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At least 43 people have died, including 28 adults and 15 children, and an untold number more are missing after flooding ravaged the Hill Country on Friday.
City officials said Saturday that 27 girls from Camp Mystic, a private Christian summer camp, are still missing.
The downpour on Friday caused the Guadalupe River to rise as much as 25 feet in 45 minutes, sending cars, uprooted trees and other debris swirling through the brown water.
About 850 people have been rescued in the area.
State and county officials did not provide more information Saturday morning on the missing girls attending the 99-year-old Camp Mystic, a riverside retreat that was hosting some 750 campers. Officials said on Friday that some of those campers may be stranded and unable to call for help.
However, among the dead was Dick Eastland, the director of Camp Mystic. His nephew Gardner Eastland confirmed the death in a Facebook post.
Jane Ragsdale, a camp director and counselor at the Heart O' The Hills Summer camp on the Guadalupe River, was also among the people who died.
Ava Steindl attended the camp beginning in 2010 and was a counselor there in 2017. "She taught me and most of these girls everything that we know," she said, "from basic life skills to learning how to change a tire."
Thomas Mayo's daughter Caroline attended camp at Heart O' The Hills from when she was six years old. He said the impact that Ragsdale had on thousands of girls and their parents was immeasurable. "She loved the camp, and she loved those kids," Mayo said. "And it's a darker place today without her in it."
Ragsdale became a co-owner of the camp in 1976 and became camp director in 1988. Although camp was not in session there, some of the camp counselors were staying at the camp for the 4th of July holiday.
Many distraught parents on Saturday still waited for word on their loved ones. Tanya Powell said Ella Rose, her 21-year-old daughter, was still missing.
"She was near the camp in a house with three of her friends," she explained. "They go to school. They're college seniors in San Antonio. And they were here for the weekend, and we lost touch with them about 4 a.m. and haven't gotten any word from them."
The state has deployed hundreds of search and rescue personnel and more than a dozen helicopters to the region, with a focus on boys and girls summer camps, parks and low-lying areas. Boats raced along the Guadalupe looking for survivors on the riverbanks and in trees. First responders set up aid stations for residents who had lost or damaged homes.
"So many people have been swept up into an extraordinary catastrophe," Gov. Greg Abbott said. "It needs God, but it also needs a robust response by the state and local governments and by people who live in these communities impacted by this."
Abbott signed a disaster declaration for Kerr and 13 other counties impacted by Friday's flooding, enabling them to access state resources for emergency operations. On Saturday, he added more counties to that declaration, including Bexar County.
On Saturday morning, the National Weather Service (NWS) issued a flash flood emergency — a rare warning — in Burnet County after five to 12 inches of rain fell, and more was on the way.
The entire region, which is known as "flash flood alley," remained under a flood watch through 7 p.m. Saturday. There was a 60% chance of more rain, including for Kerr County.
By Saturday afternoon, people came down to the riverbanks and the water crossings to view for themselves the malevolent power of water.
Some gingerly stepped over branches, fragments of concrete, and random wreckage to get closer looks at a pickup truck half submerged and bent like a neglected toy. Children waded in muddy puddles. Nearby brush and trees were filled with flotsam, the shreds of black plastic sheeting and metal shards. A soaked U.S. flag was crumpled among the branches, its vibrant colors of red, white and blue contrasting with the greens and browns of broken vegetation all around it.
James and Lisa Allison, both retired ranchers who live in Kerrville, said what they saw was "overwhelming." James Allison remembered welcoming the rain at first on Friday morning "but as the morning progressed, it started becoming more than just a small flood." Lisa Allison said a modest flood with rain did not faze her, but "not this." She remembered a major flood in 1978, but what she saw on Friday was worse. And the death toll was, for them, unprecedented.
Brian Rubino, a retired firefighter, was stunned as he processed the scale of destruction around him. He pointed to the roof ripped away from a park pavilion. The former professional rescuer kept in mind "the destructive force of water, knowing the way this particular flood hit, there was nothing you could do. ... This thing hit so fast. ... People underestimate Mother Nature all the time."
Mary Stone, a teacher who lives in Kerrville, said she was shocked when she viewed the riverbank area where she walks. "It's devastating," she said, as she viewed a car mangled in a nearby tree, and chunks of asphalt where she said she regularly parks her car. But she held on to hope. Stone said the disaster was "unsettling but at the same time I know that we'll move forward. That's how this community is."
Ricky and Dody Pedraza, who live in Comfort, shared that hope. "Kerrville will bounce back," Ricky Pedraza said. "All these little Hill Country towns -- they will bounce back."
Preparation before the storm
On Friday Kerrville city officials pushed back on criticism that more could have been done to evacuate the region ahead of the rain.
Kerrville city manager Dalton Rice told reporters that the flooding occurred quickly, adding that the north and south forks that feed into the Guadalupe River reached peaks at about 3:30 Friday morning.
"I was on the river trail at that time and everything was fine," he said. "Within an hour [or] two-hour period, the water was up almost to the bridge."
Rice said city crews out early in the morning to prepare for the Fourth of July celebration were also caught off guard.
"Despite flood warnings, despite everything that was going on, there were some things that happened very fast," he said.
Kerr County judge Rob Kelly said there was not a warning system in place on the Guadalupe River to detect rising waters.
"We do not have a warning system on the river," Kelly said. "We didn't know this flood was coming. Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming. We have floods all the time."
"This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States," he added, but county officials had "no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what's happened here. None whatsoever."
The NWS had estimated on Thursday that the region would see five to seven inches of rain with the possibility of storm clusters forming over the region.
How it happened
Jason Runyen, a meteorologist with the NWS, said a combination of factors lead to the unexpected rain.
"The first being some high amounts of moisture for this time of year — some near records of moisture — vertically into the atmosphere," Runyen said. "The second were the remnants of a midlevel disturbance from what used to be tropical storm Barry. So a combination of that disturbance and these record levels of moisture have led to the very heavy rainfall, especially over Kerr County."
All that rainfall on Friday drained into the Guadalupe River Basin. He said it started up by the headwaters near Hunt, in western Kerr County, and "traveled downstream through Kerrville where it crested" and then traveled toward Comfort.
"We saw some pretty sharp and steep rises on the river," he said, "in some cases rivaling the 1987 flood, the famous 1987 flood." That year, 11 inches of rain flooded the region, and ten teenagers died when their church bus ran into flood waters.
Friday's floods, Runyen said, were so high and forceful that some the water gauges along the river were affected or washed out entirely. "So it's a pretty catastrophic type flood wave coming down the Guadalupe River."
Because of the damaged river gauges, it may take the U.S. Geological Survey a few days to get accurate data on how high the river crested in the Hunt and Kerrville area.
He said some parts of the Hill Country, including Kerrville on Friday and Burnet on Saturday, were placed under a rare flash flood emergency, which is different from a flash flood warning.
"Typically most people are familiar with flash flood warnings," he said. "Our typical flash flood warnings are when we expect imminent flooding in areas — rises and streams and creeks that go over low water crossing."
Flash flood emergencies, Runyen explained, are "saved for days where we're expecting catastrophic type damage or widespread damage or even loss of life."
NPR's Sergio Martinez-Beltran contributed to this report.
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