A search and rescue operation is ongoing after flooding hit Kerr County in central Texas (Picture: AFP)

At least 27 people including nine children have died in the flash floods that have swept through Kerr County in central Texas.

Search and rescue operations are continuing in ‘harsh’ terrain after the Guadalupe River rose more than eight metres in less than an hour overnight Thursday and devastated several towns.

At least 27 children are missing from Camp Mystic, a Christian girls’ summer camp which is located on the river.

Emergency services have evacuated more than 850 uninjured people and eight injured people, the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office said this afternoon.

The update came as Donald Trump put out a message on Truth Social saying he and his wife Melania are ‘praying for all of the families impacted by this horrible tragedy.’

Kerr County Sheriff Larry L. Leitha told a press conference in Texas this morning, local time, that the death toll currently stands at 27, including 18 adults and nine children.

A drone view shows houses flooded following torrential rains that unleashed flash floods along the Guadalupe River in Texas (Picture: Patrick Keely via Reuters)

Six of the adults and one child were unidentified at the time he spoke.

‘Our thoughts and prayers go out to the loved ones,’ Sheriff Leitha said.

‘We are working hard to locate anyone who is still missing and to ensure they are safe.’

Rescue and recovery operations are taking place more than 24 hours into the tragic event, Sheriff Leitha told reporters.

‘We will not stop until every single person is found,’ he said.

Two unidentified girls are rescued via helicopter from the floods in central Texas (Picture: Texas National Guard)

‘We’ve got all the resources we need we’re here for the long haul.

‘As I said numbers will be changing rapidly.’

Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring Jr said that ‘it will be a hard day’ as he outlined how people ‘from across the state and the world’ can help via following the city’s Facebook page.

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Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said there are 27 ‘potentially missing campers’ while ‘the unknown is how many people were here visiting, on vacation, doing other things in the community that we do not have numbers [for].’

‘These numbers are going to change throughout the day,’ Mr Rice said.

A search and rescue effort is scouring terrain along the river 24 hours into the disaster (Picture: X/TXMilitary)

He said a ‘primary search’ is taking place covering a ‘harsh environment’ with personnel turning over rocks and searching culverts and trees.

Trump said on the social network that his administration is working with state and local officials on the ground in Texas.

He wrote: ‘Our Brave First Responders are on site doing what they do best. GOD BLESS THE FAMILIES, AND GOD BLESS TEXAS!’

Camp Mystic was devastated by the flooding as the disaster in the middle of the night on the Fourth of July holiday caught many residents, campers and officials by surprise.

A news grab showing an unidentified young person in a tree during flooding in Center Point, Texas (Picture: @News4SA/X)

‘The camp was completely destroyed,’ said 13-year-old Elinor Lester, one of hundreds of campers at Mystic.

‘A helicopter landed and started taking people away.

‘It was really scary.’

One young girl was shown being rescued after clinging to a tree for safety.

More rain is expected in central Texas today, which may bring heavy downpours and flooding due to a slow-moving storm over the region, according to the National Weather Service.

Forecaster Jason Runyen said the threat could last into Sunday morning.

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A child was reunited with her mother after she was lost amid life-threatening flash floods in south central Texas, according to Rep. Chip Roy, R-TX.

“My kids school — there was one of their schoolmates, was missing, and one of the kids she was on a mattress for two, three hours in the middle of the night,” Roy said in a news briefing this morning. “And you know, she’s united with her mom, and that’s wonderful.”

The representative did not clarify if the child was floating on a mattress in flood waters.

Roy also acknowledged the dozens of people who died in the floods.

“We’re also mourning the loss of life as we identify those that didn’t make it and are now home with their lord,” he said.

• Desperate search: Authorities say more than 25 girls are still unaccounted for at Camp Mystic in Kerr County, Texas, where a river rose more than 20 feet in less than two hours during torrential rains that triggered flash flooding in parts of the state yesterday.

• Death toll rises: At least 27 people, including nine children, have died in the flooding, according to local officials. A 9-year-old camper is among the victims, her mother told CNN.

• Massive effort: Rescue and recovery operations continue today after first responders worked through the night, with authorities saying more than 850 people have been brought to safety. The Trump administration is sending resources to help.

