The unfortunate death of a family member due to the devastating floods in Texas has been confirmed by Clark Hunt’s wife, the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs.
The Guadalupe River flooded and surged by up to 30 feet beyond its normal water level on Friday, bringing the total number of fatalities to 82. 28 children are among the 68 bodies that have been discovered thus far.
Tavia, Clark’s wife, disclosed that one of the Camp Mystic campers who perished in the tragedy was Janie Hunt, a young relative.
Taking to Instagram, she wrote: “Our hearts are broken by the devastation from the floods in Wimberley and the tragic loss of so many lives — including a precious little Hunt cousin, along with several friend’s little girls.”
“How do we trust a God who is supposed to be good, all knowing and all powerful, but who allows such terrible things to happen — even to children?”
“That is a sacred and tender question — and one the Bible doesn’t shy away from. Scripture is filled with the cries of those whose hearts have been shattered, who still wrestle to trust the same God they believe allowed the pain.”
An unknown number of people died at the Camp Mystic summer camp, a Christian all-girls retreat on the Guadalupe River that has been there for almost a century. In the immediate wake of Friday’s flooding, authorities said that two dozen students were missing.
Richard ‘Dick’ Eastland, 70, the beloved director of Camp Mystic, lost his life attempting to save girls as a month’s worth of rain fell in a few minutes.
Videos of the kids joyfully dancing around on stage during their first term choral and dance production were posted on social media by the camp one week before to the disaster.
According to the NYT, older females slept in rooms on higher ground, while the youngest children slept on low-lying ‘flats’ inside the camp’s cabins.
The majority of the missing girls are younger and were resting a few yards from the Guadalupe River’s banks.
About 750 girls were residing at the camp when the floodwaters struck, according to Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
Abbott later proclaimed Sunday to be a day of prayer and promised that officials would continue to hunt for missing persons around the clock.
“I ask every Texan to join me in prayer this Sunday — for the lives lost, for those still missing, for the recovery of our communities, and for the safety of those on the front lines,” he added in a statement.
In order to give investigators DNA samples, relatives of the missing have begun travelling from all over the Lone Star State to the Kerrville region.
At 1:18 p.m. on Thursday, the government agency issued a flood watch, predicting that South Central Texas will see up to seven inches of rain on Friday morning.
At 1:14 a.m. on Friday, a flash flood warning was issued, and at 4:03 a.m., a more severe alert was issued, advising people to immediately escape to higher ground because the situation was “extremely dangerous and life-threatening”.
However, local officials have criticised the NWS of issuing delayed warnings, particularly in Kerr County’s Hill Country, which has been called “Flash Flood Alley” and has seen the worst destruction.
“This wasn’t a forecasting failure,” meteorologist Matt Lanza told the Texas Tribune. “It was a breakdown in communication.”
“The warnings were there. They just didn’t get to people in time.”
On Sunday, the Daily Mail exclusively reported that Texas’s Division of Emergency Management estimated that more than 100 people would die as a result of the devastating flooding that occurred in Kerrville on July 4.
According to two separate sources who spoke to Daily Mail, the state disaster administration informed partners in an email sent out on Saturday that the death toll will exceed 100.
The message state officials are publicly portraying, stating that they are still looking for people who are alive and declining to acknowledge that rescue efforts have moved to recovering remains, is considerably different from the estimate of the dead.
At a press conference on Saturday, W. Nim Kidd, the chairman of TDEM, said reporters, “Our state assets and local partners are continuing to search for live victims.”
“Our hope and prayer is that there is still people alive that are out there.”
After the immediate situation was under control, public officials, including Governor Greg Abbott, promised to examine the circumstances behind the flooding and the suitability of weather predictions and warning systems.
Meanwhile, hundreds of emergency professionals were on the ground battling a variety of obstacles as search and rescue efforts continued around the clock.
Eight helicopters and a remotely piloted MQ-9 Reaper aircraft outfitted with cutting-edge equipment for surveillance and reconnaissance operations were among the airborne search assets, according to Thomas Suelzar, adjutant general of the Texas Military Department.
Following a rapid downpour that dumped up to 15 inches of rain throughout the area, some 85 miles northwest of San Antonio, officials said on Saturday that over 850 individuals had been rescued, some of whom were clinging to trees.
According to Nim Kidd, head of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, in addition to the 68 fatalities in Kerr County, there were also three fatalities in Burnet County, one in Tom Green County, five in Travis County, and one in Williamson County.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, President Donald Trump declared a major disaster in Texas on Sunday, activating the Federal Emergency Management Agency and moving resources to the state.
Search and rescue operations were aided by US Coast Guard aircraft and helicopters.
Trump has previously laid out plans to reduce the federal government’s role in responding to natural disasters, leaving states to bear a greater portion of the expense themselves. He stated on Sunday that he would visit the disaster site, most likely this Friday.
Some experts questioned if officials’ inability to correctly forecast the floods’ intensity and deliver the proper warnings before the storm was caused by Trump administration workforce cuts, especially to the department that manages the National Weather Service.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the parent organisation of the National meteorological Service, has laid off thousands of employees under Trump’s administration, leaving many meteorological offices understaffed, according to former NOAA director Rick Spinrad.
The Weather Service office near San Antonio, which is in charge of issuing warnings in Kerr County, had one important position open ahead of Friday’s floods: a warning coordination meteorologist. This person works with emergency managers and the general public to make sure everyone knows what to do in the event of a disaster.
According to media reports, the individual who held that position for decades was one of hundreds of Weather Service workers who accepted early retirement options and departed the organisation at the end of April.
On Sunday, Trump resisted when questioned if he was responsible for important job openings at the Weather Service or if federal government cuts hindered the disaster response.
“That water situation, that all is, and that was really the Biden setup,” he said referencing his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden. “But I wouldn’t blame Biden for it, either. I would just say this is 100-year catastrophe.”
