Search effort presses on as number of missing in Texas county drops to 3
Search effort presses on as number of missing in Texas county drops to 3
The number of missing in this month’s catastrophic flooding in Kerr County, Texas, has dropped to three, local officials said late Saturday, but they provided few details on why the figure had fallen so significantly from the nearly 100 cited days ago.
The revision was the result of “extensive follow-up work” and cooperation among local, state and federal authorities, the Kerrville police department said in a post on Facebook. Many of those initially reported missing had been verified as safe, they said.
“This remarkable progress reflects countless hours of coordinated search and rescue operations, careful investigative work, and an unwavering commitment to bringing clarity and hope to families during an unimaginably difficult time,” Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said.
Numbers of those missing in natural disasters are often fluid and can decline dramatically. Overwhelmed local officials can struggle to obtain an accurate count, especially when those missing involve visitors to the affected region or people without stable housing.
Some of those initially described as unaccounted for in Kerr County — the county most impacted by the deadly flooding on July 4 — did not live in the area but had traveled there for the holiday weekend.
That so many had remained missing more than two weeks after the devastating flooding deepened the horror of the tragedy, which left at least 135 people dead, dozens of them children. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has pledged to continue the search until every person is found.
“Our thoughts remain with the families still awaiting news, and we will continue to stand with them as efforts persist,” Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring Jr. said Saturday.
On Monday, the Texas legislature is expected to convene in Austin for a special session in which lawmakers will discuss the catastrophic flooding. State legislative leaders have formed committees to examine flood warning systems, relief efforts and disaster preparedness. They plan to hold a hearing in Kerrville on July 31.
Jonathan Lamb, spokesman for the Kerrville police department, said in a statement Sunday that investigators had engaged in an “exhaustive effort to verify the status of each individual who was reported missing,” narrowing hundreds of names down to the current three.
“This process takes time, but it is essential to ensure that every lead is thoroughly followed and each person is properly accounted for,” Lamb said.
Search and rescue operations are performed in the Guadalupe River in Kerrville, Texas, on July 14.
When flash floods surge through rural areas with rugged terrain, it can take days or even weeks to locate missing people and uncover the bodies of those who were washed away. After Hurricane Helene slammed into western North Carolina last September, the American Red Cross received more than 9,000 reunification requests from family members seeking loved ones.
The vast majority were ultimately discovered trapped in isolated locations or lost in the shuffle at shelters, and within a few weeks the number of people unaccounted for dropped from the thousands to single digits.
The force of the floodwaters also complicated the search: The body of one man reported missing from a campground in North Carolina was found six months later at a spot 12 miles away. At least two other women from the state still haven’t been found.
A similar dynamic unfolded after the devastating 2023 wildfire in Maui, which killed 102 people. More than 1,000 others were initially unaccounted for a week later. A month after the fire, the figure dropped from 385 to 66. Two people remain missing.
Search efforts carry on as hope fades
For weeks, more than 1,000 local, state and federal responders along with thousands of volunteers have combed 60 miles of the Guadalupe River through communities in Kerr County and farther south. As hope of finding survivors faded, the massive effort has essentially become a search for remains.
The grueling, painstaking work has included helicopters, heavy equipment, search dogs and waterborne teams. Working from airboats and inflated zodiacs, divers and firefighters have plumbed the murky brown depths of the Guadalupe. Crews have also deployed sonar equipment in an attempt to discover what might be buried in the riverbed after the raging flood swept away homes, trailers and vehicles.
For those whose loved ones disappeared in the floodwaters, the agonizing wait goes on. Sherry McCutcheon, 66, works for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Her mother and one of her brothers died when the rising waters overtook their home in Leander, about 25 miles north of Austin, she said. Another brother, Gary Traugott, 60, remains missing.
Frustrated by the lack of information from local officials, McCutcheon and her neighbors compiled their own list of the missing, which they posted on Facebook. Most were found dead; seven were found safe. Three remained missing Sunday, including Traugott.
On Friday, McCutcheon was at a funeral home planning the burial services for her mother and brother when officials called to say that a body had been found under a washed-out bridge. On Sunday, McCutcheon was awaiting the results of DNA tests to see if it was her brother Gary.
“If this person isn’t Gary, I don’t know what we’re going to do,” she said.
First responders search an area along the Guadalupe River near Blue Oak RV Park in Hunt, Texas, on July 7.
Some living near the Guadalupe said they feared the true number of the dead and missing would never be known. Lorena Guillen, who owns Blue Oak RV Park in Kerrville, said she had heard there were Honduran and Mexican undocumented immigrants who were afraid to report the missing for fear of being apprehended by ICE. “There’s a whole underground community here,” Guillen said.
A family from Houston who was staying at Guillen’s RV Park with their two young sons perished in the flood, as did one of her employees.
Guillen also worried about those who were camping at public access points along the river during the holiday weekend without registering with the authorities. Last week Mike Sowers stopped at one such spot, Hayes Park in Kerrville, to check on a homeless encampment he had seen before the flood.
Sowers, 80, a retired telephone worker, lives a few blocks away and recalled seeing at least four young men camped on the riverbank before July 4. He looked down at the still-swollen, mud-brown river as it gushed over a dam and beneath cypress trees tangled with debris several stories high.
There were no signs of the young men he had seen prior to the storm. Sowers believes the true death toll from the flood may remain a mystery. “These people will never be counted,” Sowers said. “They’re never going to know how many people lost their lives in this,” he said.
The FEMA Colorado Task Force 1 navigates the Guadalupe River on a boat as search for victims continues in Center Point, Texas on July 18.
The search teams on the Guadalupe have continued their heartbreaking work, hoping to give families the ability to bury their loved ones. At location after location, the same scene repeated itself: chainsaws buzzing and heavy equipment beeping, peeling back the layers of debris. Rough Vine, 43, had spent more than a week volunteering with the search.
“This is going to go on for a very long time,” Vine predicted. He described the challenge bluntly: “The river was a meat grinder.”
To the southeast, in another hard-hit area, Center Point volunteer firefighter Razor Dobbs said Sunday that volunteers on the riverbanks together with dive teams persisted in their search, despite the dramatic drop in the missing. The Guadalupe is still higher than normal, he said, so it may be concealing remains.
Kevin LaFond, southern region commander for United Cajun Navy volunteers, said it wasn’t clear why the number of missing dropped so quickly in Kerr County, adding that his team was still working to search more inaccessible areas devastated by the floods.
“It’s hard to have any confidence in a number until those areas are reached,” LaFond said. “The numbers have fluctuated since the beginning, and probably are going to fluctuate at the end.”
Sarah Kaplan contributed to this report.