• One-in-100-years intensity: Parts of central Texas saw a month’s worth of rain in just a few hours, prompting multiple flash flood emergencies. Hunt, a town near Kerrville, received about 6.5 inches in just three hours early Friday, which is considered a one-in-100-years rainfall event for the area.

The devastating flooding in Central Texas has killed at least 27 people, including nine children, and left many others unaccounted for, Kerr County Sheriff Larry L. Leitha said at a news conference Friday night. One of those killed was Renee Smajstrla, who was at Camp Mystic when flooding swept through the summer camp for girls, her uncle said. The camp is on the Guadalupe River near the city of Kerrville.

Shawn Salta of Maryland confirmed, in an email Saturday to The Washington Post, that his 8-year-old niece was among those who died. Earlier, he posted a message on Facebook thanking “friends and family for all the prayers and outreach,” saying that the social media response had “likely assisted the first responders in helping to identify her so quickly.”

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“We are thankful she was with her friends and having the time of her life, as evidenced by this picture from yesterday. She will forever be living her best life at Camp Mystic. Please continue to pray for the other families in Kerrville.”

Between 23 and 25 girls were missing from Camp Mystic, Leitha said previously. There were more than 700 children at the camp, and the majority were evacuated to higher ground, where they awaited rescue without power, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) said on Friday.

Another summer camp for girls, ​Heart O’ the Hills, said its director and co-owner, Jane Ragsdale, died in the flooding.

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“We are mourning the loss of a woman who influenced countless lives and was the definition of strong and powerful,” the camp said in a statement Friday. It added that the camp, which is on the banks of the Guadalupe River, was “thankfully” not in session at the time of the flood and that most of those who were there have been accounted for.

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Ragsdale was described as the “heart and soul” of the camp, where she started as a camper and a counselor and served as program director from 1978 to 1987. She has co-owned the camp since 1976, according to the camp website.

Another woman, Katheryn Eads, was also killed, family members and a former colleague have confirmed.

“Kathy did not make it. Her husband Brian survived,” Shelly McCullough said in a message to The Washington Post on Saturday about her sister-in-law.

Katheryn’s mother, Elizabeth Moss Grover, wrote on Facebook that her daughter’s body had been recovered. “God has her now. Thanks for all the prayers,” she said.

Earlier, family members had appealed for information, saying the family had found her husband, Brian Eads, but were unable to locate Katheryn. Amy Hutchinson, the owner and director of Olive Branch Counseling and Training, based in Texas, said Eads had previously worked at the company.

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“Katheryn was a hope and a light to all who knew her,” she said in an email to The Post. “A daughter, a wife, a mother, grandmother, friend and colleague. She was a stellar counselor and professor and she simply just made everything better. Katheryn was changing lives.”

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Hear this story

The death toll has risen to 27 after flooding rains rapidly overwhelmed the Guadalupe River in Texas on Friday, prompting a frantic and ongoing rescue effort that continued through the night and into Saturday.

The dead include 18 adults and nine children, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said at a Saturday morning news conference. The toll rose from 24, reported Friday night. Authorities didn’t release further information about the victims as they continue to work to identify them.

Parents were desperate for news about campers who remain missing from Camp Mystic, a Christian girls camp at the river’s edge. As of Saturday morning, there were 27 missing campers from the camp, said Kerrville City Manager Manager Dalton Rice.

The camp is located in central Texas’ Kerr County, about 60 miles northwest of San Antonio. A few miles away along the river, another girls’ camp said its director was killed in the flooding. The Heart O’ the Hills Camp said it was not in session and most people who were at camp when flooding hit have been accounted for, but camp officials received word that Director Jane Ragsdale had died.

“We are mourning the loss of a woman who influenced countless lives and was the definition of strong and powerful,” the camp said on its website.

There is an unknown number of people missing, Rice said, adding that officials can’t begin to estimate true numbers because there may be an untold number of people visiting the region on vacation.

Five of the confirmed victims are from Harris County, where Houston is located, said Harris County Judge Linda Hidalgo: “All of Texas is impacted by this tragic event.”

A “24/7” rescue effort was underway, Gov. Greg Abbott said at a news conference Friday evening. Over 200 people were rescued from the floodwaters, said Maj. Gen. Thomas M. Suelzer, the commander of the Texas National Guard.

