Here’s the latest:
• Death toll mounts: At least 108 people have died during the catastrophic flooding in central Texas. The majority were in Kerr County, where 30 children have died — including at Camp Mystic.
• Search efforts ongoing: At least 18 people remain missing statewide, according to authorities, though officials in Kerr County said they don’t have a clear number beyond the six still missing at Camp Mystic. The massive search involves hundreds of volunteers and more than 20 state agencies, according to Gov. Greg Abbott, who will hold a news conference later today.
• Officials under microscope: Local officials have repeatedly refused to answer or have redirected questions about emergency response and preparedness efforts in the early hours of July 4.
• Forecast improves: Central Texas is expected to be much drier today after days of rain and ongoing flood risks.
For ways to help those affected by floods in central Texas, visit CNN Impact Your World.
Texas flood is the deadliest US freshwater flood in nearly 50 years
With at least 108 people dead in central Texas, the Fourth of July flooding is the deadliest freshwater flooding event in the United States since July 1976 and the deadliest weather event in the country since Hurricane Helene last September.
Freshwater flooding comes from rain and is different than storm surge flooding caused by wind pushing water onshore.
Horrific freshwater flooding in late July 1976 in northern Colorado is the last event to be so deadly, killing at least 139 people in eerily similar circumstances. Hurricane Helene killed at least 250 people in September 2024, with 95 of those deaths directly tied to flooding.
Here’s how the growing death toll in Texas compares to other disasters:
- It’s the deadliest freshwater flooding event in Texas in more than 100 years. In September 1921, nearly 40 inches of rain fell in about 36 hours and killed at least 215 people in the greater San Antonio area.
- It’s deadlier than the rainiest tropical cyclone in US history. Hurricane Harvey dumped more than 60 inches of rain in Texasin 2017, triggered massive flooding and killed at least 103 people directly or in its aftermath – 65 of those deaths were linked to flooding.
- More people have died than in all of the flooding deaths recorded in the US in 2024: 89 people. Nearly as many as the running 30-year average of 113 deaths per year.
“It wasn’t stopping”: Flood survivor recounts water rising through the floors of his home
Barry Adelman recounted his harrowing experience during the central Texas floods, which forced his family to seek refuge in the attic of their home.
He said he received multiple emergency alerts starting at 1 a.m. CT and the first floor was fully submerged by 4 a.m.
Four days after search and rescue efforts began, authorities in Kerr County seemed to dodge and deflect questions from reporters Tuesday about when they knew the floods would pose a deadly threat, and refused to commit to a timeline of their official response.
Here’s what Kerr County officials said during a news conference this morning:
- Death toll: The death toll in Kerr County has risen to 87, up three from yesterday, Sheriff Larry Leitha said. That moves the statewide death toll to at least 108.The 87 dead in Kerr County include 30 children, Leitha said.
- Number of missing: At least six people are missing in Kerr County — five Camp Mystic campers and one counselor — Leitha said. When asked for an overall number of people missing in the county, Leitha said: “It’s hard to know that number. I know the numbers that we have found, and that’s all I know.”
- Timeline of county’s response unclear: Although the National Weather Service’s first warning for “life-threatening flash flooding” for parts of Kerr County, including Camp Mystic, came at 1:14 a.m. on July 4, Leitha told reporters he was not made aware of the flash floods until “between 4 and 5” that morning.
County officials’ next news conference is scheduled for 6 p.m. ET today, they said.
Odessa police officer among those killed by catastrophic flooding
Odessa Police Officer Bailey Martin, who was missing after the severe flooding in central Texas has been pronounced dead, Odessa Police confirmed Tuesday.
Martin was on a trip with family to the Guadalupe River near Kerrville, Texas, for the Fourth of July holiday weekend, the police department said in a post on Saturday.
“We are deeply saddened to share with our community that Odessa Police Officer Bailey Martin has been found and, tragically, is deceased,” the department said Tuesday.
