PinnedUpdated July 8, 2025, 8:06 p.m. ETAt least 173 people remained missing on the fifth day after devastating floods swept through the Texas Hill Country, Gov. Greg Abbott said on Tuesday. Those unaccounted for include 161 in Kerr County, where the worst of the flooding occurred and where local officials said no one has been rescued since Friday.The number of missing cited by the governor — the first time an official had identified the scale of the recovery operation still ahead — suggested the death toll of 111 could more than double as rescue teams sift through debris in search of bodies.“The primary job right now continues to be locating everybody who was affected by this flood,” Mr. Abbott said at an afternoon news conference, later adding: “We will not stop until we identify, recover every single body.”The death toll included at least 30 children, making the floods among the deadliest U.S. disasters for children in several decades. The young victims include many from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp for girls, where 27 campers and staff members were killed. The bodies of five campers and a 19-year-old counselor remained unrecovered as of Tuesday evening.Here’s what else to know:Criticism grows: Republican officials continued to deflect responsibility for the disaster amid growing questions about the role of federal forecaster vacancies and a lack of state and local spending on flood control and warning systems. Read more ›Governor deflects: Asked about responsibility following a helicopter tour of the devastation, Mr. Abbott called that the “word choice of losers” and compared disaster response to football: “The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who’s to blame,” he said, while champions respond, “We got this.” Read more ›The victims: At least 87 of those killed in the floods were in Kerr County, with seven dead in Travis County, eight in Kendall County, five in Burnet County, three in Williamson County and one in Tom Green County. The include a beloved teacher, child and adult campers, camp directors and a counselor. Read more ›How to help: Here’s some guidance from officials and aid groups.July 8, 2025, 7:51 p.m. ETGov. Greg Abbott speaking with residents after a news conference in Hunt, Texas, on Tuesday.Credit...Loren Elliott for The New York TimesThe question facing Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas at a news conference on Tuesday was whether he would call for an investigation into possible failures surrounding the deadly floods, which include a lack of state and local spending on flood control measures and warning systems.To answer, Mr. Abbott said asking about blame was “the word choice of losers,” and then invoked a beloved Texas tradition — football — as he deflected questions about accountability for a disaster that has left at least 111 people dead and more than 170 missing.“Every square inch of our state cares about football,” Mr. Abbott said, referring to the Friday night lights of high school fields and the state’s college and pro teams. “Every football team makes mistakes,” he added.Extending the metaphor further, the governor said losing teams assigned blame while championship teams responded to mistakes by saying: “We got this. We’re going to make sure that we go score again, that we win this game.”Mr. Abbott, a Republican, said the Republican-controlled Texas Legislature would be investigating the flash floods in Central Texas and discussing how to prevent their recurrence when state lawmakers meet for a special session later this month.But he and other prominent Republicans have pushed back against critics who have called for investigations into unfilled staff positions at National Weather Service offices in Texas, or a lack of emergency warning systems along the Guadalupe River.On Monday, Representative Chip Roy, a Republican who represents the devastated area, said “finger pointing generally is just offensive when you’re dealing with trying to find bodies, and trying to deal with families grieving.” Senator Ted Cruz similarly scolded anyone “trying to blame their political opponents for a natural disaster.”President Trump, who excoriated the Democrats in California for their response to wildfires in Los Angeles and the Biden administration for its response to Hurricane Helene during the 2024 campaign, has offered only support to the leadership in Texas. And the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, rebuked critics for raising questions about the administration’s efforts to shrink federal disaster agencies.VideoSearch-and-rescue teams have been hoping against hope to find signs of life after the Texas floods. Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, an investigative reporter at The New York Times, describes what he has seen in Texas.July 8, 2025, 7:37 p.m. ETVolunteers, along with search and rescue personnel, assembled early Tuesday to scour areas along the Guadalupe River after flooding in Center Point, Texas.Credit...Loren Elliott for The New York TimesSearch and rescue teams from across Texas, other states and even Mexico are pouring into flood-ravaged Central Texas to aid the strained crews that have been hunting for victims along the Guadalupe River.Volunteer fire departments from across Texas have sent teams to the hardest-hit areas, as have fire departments from out of state, including those from Shreveport, La., and Memphis.A 50-person task force from Missouri has been sent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to focus on water rescues and the detection of human remains. The group from Missouri will be joined by Colorado’s urban search and rescue task force. Florida and California also sent rescue teams, according to state officials.Volunteers from Mexico, including 13 members of Fundación 911, a Mexican nonprofit that mobilizes rescue volunteers, deployed to Kerrville.The incoming teams have stressed that they are coming to follow orders and requests.“Every disaster starts local and ends local,” said Gale Blomenkamp, an assistant chief with the Boone County Fire Protection District in central Missouri.The Missouri task force was requested on Monday and organized immediately, he said. The team is traveling to the area with some 100,000 pounds of equipment and six dogs trained specifically to locate survivors or detect human remains. Mr. Blomenkamp said the team members anticipated doing a field area search, he said, walking along banks and shores and sifting through large areas of debris.Team Rubicon, a disaster aid group that formed after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, and Americares, a health-focused relief and development organization, are also deploying teams to the area. Organizers from both groups said they were working directly with the local authorities to determine the most pressing needs.It is unclear how long the teams will be deployed in Texas. But while they are on the ground, they will be fed by other groups of volunteers: World Central Kitchen and Operation BBQ, both of which provide food in disaster areas, have already been serving meals around central Texas.July 8, 2025, 6:59 p.m. ETAfter a news conference on Tuesday in Hunt, Gov. Greg Abbott met with a local resident who had repeatedly interrupted the event. The resident, Courtney Kate Calhoun, 28, told the governor that she and dozens of volunteers were eager to help the recovery effort, but that state officials were turning them away.July 8, 2025, 6:45 p.m. ETLorena Guillen, the owner of an R.V. park along the Guadalupe River, told me she knows precisely how many people were registered to stay on her property the night of July 3. But countless other people were camping in wild areas up and down the river. “It’s impossible to tell how many people are missing,” she said.July 8, 2025, 6:29 p.m. ETThe search for victims is being assisted by Rocket, a cadaver dog, and Havoc, a mustang ridden by Christian Infante, a horse trainer. They scoured the banks of the Guadalupe River on Tuesday afternoon.Credit...Thomas Fuller for The New York TimesCredit...Thomas Fuller for The New York TimesJuly 8, 2025, 6:02 p.m. ETAmong those lost in the floods was Braxton Jarmon, an incoming sophomore at Glenn High School, north of Austin, according to a letter sent by his school’s principal on Monday. He was part of the school’s marching band, where he played bass clarinet, Anna Smith, a school board member and mother of one of his bandmates told me. He was “a happy, very go-lucky kid,” she said. His sister, Felicity, remains missing.Credit...via Anna SmithJuly 8, 2025, 5:56 p.m. ETLake Travis, about 20 miles northwest of Austin, has risen more than 21 feet since Friday morning, according to the Lower Colorado River Authority. So far, the lake’s rise has accounted for six of the county’s seven deaths, according to a county spokesman, Hector Nieto.July 8, 2025, 5:39 p.m. ETThe Federal Emergency Management Agency will release the locations of the disaster recovery centers it is opening on Wednesday morning, said Nim Kidd, the chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management.July 8, 2025, 5:29 p.m. ETThe confirmed deaths from the flooding in Texas rose to 111 on Tuesday after officials in Williamson County, northeast of Kerr County, said they had recovered a third body.July 8, 2025, 5:21 p.m. ETAlicia ChenThe death toll in Kendall County has risen to eight as of Tuesday afternoon, emergency officials said, adding that state and federal resources were assisting local search and recovery teams.July 8, 2025, 5:17 p.m. ETGov. Greg Abbott of Texas said that the state was aware of the possibility of serious flooding days in advance. Speaking in a news conference, he said that resources were in place two days before floodwaters surged on Friday morning. “We were ready with the resources on the ground to be able to quickly respond,” he said, but “no one would know that that would be a 30-foot high tsunami wall of water.”Credit...Loren