TEXAS, July 05 (Reuters): Torrential rains unleashed flash floods along the Guadalupe River in Texas on Friday, killing at least 24 people as rescue teams scrambled to save dozens of victims trapped by high water or reported missing in the disaster, local officials said.
Among the missing were 23 to 25 people listed as unaccounted for at an all-girls Christian summer camp located on the banks of the rain-engorged Guadalupe, authorities said.
The US National Weather Service declared a flash flood emergency for parts of Kerr County in south-central Texas Hill Country, about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of San Antonio, following thunderstorms that dumped as much as a foot of rain.
Dalton Rice, city manager for Kerrville, the county seat, told reporters the extreme flooding struck before dawn with little or no warning, precluding authorities from issuing advance evacuation orders as the Guadalupe swiftly rose above major flood stage.
"This happened very quickly, over a very short period of time that could not be predicted, even with radar," Rice said. "This happened within less than a two-hour span."
State emergency management officials had warned as early as Thursday that west and central Texas faced heavy rains and flash flood threats "over the next couple days," citing National Weather Service forecasts ahead of the holiday weekend.
But the weather forecasts in question "did not predict the amount of rain that we saw," W Nim Kidd, director of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, told a news conference on Friday night.
July Fourth fireworks displays ended up being canceled in flood-stricken communities throughout the region, including Kerrville, where the waterfront site for Friday night's planned US Independence Day celebration was submerged by the rain-swollen river.
At Friday night's briefing, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said 24 flood-related fatalities had been confirmed, up from 13 tallied earlier in the day.
One more person found dead in neighboring Kendall County was not confirmed to be a flood-related casualty, Leitha said.
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said on Friday afternoon that authorities were searching for 23 girls listed as missing from among more than 750 children at summer camp sites along the banks of the Guadalupe River when the area was inundated by floodwaters at around 4am local time.
The missing campers had all been attending Camp Mystic, a private Christian summer camp for girls.