The department will return Martin’s body to Odessa, about 280 miles from Kerrville.
Flags in front of the department have been lowered to half-staff, officers are wearing mourning bands on their badges and the department is encouraging citizens to replace their porch lights with blue bulbs for the rest of the week in Bailey’s honor.
Watch as cabin floats with Camp La Junta staff inside
A cabin filled with staff members at Camp La Junta was captured on video floating along the Guadalupe River on Friday during the catastrophic flooding event.
Seth Stover told CNN his son was among those in the cabin at the time.
“They were woken up around 4 a.m. to the sound of the breakers flipping,” Stover said. “They didn’t know they were floating at first.”
Stover, who was a camper at Camp La Junta in Hunt, Texas, in the 1980s, says the cabin had four men inside, ages 19 to 22. His son, 19, is a member of staff at the camp and can be seen in the doorway of the cabin in the video, according to Stover.
The cabin was ripped off its foundation and floated along the waters for only about 30 seconds, according to Stover. He says he imagines it felt a lot longer to his son.
Watch the moment unfold here: https://www.cnn.com/weather/live-news/texas-flooding-camp-mystic-07-08-25-hnk#cmcunshwc00003b6sa9tyrdhb
The cabin eventually hit a tree and got wedged between the tree and a stone wall, bringing the cabin to a stop. “It was pure luck that the cabin was stopped,” Stover said.
All the men inside were eventually able to exit the cabin safely and evacuated from camp.
Stover says he received a message from the camp that morning that all campers and staff were safe, but when he saw the video he couldn’t help but worry.
Eventually, his son called him around 7 a.m. to let him know he was safe and had been evacuated. Stover and his wife traveled to the area on Saturday to pick up their son.
Stover praised what he said was the bravery of the other staff members and camp counselors who helped the campers.
“The courage and sacrifices that all the camp counselors and staff did throughout the entire incident, keeping the kids safe,” Stover said. “The stories of what they did for these kids are amazing.”
Lyndon B. Johnson’s daughter hopes tragedy will prevent further flooding disasters at Camp Mystic
Luci Baines Johnson, former President Lyndon B. Johnson’s daughter, says she hopes comprehensive information about the deadly flooding disaster that killed 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic will lead to better safety measures and decisions in the future.
“What we know for sure is, that we can and must do better in memory of all of these precious little children who gave their lives, in memory of all of their families and those who loved them, in memory of all of those who came to celebrate our country’s birth on the Fourth of July on the banks of the Guadalupe River,” Johnson told CNN’s Pamela Brown.
This family took shelter on a bunk bed as their cabin began to flood
Christian Brown was staying in a cabin along the Guadalupe River with his family over the weekend, when extreme flooding hit Central Texas.
He told CNN that he did receive a flash flood warning, but never expected the water to rise to the level it did so quickly.
“We assumed that the safest place for us was actually in the cabin,” Brown said.
When the water outside the cabin reached about three feet above the ground, Brown and his wife and kids jumped on a bunk bed.
“And then finally, one of the back doors actually gave way, and the flood waters just came rushing into the cabin,” he said. “All of our furniture and lamps, everything was falling down, crashing, breaking, and we just kind of stayed up there to assess the situation and see what was going to happen,” Brown said.
The family sang “Amazing Grace” to try and stay calm as they watched the water inside the cabin rise up to about four feet – above the doorknobs in sight – before it finally crested, he said.
Almost everything inside the cabin, which has been in his family for 75 years, was destroyed, Brown said.
“We’re just mostly thankful that everything that we lost is replaceable. Our hearts go out to those that weren’t quite as lucky as us,” he told CNN.
See where catastrophic flooding quickly surged in central Texas over the weekend
Torrential rainfall hit flood zones in central Texas over the weekend, causing extreme flooding in a matter of hours.
Extreme rainfall in central Texas led to catastrophic flooding
Parts of central Texas saw several months’ worth of rain in just a few hours overnight into Friday.
