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Updated on: July 5, 2025 / 8:28 PM EDT
/ CBS News
Children among missing from Texas flood waters
At least 2 dozen children among missing from Texas flood waters
03:54
At least 47 people are dead in central Texas in what officials called a “mass casualty event” after devastating flash floods slammed Hill Country, with water rescues taking place along the Guadalupe River.
While officials couldn’t confirm an exact number of those who remain unaccounted for, they said more than two dozen were still missing from Camp Mystic in Kerr County, a children’s summer camp.
At least 43 fatalities have been reported so far in Kerr County, its sheriff, Larry Leitha, said at a news conference Saturday evening. The dead include 28 adults and 15 children. Twelve of the adults and five children are unidentified, Leitha said. At least 27 campers were missing, Dalton Rice, Kerryville city manager, said. There were about 750 children at Camp Mystic when the floods hit, the sheriff said.
At least four deaths were confirmed in Travis County, county spokesperson Hector Nieto told CBS News by phone Saturday night. Travis County contains the Texas capital city of Austin.
Officials have conducted more than 160 air rescues, Leitha said in an earlier update. In total, 850 uninjured and eight injured people have been rescued as of Saturday, he said.
“We’ve been rescuing people out of these camps by the hundreds, you know, all day,” Rice said Saturday night. “There’s a lot of folks that are shelter in place, so we leave them in place to make sure that we get them food, water.”
Damaged vehicles and debris are seen roped off near the banks of the Guadalupe River after flooding in Ingram, Texas, Friday, July 4, 2025.
Michel Fortier/The San Antonio Express-News via AP
Some of the hundreds of people who were rescued in the last 36 hours were hanging onto trees, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said in Saturday’s news conference. The governor said he signed an updated federal disaster declaration to include several other counties in Texas that have been damaged by storms.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was also in attendance at the news conference, said President Trump has indicated that he will honor Abbott’s declaration.