The rescuers collected the banks of the flooded river with the floods scattered with distorted trees on Saturday and handed the rocks searching for more than twenty children from a camp for girls and other missing others after a wall of water in a river in Texas Hill. The storm killed at least 27 people, including nine children.
The destroyed rapidly 26 feet (8 meters) water rose in just 45 minutes of dawn on Friday, and washing homes and vehicles. The danger did not end, as the heavy rains continued to bomb societies outside San Antonio on Saturday, and warnings and watches of a valid flash flood remained.
Researchers used helicopters, boats and drones to search for victims and save the people who were cut off in the trees and from isolated camps by washed roads.
“People need to know today to a difficult day,” said the mayor of Kerville Joe Hering Junior.
The authorities were subject to increased scrutiny on Saturday about whether the camps and residents were in long crosses of floods had received an appropriate warning and whether the preparations were sufficient.
The hills fall along the Guadalobi River in central Texas with youth camps dating back to a century and camps where generations of families came to swim and enjoy the open air. The region is especially popular on the July Fourth holiday, which makes it difficult to know the number of missing persons.
“We don’t even want to start appreciation at this time,” said the city’s director Dalton Rice on Saturday morning.
The storm was struck in the middle of the night
He said that about 27 children were missing from the Camp Mestic camp, a Christian summer camp along the river.
“The camp was completely destroyed,” said Ellinor Leicester, one of the camp. “A helicopter landed and began to take people away. It was really scary.”
She said that a raging storm woke up its cabin immediately after the midnight of Friday, and when the rescuers arrived, they tied a rope until the girls held a bridge with the water wandering around their legs.
Parents and families have published pictures of missing loved ones and appeals to obtain information.
On Saturday, the camp was mostly deserted. The helicopters chanted over it, as a few people looked at the damage, including a pickup truck threw on its side and a building that loses its entire front wall.
Among those confirmed, the camp manager was above the road from Camp Mystic.
In the middle of the night, the flood caught many residents, camp and officials, by surprise in Hill Control, northwest of San Antonio.
Accuweather said that the private prediction company and national weather service sent warnings about possible flood hours before destruction.
“These warnings should have been provided to officials with time to evacuate camps like Camp Mystic and make people to safety,” Accuweather said in a statement called Hill Country and one of the areas most offered by Flash-Flood in the United States because of its terrain and many water crossings.
The officials defended their actions while they said that they did not expect such intense heavy rains that were equivalent to rains of the most famous months of the region.
Nim Kid, head of the Emergency Management Department in Texas, said that one of the national weather forecasts earlier in the week “did not expect the amount of rain we saw.”
Helicopter planes, drones used in feverish search for missing
Mr. Rice said that the research crews were facing harsh conditions while “searching for every possible site.”
The authorities said that about 850 people were rescued. American Coast Guard helicopters fly for help.
One of the consequences was a reunification at a calm elementary school mostly on Saturday after he took hundreds of people who were evacuated the day before.
“We still have people who come here looking for their loved ones. We have achieved little success, but not much,” said Bobby Templeton, the supervisor of the independent boycott of schools.
President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the Minister of Internal Security Christie was traveling to Texas and his administration was working with officials on the ground.
Mr. Trump said in a statement on the social media network.
The population clung to the trees, fled to the headlines
In Ingram, Erine Burgis woke up to thunder and rain in the middle of the night on Friday. After only 20 minutes, the water was flowing to her home. She was described as a painful watch clinging to a tree with her teenage son.
She said: “My son and I have been subjected to a tree where I was stuck to it, and my friend and my father floated. He was lost for a while, but we found it.”
Barry Adeleman said that the water pushed everyone in his three -storey home to the attic, including his grandmother and grandson.
He said: “I had to look at my grandson in his face and told him that everything would be fine, but inside I was afraid to death.”
The local resident is known as “Flash Flood”.
“When it rains, the water is not divided into the soil,” said Austin Dixon, CEO of the Community Corporation at Texas Hill Control, who was collecting donations. “It rushes to the bottom of the hill.”
“No one knew that this type of flood was coming.”
The expectations for the weekend had called for rain, while observing the floods that were promoted to warn Friday night for at least 30,000 people. Texas Governor Dan Patrick said the possibility of heavy rains covering a large area.
“Everything has been done to give them heads that could suffer from heavy rains, and we are not completely sure of the place where it will start,” said Mr. Patrick. “It is clear when the darkness became last night, we got to the first morning of the hours, when the storm started in zero.”
“We do not have a warning system,” said Kiir Rob Kelly province, chief official in the province.
When she was pushed to the reason why more precautions were not taken, Kelly said that no one knows this type of flood is coming.
More pockets of heavy rains expect
Jason Ronin, from the national weather service, said that the slow storm moves it brings more rain on Saturday, with the possibility of pockets of heavy rains and more floods.
He said that the threat may continue overnight until Sunday morning.
This story was reported by Associated Press. Julio Cortez of Hunt, Texas. John Seere told Tolido, Ohio. The Associated Press Susan Hi from Hartford, Connecticut.
