Days after a deadly, devastating flood ravaged Central Texas and the Hill Country, Kerr County officials provided a sobering update on the aftermath Monday morning as rescue and recovery efforts continue.
MORE: Camp Mystic ‘grieving the loss’ of 27 campers and counselors following catastrophic Texas floods
Senator Ted Cruz and other Texas officials also took questions from local journalists before noting the death toll has now reached 48 adults and 27 children.
Below is the full transcript of that news conference, which you can watch in the video above.
Larry L. Leitha, Kerr County Sheriff: Of these 48 adults in 27 children, 15 adults and nine children are pending identification. At present, there are 10 campers from Camp Mystic unaccounted for in one counselor. We continue to offer our condolences to those affected. Reuniting the families remains our top priority here on this operation. Please note that Highway 39 off Old Ingram Loop remains closed to the public.
Dalton Rice, Kerrville City Manager: As everybody knows, we are working in conjunction with the city under a unified command response and work, and again, a lot of devastation. Our hearts go out to the families of the victims. We want to continue to work together as a community. We love the media support on this to be able to communicate that message, communicate family, communicate togetherness, and we appreciate all the support and helping us be able toe do that. Search and rescue operate as a sheriff said, search and rescue operations will continue today from Hunt in North Kerr County to all the way to Canyon Lake in Comal County. Now we’re only focused on the Kerr County side. But we wanted to talk about that because for a linear from hunt all the way to Comal county in a straight line distance is over 100 kilometers. This is a massive field that is happening. And again, this is an unprecedented flood event. So we are still currently in the in the primary search phase, which is the rapid one. They are running it, we have different segments that are gridded out. Each one of those segments takes anywhere between an hour to three hours, up to two kilometers for each segment. So what that means is they’re running into a lot of technical challenges with terrain, with water, even potentially with weather in the rising fields. We’ve talked about this before. Volunteers, stay out of the way because if we start getting weather reports and in all, you know, in all the. The other complications that are out there. We then have to pull off of those search and rescue missions to be able to communicate to those volunteers to get off to make sure that they don’t become victims themselves. Those operations involve 19 different local and state agencies. In addition to conducting primary and secondary searches, they will be conducting welfare checks on areas in North North Kerr County impacted by power outages. And when we say search and rescue operations, that is boat walking on the ground, dogs, drones, again, keep personal drones out of the air helicopters. We do have other assets that are continuing to search as well. As of present, KPUB, which is the Kerrville Public Utility Board, is reporting continued power outages between Hunt and Ingram along the South Fork of the Guadalupe River and Hunt. In the South fork area, there are approximately 40 downed power lines and significant infrastructure damage. Cape Hub has brought in additional utility personnel to help with restoration, but it’s not possible at this time when the power is going to be restored. There are some substations along with those power lines that we’re still trying to get access to just from debris build up or them being completely wiped out. So we do not again. We do not have an estimated time when those are going to b fixed. We continue to have substantial number of requests for volunteers, as I said before, and donation opportunities. We are asking those who want to volunteer to contact the Salvation Army in Kerrville by phone at 830-465-4797 or in person at 855 Hayes Street in Kerr Monetary donations can be made on the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country’s website at www.communityfoundation.net . They have a Kerr County Relief Fund set up on that site.
Kerville Mayor Joe Herring: I need to tell my community and those families who are waiting, this will be a rough week. Primary search continues and we remain hopeful every foot, every mile, every bend of the river. Our work continues. You need to know that we have been blessed with help from the community, from the the state and the nation. We have trained experts who are helping in this effort. If you want to volunteer, it is important that you contact Kerrville Salvation Army and register. Dalton gave that number, but I’m going to give it again. 830-465-4797. We need focused and coordinated volunteers. It’s not random people just showing up and doing what they do. We need to work together. As Dalton said, donations have been flowing in from around the world to the Community Foundation. Again, that website is community foundation dot net. Please follow the Kerrville City of Kerrvilles Facebook page for updates. They’re accurate. We take a lot of time to make sure we send out information that will be helpful not only to residents but those who are visiting. I’ve said this a hundred times, and I will say it again. We need your prayers. We need you prayers. Senator Ted Cruz.