Rainfall accumulation, July 4, 2025
Death toll rises to 105 in Texas floods
The death toll from the Texas floods has risen to at least 105.
The latest deaths are located in Burnet County, which is now reporting five fatalities, according to Chief Deputy Alan Trevino.
The county’s toll rose after authorities recovered two bodies, including a 17-year-old girl who was found in neighboring Travis County, Trevino said Tuesday.
Here’s a breakdown by county:
- 84 deaths in Kerr County
- 7 deaths in Travis County
- 5 deaths in Burnet County
- 6 deaths in Kendall County
- 2 deaths in Williamson County
- 1 death in Tom Green County
At least 23 people are still missing, with a massive search underway involving hundreds of volunteers and more than 20 state agencies, according to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
Search continues for missing volunteer fire chief
Authorities in Burnet County are continuing to search for a volunteer fire chief who went missing while responding to a rescue call after deadly flooding hit central Texas this weekend.
Marble Falls Area Volunteer Fire Department Fire Chief Michael Phillips is the last remaining missing person in the county, Chief Deputy Alan Trevino with the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office told CNN Tuesday.
The county’s death toll has risen to five since yesterday, after authorities recovered two bodies, including a 17-year-old girl who was found in neighboring Travis County, Trevino said.
The county is now able to dedicate all its search efforts to finding Phillips, with 12 additional cadaver dogs — some on boats — assisting team members searching the area where his vehicle went off the road, he said.
Those efforts will include dropping search teams into remote areas using helicopters and scouring terrain that is still too damp for horses to enter, he added.
Analysis: Natural disaster blame games obscure steps needed to keep Americans safe
America’s endless natural-disaster blame game is thwarting answers to life-and-death questions over worsening extreme weather crises.
Every time a hurricane, flood or wildfire strikes, political enemies heap knee-jerk blame on their foes – usually long before all the victims are accounted for.
This pattern was back on display after a horrific tragedy in Texas, where floods killed more than 100 people after raging through summer camps and July Fourth celebrations.
Some liberals whipped up viral social media posts claiming that Elon Musk’s DOGE budget cuts were directly to blame for extreme weather alerts not reaching those in the torrent’s way.
President Donald Trump on Sunday seemed about to pin the disaster on President Joe Biden before backing away. But his Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who is dismembering the Federal Emergency Management Agency, went on Fox to criticize the last administration. And her department, now an arm of the MAGA movement, accused the media of lying about what really happened.
The ugly partisan wars that broke out as parents face unfathomable loss are typical of a political culture that has severed itself from basic humanity. And they underscore that social media remains a Wild West of misinformation and spite that worsens malign political instincts.
Natural disasters are always perilous for those in power. But recriminations intensified after Hurricane Katrina. The 2005 monster storm hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and, along with Iraq, destroyed President George W. Bush’s second term. Beltway pundits now react to every act of God by predicting the current president’s “Katrina” is nigh.
Questioning what happened in the wake of a natural disaster and whether political failings at the local, state or national levels contributed to deaths and devastation is perfectly appropriate. Victims deserve accountability untainted by politics. It’s important to understand what went wrong in order to save lives in the future. But it’s increasingly rare in an age of partisan media on the right and left for activists to wait for the facts, or to accept outcomes that don’t fit their political goals.
In pictures: Rescue teams and volunteers respond to Texas flooding as dozens remain missing
More than 20 state agencies are responding to flooding across Texas, as CNN has reported. Rescuers continue to search for dozens of missing people in devastated areas.
Additionally, 1,750 personnel and more than 975 vehicles and other assets have been deployed, Gov. Greg Abbott said in a statement Monday.
Here are scenes from recovery operations in central Texas:
It’s a miracle more children didn’t die in the Texas flooding, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz says
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said it’s “a miracle more children didn’t lose their lives” in the devastating July Fourth flooding in Texas.
