Kerville (USA), Jul 8 (EFE) .- The number of deaths due to floods in the Texas center-south already reaches 109, local authorities reported on Tuesday. As indicated in a press conference Larry Leitha Jr., Kerr County Sheriff, – the most affected by the disaster – the bodies of 87 dead have already been recovered in their jurisdiction. Of these, 56 are adults and 30 children, with the age of a victim yet to be determined.
The bodies of 19 adults and seven minors remain without identifying, said Leitha Jr.
The sheriff said that five girls who were hosted in the Christian Mistic camp and a monitor still remain missing. At the center at least 27 campers died due to the rise of the Guadalupe river.
Media such as the Fox News chain reported today that other Texas counties, affected by the heavy rains that have fallen since July 4, add up to another 22 deaths, which elevates to at least 109 the total number of dead by floods.
In the days after the floods, the local authorities have faced questions by the residents and experts about why the areas near the river were not evacuated before rainfall.
In today’s press conference, before the different reporters ‘questions, Sheriff Leitha Jr. said it is not his priority to make an evaluation of the authorities’ response on July four.
“Right now, there are three priorities: to locate the people who are still lost, identify them and notify their relatives,” he said.
Several Kerville residents indicated in EFE interviews that received flood alerts and heavy rains in the early hours of July 4, but they were not asked to evacuate or move towards another area.
Since 1:00 on Saturday (06:00 GMT), the National Meteorology Service (NWS) began to issue alerts about the threat of floods in the flag counties and Kerr.
In one of the first press wheels after the disaster, the authorities recognized that the rain forecasts underestimated rainfall.
Some experts, however, have expressed doubts about how prepared the region was, given the magnitude of the tragedy.
“It seems that they could have taken (…) preventive measures to reduce the risk of deaths if the organizers of the affected camps and the local authorities had attended the warnings of the government and of private weather sources,” said the main meteorologist of the company ACCUWEATHER, according to the local medium The Texas Tribune.
In total, between the night of July 3 and the morning of 4 they accumulated between 12.7 and 27.9 centimeters of rain in the counties of Kerr, Flag, Tom Green and Kendall, according to the NWS. EFE
