TEXAS – As nearly 60 people have been confirmed dead and 11 still missing after the floods in Central Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott vowed that authorities would work around the clock searching for the missing campers. He added that new areas were being searched as the water receded.
He declared Sunday a day of prayer for the state.
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“I urge every Texan to join me in prayer this Sunday — for the lives lost, for those still missing, for the recovery of our communities, and for the safety of those on the front lines,” he said in a statement.
In Rome, Pope Leo XIV offered special prayers for those touched by the disaster. History’s first American pope spoke in English at the end of his Sunday noon blessing, “I would like to express sincere condolences to all the families who have lost loved ones, in particular their daughters who were in summer camp, in the disaster caused by the flooding of the Guadalupe River in Texas in the United States. We pray for them.”
The hills along the Guadalupe River are dotted with century-old youth camps and campgrounds where generations of families have come to swim and enjoy the outdoors. The area is especially popular around the Independence Day holiday, making it more difficult to know how many are missing.
“We don’t even want to begin to estimate at this time,” Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said on Saturday.
The Associated Press Contributed to this report.