Live Updates: Frantic Search for the Missing After at Least 13 Killed in Texas Flood

The authorities confirmed that 20 girls were still missing as a result of the flooding along the Guadalupe River, but the full scope of the disaster was not clear.

Flooding that began before dawn Friday swept through a summer camp and homes in Central Texas, killing at least 13 people and setting off frantic searches for missing children and others swept away.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told reporters at an afternoon news conference that at least 20 girls from Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas, were missing after catastrophic flooding overnight.

Desperate parents posted photos of their children online, seeking any information, and others went to reunification centers to try to find missing loved ones.

Hundreds of emergency personnel were searching for stranded people, using 14 helicopters and ground crews who were struggling to navigate flooded roads, officials said. They warned that the death toll was likely to rise.

“This is a tragic event. It’s going to be a mass casualty event,” Freeman F. Martin, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told reporters Friday afternoon.

Mr. Patrick said Camp Mystic was contacting the parents of campers who remain unaccounted for. He said parents with children who had not heard from camp officials should assume their children were safe. The camp has some 750 campers, he said.

The flooding seemed to take many by surprise. Judge Rob Kelly, the chief elected official in Kerr County, said at a news conference that “we do not have a warning system” and that “we didn’t know this flood was coming.”

In Hunt, Texas, where the Guadalupe River forks, more than seven inches of rain has fallen since Thursday afternoon — the highest total that area since the early 1990s.

This led to a rapid rise of the Guadalupe River, which accelerated to over 29 feet before sunrise, the second-highest crest ever.

The intensity of the rain took officials and residents by surprise. The National Weather Service had issued a flood watch advisory for a broad swatch of central Texas early Thursday afternoon, urging residents of several countries to be on alert for flood warnings. It was followed by several urgent alerts the federal agency issued starting in the early hours of Friday as water levels rose dangerously along the river banks.

Here is what else to know:

Searching for the missing: Downed power lines, flooded roads and spotty cellphone service were among the challenges rescue workers in Texas were facing on Friday as they searched for survivors.

Federal help: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has activated the U.S. Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help search for the missing, Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the agency, said in an X post.

The forecast: A flash flood watch was in effect through parts of west-central Texas until 7 p.m. local time on Friday, and forecasters said isolated showers and thunderstorms were likely through the weekend.

Camp Mystic: The Christian summer camp for girls on the Guadalupe River is nearly a century old. Its facilities include a recreation hall that was constructed in the 1920s from local cypress trees.

Past flooding: For those old enough to have lived through it, the flooding on Friday surfaced memories of a deadly swelling of the waters along the Guadalupe River on July 17, 1987.
A frantic search for flooding survivors by air, water and land.

Officials said they were using 14 helicopters and several boats to search for people who survived the flooding along the Guadalupe River in Texas, and to guide ground teams.Credit…Carter Johnston for The New York Times

Downed power lines, flooded roads and spotty cellphone service were among the challenges rescue workers in Texas were facing on Friday as they searched for survivors of a deadly flood along the Guadalupe River.

As many as 500 emergency personnel from numerous local and state agencies were deployed to the affected area on Friday. They were using 14 helicopters and several boats to search for people who survived the flood and to guide ground teams, officials said.

“We have plenty of resources on the ground,” Freeman F. Martin, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, told reporters on Friday afternoon.

Officials said they had received offers from residents who wanted to assist with the search. But they urged people to stay home and warned residents in the area to refrain from launching drones or using private helicopters, saying that doing so could endanger rescue workers.

“We don’t need any more first responders,” Mr. Martin said. “We don’t want anybody to self deploy.”

Mr. Martin said that emergency workers had managed to reach people who were stranded but safe in several locations in the flood zone. Officials were waiting for road conditions to improve before evacuating them.

“We’re able to bring food and water to them,” he said. “It’s just taking time to get them out of there.”

Mr. Martin said that as of 3:30 p.m. on Friday, about 25 roads in the area were impassable. He said that people should not try to drive or wade through flooded areas.

“If you can’t tell how deep it is, the best advice is to stay home,” he said.

Fear spreads in Texas, but hope as well.

The flooded Guadalupe River in Kerrville, Texas, on Friday.Credit…Carter Johnston for The New York Times

The scenes in Kerrville, Texas, and surrounding Kerr County were filled with anxious waiting, and some relief, on Friday.

After at least 20 people were reported missing — many of them young girls — parents on social media circulated photographs of their daughters who were unaccounted for, pleading for help locating them.

In Kerrville, some people huddled inside a church’s activity center, and others looked distraught, shivering under blankets. Brian Eads, 52, was hoping for information about his wife, Katherine, after aggressive floodwaters ravaged their trailer at around 3:30 a.m.

“I have no idea if she’s made it,” Mr. Eads said. “We both got swept away, and then I lost her.”

The couple were awakened by rushing waters, and managed to escape with a man driving a recreational vehicle. But the water caught up with them about 20 feet away, Mr. Eads said, and the vehicle’s engine died. Both he and his wife were swept underwater. He tried to swim toward her voice, he said, but lost her when he was struck in the head by debris. He survived by holding onto a tree and making his way to dry land.

Outside Ingram Elementary School, about seven miles west of Kerrville, people hoped to find missing loved ones, including girls who were staying at Camp Mystic nearby. Some hugged each other outside the main entrance, while others stood waiting to hear from their relative.

Randy Bush, 59, said he had not heard from his fiancée Charlotte Huff, 55, since last night. He had already been at a local Walmart, where others were searching for relatives.

“I have no idea what happened to her,” he said.

His fiancée lives at an R.V. park in the Kerrville area. As soon as he heard about the floods, he rushed to the park, but was stopped by road closures and emergency vehicles.

“When I was there this morning, they were doing water rescues with helicopters,” Mr. Bush said. “From what I saw that park was gone,” he added as he made his way to the school. “It was just all water. It didn’t look like there was anything there. That whole park was done.”

A helicopter flying over the flooded Guadalupe River in Kerrville on Friday.Credit…Carter Johnston for The New York Times

Parents of campers were hoping for the best Friday afternoon. Betty Gerlach, whose 14-year-old grandson is a camper at Camp La Junta, a boys camp about five miles along the river from Camp Mystic, said the boys camp had informed families that all campers were safe and fed. But an evacuation plan was still in development, and would not begin until at least 7 p.m. local time on Friday.

The camp asked families from Houston, the Dallas-Fort Worth area and out of state to begin traveling to the area. But families in nearby Austin and San Antonio were told to “stay put for now,” to avoid overcrowding.

With several camp building washed away in the flooding, the campers had taken shelter in two small cabins while they waited for evacuation, Ms. Gerlach said.

By midafternoon, emergency crews had started to bring some of the stranded girls to Ingram Elementary. One man saw his daughter sitting in the passenger seat of an emergency vehicle and ran after it with a smile.