TX Senator Ted Cruz: Texas is grieving right now. The pain, the shock of what has transpired these last few days has broken the heart of our state. As of yesterday, the confirmed death high-watertoll was 82 and those numbers are continuing to go up. The children, the little girls who were lost at Camp Mystic. That’s every parent’s nightmare. Every mom and dad, last week we were picking up our daughter from camp here and hunt. Our girls have gone to camp here for a decade. The Hill Country is an incredible part of Texas, part of the country. The natural beauty here is incredible. The camps that have raised generations of little girls and little boys and instilled character and love and faith are extraordinary institutions. And I’ll tell you, the pain in our state, and it’s every part of the state, you’ve got Texans from all over the state who were here celebrating the 4th of July. A week ago, this was a time of great celebration. You’re dropping your little girl off at camp, your little boy off at Camp, you’re celebrating Independence Day. You know that your child is going to be swimming and canoeingmillions and horseback riding and doing archery and making lifetime friends. And then suddenly it turns to tragedy. With the last several days, I’ve spoken to multiple parents. Scared out of their mind, do you know anything? Where is my daughter? There’s still 10 girls and one counselor from Camp Mystic that are unaccounted for. And the pain and agony of not knowing your child’s whereabouts. It’s the worst thing imaginable. But I want to say in the face of all of this, it is simultaneously inspiring. Every time there’s a tragedy, every time there is a natural disaster in Texas, Texans come together. Texas is a big state. We’ve got 31 million people, and we have hurricanes, we have tornadoes, we have wildfires. Tragedies hit this state, natural disasters hit this state, and without fail, 100 out of 100 times when that happens, we see Texans coming together, helping each other, engaging in acts of heroism. There have been over 150 high water rescues since this flooding began. 850. You look at extraordinary stories, stories of Eagle Scouts pulling campers out of harm’s way. I was just hearing a story of one counselor whose head was right at the water holding up two mattresses with campers on those mattresses. That kind of courage, that kind of selflessness. And then they’re the first responders. The local first responders, I want to thank every one of the first responders at the local level, at the city level, at the county level, at the state level, at the federal level. In the first few hours of this flood, I was on the phone with Governor Abbott. Was on the call with Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. Was on phone with Nim Kidd, the head of the Texas Department of Emergency Management. And then I called President Trump. He was having dinner at the time. It was still early in what was transpiring, and I wanted him to know, I said, ‘Mr. President, everything we’re hearing right now, this appears to be bad, really bad. There may be a very significant loss of life unfolding right now in Texas.’ And I will tell you, the President said, ‘Ted, anything Texas needs, the answer is yes. Whatever assets you need, whatever resources you need. Yes, let us know and we will provide everything.’
Within hours, we had helicopters, over a dozen helicopters in the air. National Guard, DPS, Game Wardens, Coast Guard, doing search and rescue, reaching down. We’ve all seen the videos of little girls being pulled up, hoisted out of harm’s way. Incredible courage and heroism. Search and rescue is the first stage. But the process of coming together and rebuilding is going to take longer. And I will say to all the grieving families, to all of those who’ve gotten the worst news imaginable, that your little girl, she’s gone. I will say for many of us, those are friends and neighbors who’ve lost children. I’ve got multiple kids who go to school with my girls. The mayor asked for prayers. And I want to say thank you to the millions of Texans, to the millionsthat of Americans, to the millions of people all over the world right now who are praying. Praying for Texas and praying for those parents. Going through this grief, it is going to take love, it is gonna take friends and family embracing and hugging and holding them while they weep. And it’s going to take the church. With every disaster, one of the things we see here in Texas is the church steps up and the church helps and the church feeds and clothes and comforts. This morning I met with a group of chaplains who’ve been going through the incredibly difficult process of talking to mom and dad after mom and Dad who just lost the most precious person they ever knew. And those chaplains are just trying to love them and show God’s love. So I want to say we will come through this. To those in the midst of grief right now, that might seem hard to fathom. But Texas will come to this. And I just want to thank you. I want say thank you to these gentlemen here who are working. They are not sleeping. They are working every day. Thank you to the families. Thank you, the Salvation Army. Thank you to everyone who is just reaching out. And saying, how can I help? We will come through this and we’ll come through this together. And now we’ll take questions.
Reporter Question: Senator, you talked about how you know kids here, how you’re taking your own kids to camp. Was it ever communicated to you that there was a need, that it was a priority to have a warning system so people had a chance to escape something like this?
