Texas floods | Nearly 90 dead, including 27 at the devastated summer camp

(Hunt, Texas) Research continues on Monday in Texas, in the south of the United States, after the devastating floods which left nearly 90 dead this weekend, including 27 children and supervisors who participated in a summer camp.

The toll is now at least 88 dead, including 75 in Kerr’s only county, the hardest affected, and should still get worse, according to the authorities.

“Texas is in mourning. The pain, the shock of what has happened in recent days have broken the heart of our state, “said Texan Senator Ted Cruz on Monday at a press conference.

Among the victims are 27 children and monitors of a holiday camp for girls who stood on the banks of the Guadalupe river and welcomed some 750 participants, its officials announced on Monday.

In the locality of Hunt, near the Mystic camp, the rescue teams try to find the bodies that are always missing. Boat rescuers and divers rummage the waters of the river while volunteers patronize the banks, noted an AFP journalist.

After two days of research in the middle of the uprooted trees and the rubble of the holiday center, hoping until the end “a miracle”, Michael McCown confirmed to AFP on Monday that his eight -year -old daughter, Llnie, was dead.

“The children (…) who were lost at the Mystic camp, it is the nightmare of all the parents. Last week, we recovered our daughter here at the Hunt camp. My daughters have been going to this holiday camp for ten years, ”said Senator Cruz.

“It is a disaster as we have not seen in 100 years and it is simply excruciating to see what is going on,” said Donald Trump on Sunday, announcing that he would go “probably” on the spot on Friday.

The American president refuted any link between the budget cuts led by his government in national weather services and the heavy record in this highly frequented tourist region.

Residents complained over the weekend of not having been warned early in the risk of floods.

Dead fish

Meteorological services maintained their flood alert on Monday in certain sectors of the center of Texas until 7 p.m. locals.

The sudden floods were caused by torrential rains in the center of the state very early on Friday, the day of the American national holiday, which raised the waters of the Guadalupe of eight meters in just 45 minutes.

It suddenly fell nearly 300 millimeters/rain, a third of the average annual precipitation.

On Sunday, the Guadalupe river began to find its bed and its calm, but the banks still offered a desolation show. On one of them, a dead cow was suspended from a tree, his head stuck in branches. Not far away, a car was overturned, while on the ground, dozens of dead fish, carried away by the current, entered decomposition.

Donald Trump, who dispatched his internal security secretary on the spot, Kristi Noem on the spot, signed a disaster declaration in order to provide Texas with the means of the federal government.

More than 400 rescuers, as well as helicopters and drones, participate in research, the authorities said.

In Hunt, 50 volunteers came from several Texas cities to take part in research, in groups of two or three.

One of them, Justin Morales, 36, told AFP on Sunday that he had discovered with his companions the bodies of three girls, including one of the residents of the summer camp.

“We are happy to be able to help families mourn,” he said.

Sudden floods, caused by torrential rains that the dry soil cannot absorb, are not uncommon. But according to the scientific community, climate change caused by human activity has made meteorological events more frequent and more intense such as floods, droughts and heat waves.

Read “the peril behind the charms of the Hill Country”