Elliott for The New York TimesJuly 8, 2025, 5:14 p.m. ETGov. Abbott, answering a reporter’s question, said the Texas legislature would address the lack of emergency-alert systems to warn people of flooding when it met in about two weeks for a special legislative session.July 8, 2025, 5:14 p.m. ETWhen asked about an investigation into the death toll, Governor Abbott said the word “blame” is the “word choice of losers.” Using a football analogy, he said, “The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who’s to blame.” Championship teams, he said, are the ones that say, “‘We’ve got this.’”July 8, 2025, 4:57 p.m. ETMaj. Gen. Thomas M. Suelzer of the Texas National Guard was on the hour-long tour of the devastation in Central Texas with Gov. Abbott. In a news conference with Abbott, Suelzer described seeing “miles and miles of massive devastation.”July 8, 2025, 4:48 p.m. ETGovernor Abbott of Texas praised the response to the disaster from the Trump administration. Speaking in a news conference, Abbott said he had spoken with President Trump earlier on Tuesday and that Trump could not stop talking about the young campers who died. “He cares a lot about those young ladies,” Abbott said.July 8, 2025, 4:41 p.m. ETAbbott said at least 161 people remain missing in Kerr County. “There could be more added to that list.”Videotranscriptbars0:00/0:54-0:00transcriptI have a new number, however. So one thing we’ve been reaching out to the public about is to get better information about those who were not registered at a camp, those who were not registered at a hotel, those who may have been down here, who no one really had any accounting of. And through law enforcement agencies working together, they provided me this number. Just in the Kerr County area alone, there are 161 people who were known to be missing. And again, that comes from combined law enforcement efforts — 161 known people who are missing. Know this: We will not stop until every missing person is accounted for. Know this also: There very likely could be more added to that list.July 8, 2025, 4:41 p.m. ETGov. Greg Abbott of Texas is speaking at a news conference right now in Hunt, a town in the region devastated by the flood. “The primary job right now continues to be locating everybody who was affected by this flood,” he said. “There still remain those who are missing.”July 8, 2025, 3:47 p.m. ETSonia A. RaoSherry Richardson, 64, was one of the flood victims identified on Tuesday. Early Saturday morning, her cabin, along the Little Creek River in Liberty Hill, Texas, was swept away, her daughter Deliah Greenslet said. Greenslet said her mom was on the phone with 911 for 30 minutes before the call cut off, had climbed to the loft of the two-story cabin and was attempting to get onto the roof. She lived behind her workplace, a care center for people with disabilities.“I just find it so hard to believe that we had no warning,” Greenslet said. “We need some answers here in Texas.”Credit...via Deliah GreensletJuly 8, 2025, 3:26 p.m. ETAidan Heartfield, 22, and Ella Cahill, 21, remained missing after last week’s flash flooding in Central Texas.Credit...via Mackenzie Cahill-HodulikIt was supposed to be a regular weekend trip with friends, to the house in Texas’s Hill Country.Aidan Heartfield, a young man his family described as warm and thoughtful, loved these weekends, often bringing his girlfriend, Ella Cahill, with him to his family’s house. Together with Ms. Cahill’s college roommate, Reese Manchaca, and a longtime friend from high school, Joyce Catherine Badon, they drove down to the house, in Hunt, Texas, near the Guadalupe River. The four of them, all in their 20s, grilled, and Mr. Heartfield sent a selfie at around 1 a.m. Friday.Mr. Heartfield and Ms. Cahill had spent part of her sister’s May wedding in Italy talking about what their own ceremony might be like. Sweethearts since sophomore year of high school, they planned to move in together after they graduated from college. Mr. Heartfield was excited about the marketing internship he had secured for his final year of school, while Ms. Cahill had settled on studying business management.But then, at around 4:30 a.m. Friday, Aidan woke up to water in the home. He called his father, who told them to get to higher ground.“All hell broke loose,” said Mackenzie Cahill-Hodulik, Ms. Cahill’s older sister, in an interview, recounting what she had been told. Mr. Heartfield handed the phone to Ms. Badon, saying he needed to help his girlfriend. There was a scream — “Oh my god, they just got swept away” — and Ms. Badon said to tell her parents she loved them. Then the line went dead.In the days since, two bodies — those of Ms. Badon and Ms. Manchaca — have been recovered. Mr. Heartfield and Ms. Cahill have yet to be found.Reese Manchaca with Ms. Cahill.Credit...via Mackenzie Cahill-Hodulik“It’s a stab in the heart really,” Ms. Cahill-Hodulik said. She added: “They were just here to have a good time. They were great kids.”As she spoke Tuesday morning, she was standing on a slab, she said, all that was left of the home. The entire family, she said, had driven down to the area to search for her sister and her boyfriend.Some things have been recovered. A high school photo of Ms. Badon, Mr. Heartfield and Ms. Cahill in Mr. Heartfield’s car. His watch and keys. Ms. Cahill’s makeup bag. A sweatshirt on a tree limb half a mile from the house.