Senator Ted Cruz: Well, listen, I think anytime you’re dealing with major rivers, there’s a risk of flooding. And there’s always been a risk of flooding, particularly on the Guadalupe River. I will say, in the wake of every tragedy, some things are predictable. One of the things that’s predictable is that you see some people engaging in, I think, partisan games and trying to blame their political opponents for a natural disaster. And you see that with a hurricane, with a tornado, with the wildfire, with this flooding where people immediately say, well, the hurricane is Donald Trump’s fault. You know, look, that... I think most normal Americans know that’s ridiculous, and I think this is not a time for partisan finger-pointing and attacks. Now, after we come through search and rescue, after come through the process of rebuilding, there will naturally be a period of retrospection where you look back and say, okay, what exactly transpired? What was the timeline? And what could have been done differently to prevent this loss of life? And that’s a natural process. I think it should not happen in a bitter and partisan sense, but it should happen in any reasonable sense of saying, what lessons can we learn? And I will give an example, Houston’s my hometown. If you live on the Gulf Coast, we get hurricanes. That’s part of living on the Gulf Coast as hurricanes hit. And I do think Texas as a whole has learned over time how to deal more effectively with hurricanes. And so you look here, we know the National Weather Service put out an emergency warning just after one a.m. And a second emergency more warning just after four a. Now, obviously, most people at one a m and four a m are asleep. And so I think we will have a reasonable conversation about a are there any ways to have earlier detection and some of the limits of a flash flood. They’re very difficult because they could arise so quickly. Everyone would agree in hindsight if we could go back and do it again we would evacuate particularly those in the most vulnerable areas the young the young children in the cabins closest to the water we would remove them and get them to higher ground if we can go back into it again obviously everyone would the people in our bees but by the river’s edge We know in disasters like this, RVs and mobile homes are particularly susceptible, whether a flood or a hurricane or a tornado, they’re particularly susceptible to that. And so my hope is, in time, we will learn some lessons to implement to next time. And there will be another flood. There will be other disasters. But next time there’s a flood, I hope we have in place processes. To remove, especially the most vulnerable from harm’s way. But I think that’s gonna be a process that will take a careful examination of what happened and how can we implement processes better in the future to prevent this same loss of life.
Reporter Question: Senator, there were claims that the National Weather Service sent the first flash flood warning that should have alerted phones at 1:14 in the morning. But we have a federal public database maintained by PBS, PBS Warrant, that says the first emergency alert wirelessly here in this area to Kerr County was not until after 9 a.m. That was more than four hours after the severe flooding had come to this area. Did you know that? Have you seen that? What’s your response, knowing the state and cuts to the NWS in recent months by this administration?
Senator Ted Cruz: So I don’t know the source for what you’re saying. All of the public reporting I’ve seen is that there were two alerts that went out, one just after 1 AM, one after 4 AM. You know, I can tell you, I talked about the partisan finger pointing. I think there have been some eager to point at the National Weather Service and say cuts there led to a lack of warning. I think that’s contradicted by the facts. And if you look at the facts in particular, number one, that these warnings went out hours before the flood became a true emergency level. But number two, the National Weather Service here, New Braunfels is where they were headquartered. They had additional manpower. In fact, they had three additional people working that night anticipating that it was going to be a very dangerous weather situation. I also think it’s worth noting that the National Weather Service Union, which has been very critical of the Doge Cuts, has publicly said that they don’t believe that the reduction in staffing had any impact whatsoever on their ability to warn of this event. And so, look, I think it is reasonable over time to engage in a retrospective and say at every level what could have been done better, because all of us... Would want to prevent this horrific loss of life. But I think just immediately trying to use it for either side to attack their political opponents, I think that’s cynical and not the right approach, particularly at a time when we’re dealing with a crisis and we’re deal with grief.
Reporter Question: But it does make you question whether there should be cuts at the National Weather Service in FEMA. I know you’ve been supportive of FEMA.
Senator Ted Cruz Look, I am very supportive of FEMA, I’m very supportive the National Weather Service. They both perform essential roles and I think it is critical at every federal agency, particularly when you’re dealing with public safety, that we make sure that critical roles are maintained. That’s a longer and broader discussion, but as I said, everything from the public evidence indicates that that was not a contributing factor to what occurred here.
Reporter Question: What did the emergency managers of the county and other local officials do with that information? Starting at 1:15 and onward, where you have the Dyer River forecast at 6:30. Were emergency managers doing anything to put any processes in place to work with people on the river?
