TEXAS – It has been nearly a week since flash floods devastated the Texas Hill Country over the Fourth of July weekend, killing more than 100 people.
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More than 160 individuals are still believed to be missing in the floods, now considered the deadliest inland flood in the U.S. since 1976, when Colorado’s Big Thompson Canyon flood claimed 144 lives, according to Bob Henson, a meteorologist with Yale Climate Connections.
As of Wednesday, crews continue to sift through miles of debris along the Guadalupe River in the search for the missing.
Hill Country is a popular tourist destination, surrounded by vacation cabins, youth camps, and campgrounds, including Camp Mystic, a century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 campers and counselors lost their lives. Officials reported that five campers and one counselor remain missing.
Although not all camps were in session when the storm struck on Friday, more than 10 camps near the Guadalupe River sustained damage from the flood.
While the flood was considered a 1-in-100-year event, meaning it has about a 1% chance of occurring in any given year, extreme flooding is happening more frequently as global warming increases moisture capacity in the atmosphere.
With summer still ahead and many camps located in rural areas like Hill Country, KPRC 2 aims to address questions parents may have about sending their children to summer camps this season.