“There’s no words to explain it,” Ms. Cahill-Hodulik said. “In a way it’s comforting, because we have a piece of her. But then I go back and think of just the state of what we found them in. And I go back to thinking of how scared she was.”She added: “Our hope is that they’re found together. We’re going to stay as long as it takes. I don’t think any of us will get any type of closure until they’re found.”A correction was made on July 8, 2025: A previous version of this article incorrectly said all four students were 21. Aidan Heartfield was 22.When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn moreJuly 8, 2025, 1:31 p.m. ETFor the past four days, many Kerr County residents have been coming to the Dallas Daughtry Memorial Pavilion in Kerrville, which overlooks the Guadalupe River, to get a glimpse of the scale of the damage. Below the pavilion, crews continue to clear debris from the banks of the river.Credit...Jesus Jiménez/The New York TimesJuly 8, 2025, 1:26 p.m. ETSearch and rescue personnel, along with volunteers, scour areas along the Guadalupe River following flooding in Center Point, Texas. Search efforts have continued for those that are still missing five days after the flood that devastated wide swaths of Central Texas.July 8, 2025, 1:17 p.m. ETA state legislator who represents Kerr County, Wes Virdell, said in an interview on Tuesday that his office would be drafting a bill “to get funding to help implement these sirens” that could provide audible warnings during flash floods.But Virdell also said that he worried that the sirens would be costly and might not provide enough warning. “If you had cell service there, or even a Starlink,” especially at summer camps, that could be even more effective, he said.July 8, 2025, 12:05 p.m. ETPresident Trump said at a cabinet meeting at the White House that he and the first lady, Melania Trump, would tour the disaster site on Friday. “Texas, and the governor, has been obviously very good for years with me,” he said.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesJuly 8, 2025, 11:29 a.m. ETJonathan Lamb of the Kerrville Police Department said the last “live rescue” in the county was made on Friday.July 8, 2025, 11:24 a.m. ETFive campers and one counselor from Camp Mystic are still missing, Sheriff Larry Leitha of Kerr County said in a news conference on Tuesday morning. The 87 confirmed deaths in the county include 30 children, with identification pending for 19 adults and 7 children.July 8, 2025, 10:08 a.m. ETSenator Ted Cruz of Texas at the Capitol last month. He was vacationing in Greece last week as deadly floodwaters surged in part of his state. Credit...Kent Nishimura for The New York TimesSenator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, is once again facing public criticism for being out of the country when his state was hit hard by a natural disaster.As floodwaters surged in Central Texas on Friday morning, Mr. Cruz was on a planned family vacation in Greece. The senator “promptly booked a flight” back home, arriving in Texas on Sunday night, the earliest he could return, according to his spokeswoman, Macarena Martinez.He was on the ground in Kerrville, one of the areas worst hit, by “early Monday morning,” Ms. Martinez added. By then, more than 80 people had been declared dead, and dozens more were missing.Photographs widely circulated online appeared to show Mr. Cruz touring the Parthenon in Athens with his family on Saturday, suggesting that the senator may have continued with at least some of his previously scheduled sightseeing as the death toll climbed. The New York Times has not independently authenticated the images, and the senator’s spokeswoman declined to comment.Mr. Cruz’s absence from Texas during the first 72 hours after the deadly flooding, and his presence in a popular vacation spot instead, drew intense criticism on social media, including comparisons to when the senator left the state in 2021 after a winter storm knocked out power for millions of Texans.Mr. Cruz later admitted that it was “obviously a mistake” to fly with his family to Cancún, Mexico, to stay at a luxury resort, while his constituents suffered in freezing temperatures.In this case, Mr. Cruz continued to work while he was abroad. Over the weekend, the senator was coordinating from Greece with President Trump as well as Gov. Greg Abbott and other top state officials “to ensure that the maximum federal assets were available for search and rescue,” Ms. Martinez said. She added that he also was “working closely” with the families of missing victims, including