Abbott shared a video to social media of a responder dangling from a helicopter to rescue someone stranded in a tree with floodwaters below.

“Rescue teams worked throughout the night and will continue until we find all our citizens,” the Kerrville Police Department said Saturday morning.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told reporters Friday that his office has been in contact with the White House multiple times. President Donald Trump told state officials “whatever we need, we will have,” Patrick said.

What is Camp Mystic? What we know about century-old girls camp

More than 750 girls were at Camp Mystic in Texas Hill Country when heavy rains and flooding hit the region Friday, July 4. The private nondenominational Christian camp, founded in 1926, is located along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, one of 15 counties covered in Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s disaster declaration.

Flash flooding caused river waters to increase 29 feet rapidly near the camp, officials said. As of Saturday, July 5, there were 27 campers among the missing.

Camp Mystic for Girls was founded by Edward “Doc” Stewart, who was the football and men’s basketball coach at the University of Texas, according to an Internet Archive’s capture of the camp’s website (much of the site was overwhelmed with traffic on Saturday).

The camp has been in operation since then. However, during World War II it served as a “rehabilitation and recovery camp for army air corps veterans,” according to the site.

‒ Mike Snider

Flooding threat continues on Saturday, forecasters say

As rescuers continue their search for missing people on Saturday, forecasters at the National Weather Service said the threat of catastrophic flooding and heavy rainfall was not yet over. That’s because the system dumping rain over central Texas has slowed as it crawls over the state.

The weather service in Austin and San Antonio said a flood watch was in effect in the region until at least 7 p.m. local time on Saturday. Between 2 and 4 inches of additional rain are expected, with isolated amounts up to 10 inches, the weather service said.

“It is very difficult to pinpoint where exactly the isolated heavy amounts will occur in this pattern,” the weather service said, warning people to pay attention to the weather.

The danger has extended to Travis, Williamson and Burnet counties, where very dangerous flash flooding is ongoing Saturday morning. Between 5 and 12 inches of rainfall has fallen there, the weather service said, calling it a “Particularly Dangerous Situation with life-threatening flash flooding.”

A flood that came with terrifying swiftness

The flooding began sometime after 4:00 a.m., when extreme rains of as much as 12 inches an hour hit, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in a press conference Friday afternoon.

The National Weather Service had issued a flood watch for parts of south-central Texas, including Kerr County, on Thursday. It warned that a slow-moving system could potentially bring major storms to the area.

The rain that fell was even more intense.

At 2:03 a.m. the National Weather service issued its fifth warning of the evening, each of which had been more strident than the last.

This one said “This is a PARTICULARLY DANGEROUS SITUATION. SEEK HIGHER GROUND NOW! Life threatening flash flooding of low water crossings, small creeks and streams, urban areas, highways, streets and underpasses.”

Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said he had been jogging along the Guadalupe River trail at 3:30 a.m. and saw only light rain and no signs of flooding.

By 5:00 a.m. officials were beginning to get phone calls, and he and the area fire chief went to a local park to survey the scene.

“Within an hour and a half, [the river] had already risen over 25 feet,” Rice said. “Within a matter of minutes it was up to 29 feet.”

Meteorologist Matthew Cappucci explained in a post on X that rainfall in the area totaled over 10 inches, but “annual rainfall for this region is about 28-32 inches.”

“Imagine 4 months’ worth of rain falling in a 6-hour window,” he said.

The stretch of the Guadalupe River near Bergheim, Texas, located about 35 miles north of San Antonio “rose 40 FEET IN 3 HOURS,” he added.

‒ Doyle Rice and Elizabeth Weise

San Angelo also hit with flooding

In San Angelo, about 150 miles from Kerrville in the central part of the state, local officials said the northeast area of the city was the hardest hit. As of late July 4, officials were working to search for one missing person, a city government Facebook post said.

The PaulAnn Baptist Church had temporary shelter available to residents. Meanwhile, a disaster relief fund opened through the nonprofit San Angelo Area Foundation to help people affected by the storm. The United Way of the Concho Valley was also accepting donations for nonperishable foods, clothes and water at Concho Valley Turning Point’s warehouse.

“We couldn’t be more thankful for everyone who has showed up to be a hand up to our neighbors,” the local United Way said in a Facebook post.

– Eduardo Cuevas