After touring the damage Monday at Camp Mystic, which lost at least 27 campers and counselors with another 10 campers and one counselor still missing, Cruz said the deluge of floodwater left behind “utter devastation.”
“I’ve never seen anything as horrific. The cabins had eight feet of water in them,” Cruz told CNN affiliate KPRC.
Cruz said his daughters had attended summer camp in the region for a decade.
“The Hill Country is an incredible part of Texas, part of the country. The natural beauty here is incredible. The camps that have raised generations of little girls and little boys and instilled character and love and faith are extraordinary institutions,” Cruz said at a news conference Monday.
Cruz visited the area amid criticism he was in Europe when the flooding happened.
“The Senator was already in the middle of preplanned family vacation travel overseas when the flooding occurred on July 4,” and within hours of getting the news, Cruz had spoken with state leaders and President Donald Trump, his office said in a statement to CNN.
1987 Texas flood survivor reflects on loss in wake of recent catastrophe
As Texas families mourn the devastating toll of the floods that hit central Texas over the weekend, Richard Koons carries the weight of his own tragedy from nearly 40 years ago.
“With all of this, it brings back fresh guilt,” Koons told CNN affiliate KTVT. He still recalls July 17, 1987, when a “flood wave” on the Guadalupe River claimed the lives of 10 teenagers and injured 33 others.
At the time, Koons, then an assistant pastor, was leading a church camp near Comfort, Texas. Early that morning, they were ordered to evacuate as the river swelled, he recounted.
“We lined up in a caravan of buses and vans,” he told KTVT. “We were making a turn left, our bus stalled out, and I could see our van behind us was about halfway underwater.”
Koons told everyone to get off the bus and head for higher ground, but the water rose too quickly. “It just began to push people in different directions,” he said, describing how he and others were pulled under the swell.
Among those lost was a young girl who told Koons, “If I don’t make it, you tell my parents I love them and I’ll see them in heaven.”
Decades later, Koons has found solace in his faith. “The great comfort in all of this is I’m going to see them again,” he said.
Search and rescue effort in flood-ravaged Texas enters day 5 with the death toll over 100. Here’s what to know
The death toll from the catastrophic flooding in central Texas surpassed 100 late Monday as rescue teams continue searching for dozens of missing people. Amid the ongoing search and rescue effort, questions linger about existing warning systems and whether additional preparations before the flooding could have saved lives.
Here’s what else to know:
- Death toll: The death toll from the floods has climbed to at least 104. Kerr County, northwest of San Antonio, bore the brunt of the devastation, with at least 84 fatalities, including 28 children. Other counties also reported losses, including seven deaths in Travis County, six in Kendall, four in Burnet, two in Williamson, and one in Tom Green.
- Missing: 24 people remain unaccounted for, including 10 campers and one counselor from Camp Mystic, a beloved all-girls Christian summer camp in Kerr County.
- Drier weather: Scattered showers and storms today and tomorrow are unlikely to pose additional flood threats, and sunny weather is expected Thursday and Friday. While much of the Guadalupe River has returned to normal levels, some rivers may continue to rise even after the rain ends.
- Readiness questioned: The effectiveness of emergency notifications during the flooding is under increasing scrutiny. A series of alerts were transmitted to mobile devices during the night of the flooding, but a variety of factors from reception quality to personal phone settings can determine whether or not they are received. The mayor of hard-hit Kerrville said he didn’t get one, and a counselor at Camp Mystic said they had to hand in their cell phones.
- Stories of survival and terrible loss: A Camp Mystic counselor who’s spent 11 summers at the camp told CNN she thought she was in a bad dream when she heard 27 people there had died. At another camp in the area, counselors had to hoist boys into cabin rafters as floodwaters rose. Nearby, a man caught in the flooding survived by clinging to an electric box on the side of a building – for three hours.
“Critical” warning coordinator position was vacant at time of Texas floods, former NOAA administrator tells CNN
The National Weather Service “did their job” and got emergency alerts out in time, but authorities appeared to struggle to communicate in the final stretch with emergency managers on the ground, a former administrator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told CNN.
