The devastating floods that had returned to Texas in southern the United States, left more than 100 dead, according to a new evaluation announced Monday by local authorities. Kerr’s only county, the most affected, has 84 victims, including 28 children.
“Texas is mourning. The pain, the shock of what happened in recent days has broken the heart of our state,” said Texan Senator Ted Cruz at a press conference.
Among the victims are 27 boys and monitors of the Christian vacation camp for the girls of the camp, on the banks of the Guadalupe River, which organized some 750 people, announced their officials.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, plans to go there on Friday, confirmed the White House, criticizing criticism that budget cuts in national weather services have implied the reliability of forecasts and alerts.
More than 400 rescuers
“Maintaining President Trump responsible for these floods is an odious lie, which makes no sense in this period of national mourning,” spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt denounced on Monday.
She said that the American weather services (NWS), of which several positions in Texas were vacancies during floods, according to the New York Times, had issued “forecasts and alerts that are precise already due to due time.”
Believing that the floods were “a disaster as we have not seen in 100 years,” Donald Trump signed a disaster statement during the weekend to provide Texas with federal government media.
More than 400 rescuers, as well as helicopters and drones, participate in the investigation, authorities said.
In the town of Hunt, near Camp Mystic, rescue teams tried all day on Monday to find lost bodies. The boat rescuers and the divers search in the waters of the river, while the volunteers sponsor the shores, an AFP journalist pointed out.
A petition for a new alert system
After two days of research in the middle of the uprooted trees and the rubble of the vacation center, waiting until the end “a miracle”, Michael McCown confirmed on Monday to AFP that his eight -year -old daughter, Linnie, had died.
“This is the nightmare of all parents,” said Senator Ted Cruz, whose children have been attending this camp for ten years.
The residents of the area complained during the weekend of not having been warned early in the risk of floods.
After the disaster, Nicole Wilson, a mother who lives in San Antonio, who almost sent her daughters to the mico camp, launched a petition asking the state governor to approve the establishment of a more modern alert network.
“An activated siren, only five minutes, could have saved each of these children,” he told AFP.
Flood alerts still in force
The sudden floods were caused by torrential rains in the center of the state very early on Friday, the day of the American national holidays, which increased the waters of the Guadalupe of eight meters in just 45 minutes. Suddenly almost 300 millimeters/rain fell, one third of the average annual precipitation.
The Guadalupe River has found its bed, but the coasts still offered a desolation show.
Flood alerts were still in force in certain sectors of the Texas downtown on Monday until 7 pm local (GMT Midnight).
Sudden floods, caused by torrential rains that dry soil cannot absorb, are not uncommon. But according to the scientific community, climate change caused by human activity has made meteorological events more frequent and more intense, such as floods, droughts and heat waves.
Source: BFM TV
