Guadalupe River, Flash Flood
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Texas, flood alarms
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With more than 170 still missing, communities must reconcile how to pick up the pieces around a waterway that remains both a wellspring and a looming menace.
Camille Santana tragically lost her life during the Fourth of July floods that swept through Central Texas. Three other members of her family remain missing.
Well, it could take months for Texas families to experience some form of closure as more than 170 people remain missing, nearly a week after those deadly floodwaters rushed in the Texas Hill Country on July 4 as four months of rain fell in just two days over central Texas.
Along the Guadalupe River, a 60-room inn and nearby homes were quickly filling with water. Confusion, desperation and heroism ensued.
Also: San Antonio mourned the victims in a Travis Park vigil; UTSA said one of its teachers died in the Guadalupe River flood; Kerrville officials said a privately owned drone collided with a helicopter conducting search and rescue operations.
Volunteers combing through debris piles from the devastating Central Texas flooding had to sniff out decaying bodies in the “chaotic” initial days of the search-and-rescue efforts.
Over just two hours, the Guadalupe River at Comfort, Texas, rose from hip-height to three stories tall, sending water weighing as much as the Empire State building downstream roughly every minute it remained at its crest. The force of floodwater is often more powerful and surprising than people imagine.
At least 119 people have been found dead in nearly a week since heavy rainfall overwhelmed the river and flowed through homes and youth camps in the early morning hours of July 4. Ninety-five of those killed were in the hardest-hit county in central Texas, Kerr County, where the toll includes at least three dozen children.