US president Donald Trump will travel to Texas this week to survey first-hand the devastation from extreme floods that have left at least 91 people dead and scores still missing, the White House said.
“We are praying for you, and he will be traveling to see you later this week,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday.
Trump is tentatively planning to visit on Friday, though the timing could shift to accommodate ongoing recovery efforts, Ms Leavitt said.
The risk of life-threatening flooding was still high in central Texas on Monday as crews searched for the missing following a weekend deluge that killed scores of people.
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Operators of Camp Mystic, a century-old children’s summer camp in the Texas Hill Country, said on Monday that they lost 27 campers and counsellors, confirming their worst fears after a wall of water slammed into cabins built along the edge of the Guadalupe River.
“We have been in communication with local and state authorities who are tirelessly deploying extensive resources to search for our missing girls,” the camp said in a statement.
Rescue crews are urgently searching for the missing, and officials said the death toll was sure to rise.
Residents of Kerr County began clearing mud and salvaging what they could from their demolished properties as they recounted harrowing escapes from rapidly rising floodwaters late on Friday.
Reagan Brown said his parents, in their 80s, managed to escape uphill as water inundated their home in the town of Hunt. When the couple learned that their 92-year-old neighbour was trapped in her attic, they went back and rescued her.
A few miles away, rescuers manoeuvring through challenging terrain filled with snakes continued their search for the missing, including 10 girls and a counsellor from Camp Mystic, an all-girls summer camp that sustained large damage.
Governor Greg Abbott said 41 people were unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.
In the Hill Country area, home to several summer camps, searchers have found the bodies of 68 people, including 28 children, Kerr County sheriff Larry Leitha said.
Ten other deaths were reported in Travis, Burnet, Kendall, Tom Green and Williamson counties, according to officials.
The governor warned that additional rounds of heavy rain lasting into Tuesday could produce more dangerous flooding, especially in places already saturated.
Families were allowed to look around the camp from Sunday morning. One girl walked out of a building carrying a large bell. A man whose daughter was rescued from a cabin on the highest point in the camp walked a riverbank, looking in clumps of trees and under big rocks.
One family left with a blue footlocker.
Nearby crews operating heavy equipment pulled tree trunks and tangled branches from the river. With each passing hour, the outlook of finding more survivors became even more bleak.
Volunteers and some families of the missing came to the disaster zone and searched despite being asked not to do so.
Authorities faced growing questions about whether enough warnings were issued in an area long vulnerable to flooding and whether enough preparations were made.
President Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration on Sunday for Kerr County and said he would likely visit on Friday: “I would have done it today, but we’d just be in their way.
“It’s a horrible thing that took place, absolutely horrible,” he told reporters.
Mr Abbott vowed that authorities will work around the clock and said new areas were being searched as the water receded. He declared Sunday a day of prayer for the state. – AP and Bloomberg