While it’s too soon to give a definitive analysis of what went wrong, Richard Spinrad, who was appointed to NOAA in 2021, said the NWS had provided watches, warnings and emergency alerts out in time and in an accurate manner.
“Critical in this case” was the vacant position of warning coordination meteorologist in the Austin-San Antonio office, according to Spinrad. The vacancy is the result of early retirement incentives offered by the Trump administration to shrink the size of the federal government, a NOAA official previously told CNN.
“Since there was nobody in that position, they’re going to have to look carefully to see if that was one of the sources of the disconnect in getting word to the people who suffered,” he added.
Though no one can say for sure that personnel cuts at the NWS or open positions at forecasting offices in Texas were linked to the flood’s tragic outcome, Trump’s federal cuts in those agencies are now under public scrutiny.
A NOAA official told CNN in a statement that additional personnel were on duty at the National Weather Service’s offices in central Texas during the flooding from July 3 to 4.
This post has been updated with a statement from NOAA.
California is sending search and rescue teams to Texas, governor announces
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday announced he is sending members of California’s Urban Search and Rescue Team to Texas to assist with efforts related to the impacts of severe flooding in the Lonestar State.
“California stands with all those who have lost loved ones, homes, and livelihoods in the devastating aftermath of these summer floods in Texas,” Newsom said in a news release.
The Governor’s Office of Emergency Services is working in close coordination with the Federal Emergency Management Agency on the deployment, the release from Newsom’s office said.
Other states, including Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Colorado and Florida, have also announced they are sending specialized personnel to assist in search and rescue operation in Central Texas.
21-year-old killed in Texas flooding had been staying at a cabin with her friends, who are still missing
Joyce Catherine Badon, 21, was found dead following the devastating floods in Hunt, Texas, her father told CNN.
Ty Badon said his daughter’s body was found Monday after several days of searching.
“My only ask is to please keep praying for me, Kellye, and our son Nick as we live our lives without Joyce Catherine being with us here on Earth,” he told CNN.
In an interview with CNN’s Ed Lavandera on Saturday, Ty Badon said Joyce Catherine was staying with friends at a cabin when the flooding hit early Friday morning. He said she was on the phone with her friend’s father who owns the cabin and told him the others had been “washed away” by floodwaters.
“Then a few seconds later, the phone went dead … we presume that she got washed away as well,” he said.
Badon traveled more than 350 miles from Beaumont to Hunt to help search for his daughter and three of her friends, all of whom went missing on Friday.
Country singer Pat Green shares his family suffered ‘heartbreaking loss’ after Texas floods
Country singer Pat Green has shared that he and his family “suffered a heartbreaking and deeply personal loss” as a result of the devastating floods that hit central Texas over the weekend.
“We are grieving alongside countless Texans whose lives have been upended by this tragedy,” Green wrote in a statement posted to his Instagram on Monday.
In a separate post on Instagram, his wife, Kori Green, shared Green’s brother John, his wife, Julia, and two of their children remain missing after being swept away in flooding in Kerrville, Texas.
“Right now, we kindly ask for privacy and space as we mourn, support each other, and begin to process what comes next for our family,” Green’s statement said. “Thank you for your love, prayers, and compassion.”
Everybody was asleep when flood warnings were issued, Texas flood survivor recalls
A woman who was rescued by her neighbor during the deadly flash flooding in Texas told CNN some alerts came through to her phone, but waters rose rapidly in the dark of night, which made it difficult to react.
Leigh-Anne Aiken whose home was located along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, said the only flood alert she noticed was from 1:40 a.m.
“To be honest, this was in the hours that I was asleep and there have been so frequent these different types of flood warnings, that I didn’t really register that,” Aiken told CNN’s John Vause.
“I couldn’t tell you honestly if it was a warning or a watch.”
Meanwhile, the water was rising while everybody was asleep, she said.
