relieved parents picked up children who had evacuated from Camp Waldemar, another all-girls site near Camp Mystic. All campers and staff made it out safely.

Kathleen and John McGrath were there to collect their 19-year-old daughter, a counselor at the camp, who was looking after a cabin of six 10-year-olds.

“I just want to hug her,” Kathleen said, as she waited for her daughter, Erin, to arrive.

Many of those who survived brought with them harrowing stories of narrow escape. Some of these also played out online, as stranded residents posted last-ditch pleas for rescue.

In one terrifying video, Rachel Sanchez panned across the inside of her home in San Angelo, about 150 miles northwest of Kerrville, on the Concho River. Brown water was lapping against cabinets and through doors: “Okay, my house is flooding,” she said. “Anybody out there.”

Her father, in hospice care, was lying in a bed, with the pool approaching the bottom of the mattress. She broke down as she narrated.

“We’ve lost our cars, everything,” Sanchez said. “We’ve lived here for 30 years and this has never happened. Anybody, please, if you have a boat or something, I need help.”

After several calls to 911, they were rescued at last.