Texas Flooding: Over 170 missing, 109 dead
At least 109 people are dead after heavy rain led to devastating flooding in Texas.
Kerr County was hit the hardest, with at least 87 deaths, including 30 children. President Donald Trump signed a disaster declaration for the county and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is on the ground there.
Search and rescue operations are ongoing.
Abbott says 'losers' look for who is to blame
As questions swirl surrounding the timeline of who was notified about the flooding when, and if more could have been done, Gov. Greg Abbott punted on reporters’ questions about emergency notifications during a Tuesday news conference.
When asked who is to blame, Abbott said, "That is the word choice of losers."
The governor then invoked a football analogy.
"Every football team makes mistakes. The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who is to blame," Abbott said, while winning teams "talk about solutions."
109 dead in Texas, 161 missing in Kerr County
There are 161 known people missing in hard-hit Kerr County, Gov. Greg Abbott said.
About 12 are missing in other counties, he said.
The death toll in Texas has reached 109, Abbott said.
Abbott went on a flyover to view the immense destruction in Kerr County, calling the damage widespread and "catastrophic."
"Texas is in this with the people in the Hill Country," Abbott said at a news conference after the tour. "We are not leaving until this job is finished."
The No. 1 focus now is locating all missing persons, he said.
By Emily Shapiro, Jack Moore, Nadine El-Bawab, and Ivan Pereira
Last Updated: July 7, 2025, 3:54 PM MDT
Over 100 people are dead after heavy rain led to devastating flooding in Texas.
Kerr County was hit the hardest, with at least 84 deaths, including 28 children. President Donald Trump signed a disaster declaration for the county and the Federal Emergency Management Agency is on the ground there.
Search and rescue operations are ongoing.
Over 100 dead in Texas
Over 100 people have died from flooding in Texas.
The vast majority of the fatalities -- 84 -- were in Kerr County.
Deaths have also been confirmed in Travis, Williamson, Burnet, Tom Green and Kendall counties.
There have been over 850 high-water rescues, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said.
"Texas will come through this," Cruz said at a news conference.
-ABC News' Vanessa Navarrete and Abigail Shalawylo
Flash flood warnings issued night before, NWS had 'surge staffing'
Questions have swirled around if there was enough warning and enough staffing for the early Friday morning floods in the wake of the Trump administration's job cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
But NOAA confirmed that the National Weather Service's Austin/San Antonio office had five meteorologists working the severe weather event as part of its "surge staffing" protocol. It is normally staffed with two.
NOAA also said the NWS had forecast briefings Thursday morning, issued a flood watch Thursday afternoon and then issued flash flood warnings on Thursday night and early Friday. This gave "preliminary lead times of more than three hours before flash flooding conditions occurred," NOAA said in a statement.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday, "Blaming President Trump for these floods is a depraved lie, and it serves no purpose during this time of national mourning."
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said Monday, "Some people [are] engaging in partisan games and trying to blame their political opponents for a natural disaster."
"I think most normal Americans know that's ridiculous and I think this is not a time for partisan finger pointing and attacks," he said.
“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," he said.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate's top Democrat, is calling for an investigation into whether cuts made to NWS had any correlation to the level of devastation.
-ABC News’ Lalee Ibssa