the girls of Camp Mystic.Representative Chip Roy, the Texas Republican who represents part of the area devastated by the flood, traveled back from Washington on July 4, arriving in his district late that night. He was on the ground in Kerr County throughout the weekend, meeting with families of the victims and doing media interviews alongside the river choked with fallen trees and debris.A correction was made on July 8, 2025: An earlier version of this article misspelled the surname of Texas’ governor. He is Greg Abbott, not Abbot.When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn moreJuly 8, 2025, 8:05 a.m. ETNazaneen GhaffarNazaneen Ghaffar is a reporter on The Times’s weather team.The Guadalupe River rushes under a destroyed bridge in Ingram, Texas, on Monday.Credit...Callaghan O'Hare for The New York TimesThe National Weather Service forecast less rain in south-central Texas for Tuesday, offering some relief to rescue efforts.After the downpours early Friday that led to the catastrophic flooding, scattered storms and showers have for days kept the region on edge for fear of further flooding, while also posing a challenge to rescuers.Jason Runyen, a meteorologist at the Austin and San Antonio office of the Weather Service, said there was still potential for storms in two areas: in the Austin and San Antonio region extending eastward, and also north of Kerrville. He said conditions were easing slightly around Kerrville and the Guadalupe River.“Over Kerrville and the Guadalupe River, there’s only a 20 percent chance of showers or thunderstorms this afternoon,” he said.Forecasters are watching possible storms closely because even small amounts of rain on saturated ground can lead to further flooding. The Weather Service said storms would pose a particular risk to the flood-prone Hill Country and I-35 corridor, including the Austin and San Antonio metro areas. “It is important to stay vigilant,” its forecasters said.Other areas hit hard in recent days, including Travis County, Burnet County and Williamson County, where floodwaters claimed lives, faced a higher, though still modest, chance of additional storms.“They’ll have a 30 percent chance today,” Mr. Runyen said. “They’ll be a little bit more widely scattered there in coverage, and mainly later in the afternoon.”He said other parts of Central Texas, including Kendall County and Tom Green County had a 20 percent chance of rain on Tuesday.No flood watches were active across Texas on Tuesday and Mr. Runyen said there were no plans to issue any on Wednesday either.Localized concerns remained, however, with a flood warning in effect in San Saba County, northwest of Austin. The Weather Service said it expects the San Saba River to begin rising above 24 feet, the flood stage, on Tuesday afternoon, peaking on Wednesday morning.Conditions are expected to become drier from midweek.“We’re expecting drier and slightly warmer conditions Thursday, Friday and Saturday.” Mr. Runyen said.July 8, 2025, 7:44 a.m. ETA helicopter heading upstream over the Guadelupe River in Texas. Private drones operating in restricted airspace can interfere with aircraft involved in search efforts.Credit...Carter Johnston for The New York TimesPrivate drones have been interfering with already challenging search efforts after the deadly July 4 floods, officials in Texas said.On Monday, a helicopter involved in search efforts in Kerr County was forced to make an emergency landing after crashing into a private drone in restricted airspace, county officials said, in what they called an “entirely preventable” incident.“Please ground your drones,” the county posted in an update, saying that an important piece of equipment was out of service until further notice.Members of the public and the media have been told not to fly drones over the disaster zone in Kerr County, one of the worst-hit areas, until search efforts are complete.The Federal Aviation Administration issued a restriction meant to clear the air for rescue aircraft.As of early Tuesday, an order active through July 13 around a swath of the Guadalupe River prohibited pilots from operating aircraft lower than 2,500 feet unless they are part of the formal relief effort.After the helicopter’s forced landing, multiple drones were still flying over the area in violation of the restriction, according to the county. “This dangerous situation was made worse by the presence of these illegally operated drones,” the county said.“When you fly a drone in restricted areas, you’re not just breaking the law — you’re putting first responders, emergency crews, and the public at serious risk,” the county said.The Federal Aviation Administration often imposes flight restrictions over disaster areas, including over wildfires.In January, a private drone collided with a firefighting plane flying over the Palisades fire in Los Angeles. And last fall, firefighters were forced to ground firefighting planes multiple times as they battled the Line fire in Southern California.