Dalton Rice, Kerrville City Manager: So overall, we were preparing for the July 4th weekend. So we had National EMR on site. We basically stood up kind of an incident command post, if you will, to prepare for that event. So most everybody was kind of up looking at weather. We looked at the weather before. When you looked at the National Weather Service flood map, it spanned all the way from the west side of Texas. With Kerr County kind of being in that upper northeast corner of it. And so everybody, including the National Weather Service, was looking at where’s the rain going to hit. We know it’s somewhere in here, but with rain, especially when you’re dealing with train, you got to figure out sometimes you don’t know until it until it falls. So once it starts falling, then you got figure out, okay, how’s the watershed going to do this? How’s the science going to work? And when you have those that north and south fork that we had talked about before, it all converged into one. We We do know that a lot of the camps were looking at this just as much as everybody was. You know, with the rainfall percentages, even the National Weather Service had looked at and don’t quote me on the numbers, but it’s anywhere between, you know, one to 77 inches. We got significantly over that. And again, when it goes into very congregated areas and how that watershed shifts into into the to the rivers, that impacts things. And so the camps, obviously we’ve heard stories where campers were getting up. They were up at, you know 3 30 in the morning, they were trying to move to higher That’s the that’s the head in the other. Interesting part of the train, and we’ve talked to UGRA folks as well, this is the headwaters of the Guadalupe. This is the beginning. This where everything forms when it comes into the North and South Fork. So as those things develop, it develops very rapidly, very quickly, and this rose very quickly in a very short amount of time. So those campers that were able to do that, it worked. There’s been the other question, and I’ll just give this one out. Evacuations. Well, why don’t we evacuate? Well, evacuation is a delicate balance because if you evacuate too late, you then risk putting busses or cars or vehicles or campers on roads into low water areas trying to get them out, which then could make it even more challenging because these flash flood floods happen very quickly as well.
Reporter Question: Was there any discussion to evacuate or activate any emergency plans before it was too late where it would be very dangerous?
Dalton Rice, Kerrville City Manager: Well, so again, just like disasters in Texas everywhere, you know, it’s very tough to make those calls. But what we also don’t want to do is cry wolf. You know, we don’t wanna we don’t want to make sure that we activated at the right time. It’s it is very difficult, very challenging, especially with this. We’re looking at 100 kilometers, right? That’s a that’s a big straight line distance. That’s not even along the river. These areas take a lot of time to get out to. So even when first responders were on the ground at 3 30 in the morning and we had reports We had first responders that were getting swept away, actually responding to the first areas of rainfall. That’s how quick it happened. First responders who have experience, who are swift water qualified, were driving to the, as soon as the rain started falling, were driving into these areas, and one of them got swept off the road.
Reporter Question: Was there any communication between 1 and 4 a.m. From local law enforcement to the camp saying, I know you can’t get busses in in an hour, but was there anyone telling the camp between 1 and 4 am, you need to get the girls to higher ground. At the very least, even if they have to walk up there in the rain, as many of them actually ended up doing. Was there ANY communication from local enforcement to anyone at that camp between 1 and 4 a.m.?
Dalton Rice, Kerrville City Manager: That I don’t know off the top of my head. What I do know, though, is, you know, there’s 55,000 people in Kerr County. Kerr County is a massive, massive area from here to those camps. This is 45 minutes on a good day. And so, you know, obviously one of the big challenges that we have, even when you have cell service, a lot of those areas don’t even have cell service, radio communications towers, you radio towers within the hill country becomes very challenging. So there’s a lotof areas, especially when weather comes in where cellular towers are down or you already have bad service. So there’s a lot of a lotof factors that play and a lot of variables in there on on communication that again I think as as we work through this process, we know everybody has a lot of questions regarding what are the next steps and what’s next. And I think all of these things, these are all great questions. And as we continue to search and rescue and as we continue to move to the next step, we definitely want to dive in and look at all those things from self-service tower to you know to radio communications, you know, we’re emergency alerting any of those things I think we all really need to take a look, you, know Look at and review and we’re looking forward to doing that once we can get the search and rescue and stuff in place
Reporter Question: I hate to get into the weeds on, you know, people are asking lots of questions, and where should we start the investigation out?
Senator Ted Cruz To the best of my knowledge, there is zero evidence of anything related to anything like weather modification. And look, the internet can be a strange place. People can come up with all sorts of crazy theories. What I know is a reality is that a whole lot of Texans are grieving right now. I will tell you, I was visiting with one parent who was talking about online. Being harassed online because their information was public, that they had a little girl who was missing at Mystic. And look, there are a lot of people who are messed up and my call for everyone, there’s a time to have political fights, there’s time to disagree, this is not that time. This is a time just to reach out, support each other, go volunteer at the Salvation Army, give them money, go volunteer your church, Go. You know what I did when this happened? Just go hug your kids. Because I got to tell you, I hugged my girls with tears in my eyes, because every one of us who’s a parent, there but for the grace of God go I. And nothing will fill the void in these moms and dads’ hearts. They’ll make it through it and every one of us, we have an obligation to come through and help them make it make it through it. And look, Texas will come through and let me say, Kerr County, the Hill Country is incredible. It is beautiful. And these summer camps, Camp Mystic is an incredible Texas institution. For a century, it has made a profound difference helping. Young girls become strong women in in Texas and across the country and and so for me at least I’m praying for these camps I’m praying for all the campers everyone implicated everyone impacted and and and I I hope we come together and stand as one doing