A minimum of 80 have been confirmed killed and more than 40 are still missing after severe flash flooding caused by torrential rain that lasted for hours in south-central Texas, officials said three days after the disaster started.
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that he will pay a visit to the state of North Carolina, hit by floods, on Friday. He made the announcement just after signing a major disaster declaration, which allows the federal resources to be released to support current rescue efforts, Xinhua news agency reported.
Kerr County has become the tragedy's focal point, with the highest number of casualties among the 20 counties hit. Sheriff Larry Leitha announced on Sunday that the county has at least 68 fatalities, 21 of which were children.
Four other counties altogether have an additional 12 fatalities.
Sheriff Leitha also mentioned that as of Sunday afternoon, 10 girls and one counselor from Camp Mystic remained unaccounted for. Search and rescue operations were ongoing throughout the flood-devastated regions.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott told a news conference on Sunday that a minimum of 41 people remain missing in the flood-hit areas. He alerted people to expect more deluges in the coming days, which could further exacerbate conditions.
In order to assist the displaced, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has established seven shelters that offer food, water, and relief to inhabitants of central Texas, as CNN reports.
In addition, President Trump was answering mounting criticism that recent budget cuts to national weather services might have exacerbated the extent of the disaster.
"I would just call this a 100-year disaster and it's just so terrible to behold," Trump stated while leaving his New Jersey golf club on Sunday. "This was the thing that occurred in seconds. Nobody anticipated it. Nobody saw it."
Asked whether the federal government should go back to hiring meteorologists who had quit after prior budget and personnel reductions, Trump suggested no such action was now being contemplated.
There are growing concerns about how the National Weather Service (NWS) handled the crisis. Some local politicians and residents have argued that warnings were issued too late or not clearly enough.
Nim Kidd, head of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, stated on Friday that the NWS "did not predict the amount of rain that we saw."
Based on staffing levels from the NWS union, the San Angelo forecasting center has four vacant spots among 23 positions, and San Antonio has six vacancies among its 26 positions, according to the Texas Tribune. Both centers cover parts of central Texas.
But the NWS offices were operating within normal during the flood, said Greg Waller, service coordination hydrologist with the NWS West Gulf River Forecast Center in Fort Worth, northern Texas.
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