“It was pitch dark. The power was out. We’re in the water. If I hadn’t already been living on the property for some time … and been familiar with it. I would have been swept away because I wouldn’t know which way to go,” she said.
Aiken said she kept hearing loud noises from the storm and when she put her feet on the ground around 5 a.m., she was already in ankle deep in water.
She quickly called her neighbor and told him water had entered her cabin.
“And he came right away. By the time he got to me, which wasn’t long, and I had grabbed one of my dogs and he grabbed my larger dog, the water was already rising up to our knees, probably, when we walked out of my cabin and went up to his (cabin), which was higher ground. But within 15 minutes from my cabin into his and with the dogs elevated the the water was from the ankle to the waist.”
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says sirens could have saved lives
Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said lives might have been saved if flood warning sirens had been installed along the Guadalupe River, calling for such systems to be in place by next summer.
“Had we had sirens along this area, up and down…that would have blown very loudly, it’s possible that that would have saved some of these lives,” Patrick told Fox News on Monday.
Patrick added that if the city can’t afford such sirens, “then the state will step up.”
“We need to have these in place by the next summer, when the next season comes when people are floating down the river,” Patrick said.
His comments come as local officials face questions about whether officials could have done more to avert the tragedy.
In recent years, multiple efforts in Kerr County to build a more substantial flood warning system have faltered or been abandoned due to budget concerns, leaving the epicenter of this weekend’s floods without emergency sirens that could have warned residents about the rising waters.
In Pictures: Vigil in San Antonio honors victims of devastating Texas floods
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will hold a news conference today
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will hold a news conference at 6 p.m. ET in Kerrville on the state’s response to the flood devastation, according to a news release from the governor’s office.
Abbott will also receive a briefing on the state’s response.
Prior to the briefing and news conference, he and Dustin Burrows, speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, will take an aerial tour to survey the damages caused by the floods and visit Camp Mystic.
Abbott said Monday that more than 20 state agencies are responding to flooding across Texas. Additionally, 1,750 personnel and more than 975 vehicles and other assets have been deployed, the governor said in a statement.
Tactical and law enforcement personnel from the Department of Public Safety are also assisting, the governor said.
Where the death toll stands as rescue crews continue search efforts
At least 104 people have died in flooding in Texas, according to local officials across the region.
It comes as rescue crews are still searching for dozens of missing people.
Here’s a breakdown by county:
- 84 deaths in Kerr County
- 7 deaths in Travis County
- 6 deaths in Kendall County
- 4 deaths in Burnet County
- 2 deaths in Williamson County
- 1 death in Tom Green County.
Drier weather expected in central Texas today through the end of the week
The forecast in central Texas looks like it will be much drier today than the past several days.
A handful of showers and thunderstorms could dot the region this afternoon, but these storms aren’t likely to present much of a flood threat. A similar setup is possible Wednesday. Thursday and Friday should be dry and mostly sunny in the region.
Despite the region forecast to finally dry out, some rivers may rise even after the rain fully stops.
The Llano River has risen several feet since yesterday morning and was nearly at minor flood stage by the mid-afternoon. The San Saba River is forecast to hit minor flood stage this afternoon.
Much of the Guadalupe River has returned back closer to normal levels and is not currently forecast to flood again in the coming days.
Questions remain as Texas communities and families reel from catastrophic flooding
As officials in central Texas search for the people still missing after devastating flooding last week and over the weekend, the emergency response to the extreme weather has left many unanswered questions.
More than 100 people were killed in the rapidly-rising water.
Here are some of the questions:
- What actions did Kerr County officials take to warn residents about the potential “considerable” flood threat?
- Why wasn’t there an organized evacuation effort there in the three hours or so between the dire flood warning from the National Weather Service and the time the river overflowed its banks?
- Why did some nearby communities (such as Comfort in Kendall County) seem to act on the same weather information in a more serious way?
- Did Camp Mystic have a flood emergency plan and weather emergency radios and were they used during the flooding?
