9 Jul 2025

Searchers in helicopters and on horseback comb Texas flood debris for missing people

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By NADIA LATHAN and JOHN SEEWER, Associated Press

HUNT, Texas (AP) — Crews used backhoes and their bare hands Wednesday to dig through piles of debris that stretched for miles in the search for more than 160 people believed to be missing in the flash floods that laid waste to state’s Hill Country.

Over 100 bodies have been recovered, but the large number of missing suggested that the full extent of the catastrophe was still unclear five days after the disaster.

“We will not stop until every missing person is accounted for,” Gov. Greg Abbott told a news conference Tuesday. “Know this also: There very likely could be more added to that list.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott speaks during a press conference on Tuesday, July 8, 2025, after touring damage from flash flooding in Hunt, Texas. (AP Photo/Eli Hartman)

Officials have been seeking more information about those who were in the popular tourist destination during the Fourth of July holiday weekend but did not register at a camp or a hotel and may have been in the area without many people knowing, the governor said.

The riverbanks and hills of Kerr County along the Guadalupe River, where most of the flood victims have been recovered so far, are filled with vacation cabins, youth camps and campgrounds, including Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 campers and counselors died. Officials said five campers and one counselor have still not been found.

Crews in air boats and helicopters and on horseback combed the terrain. They also used excavators and their hands, going through the earth layer by layer, with search dogs sniffing for any sign of buried bodies.

They were joined by hundreds of volunteers in one of the largest search operations in Texas history. The search has been slow, made more difficult by ongoing storms and dense layers of tangled trees and rubble.

The flash flood was the deadliest from inland flooding in the U.S. since Colorado’s Big Thompson Canyon flood on July 31, 1976, killed 144 people, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist with Yale Climate Connections. That flood surged through a narrow canyon packed with people on a holiday weekend marking Colorado’s centennial.

Public officials in charge of locating victims in Texas faced intensifying questions Tuesday about who was in charge of monitoring the weather and warning that floodwaters were barreling toward camps and homes.

Abbott said President Donald Trump has pledged to provide whatever relief Texas needs to recover. Trump plans to visit the state Friday.

Polls taken before the Texas floods show Americans largely believe the federal government should play a major role in preparing for and responding to natural disasters.

Elsewhere, a deluge in New Mexico triggered flash floods that killed three people Tuesday.

Scenes of devastation at Camp Mystic

Outside the cabins at Camp Mystic where the girls had slept, mud-splattered blankets and pillows were scattered on a grassy hill that slopes toward the river. Also in the debris were pink, purple and blue luggage decorated with stickers.

Camper’s belongings sit outside one of Camp Mystic’s cabins near the Guadalupe River, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Hunt, Texas, after a flash flood swept through the area. (AP Photo/Eli Hartman)

Among those who died at the camp were a second grader who loved pink sparkles and bows, a 19-year-old counselor who enjoyed mentoring young girls and the camp’s 75-year-old director.

The flash floods erupted before daybreak Friday after massive rains sent water speeding down hills into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet (8 meters) in less than an hour. Some campers had to swim out of cabin windows to safety while others held onto a rope as they made their way to higher ground.

Just two days before the flooding, Texas inspectors signed off on the camp’s emergency planning. But five years of inspection reports released to The Associated Press did not provide any details about how campers would be evacuated or the specific duties assigned to each staff member and counselor.

Although it’s difficult to attribute a single weather event to climate change, experts say a warming atmosphere and oceans make catastrophic storms more likely.

Where were the warnings?

Questions mounted about what, if any, actions local officials took to warn campers and residents who were in the scenic area long known to locals as “flash flood alley.”

Lost items sit at a bridge as a volunteer cleans up debris on Tuesday, July 8, 2025, after a flash flood swept through the area in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

Leaders in Kerr county, where searchers have found about 90 bodies, said their first priority is recovering victims, not reviewing what happened in the moments before the flash floods.

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s chief elected official, said the county does not have a warning system.

Generations of families in the Hill Country have known the dangers. A 1987 flood forced the evacuation of a youth camp in the town of Comfort and swamped buses and vans. Ten teenagers were killed.

Local leaders have talked for years about the need for a warning system. Kerr County sought a nearly $1 million grant eight years ago for such a system, but the request was turned down by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Local residents balked at footing the bill themselves, Kelly said.

Recovery and cleanup efforts go on

The bodies of 30 children were among those that have been recovered in the county, which is home to Camp Mystic and several other summer camps, the sheriff said.

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The devastation spread across several hundred miles in central Texas all the way to just outside the capital of Austin.

Aidan Duncan escaped just in time after hearing the muffled blare of a megaphone urging residents to evacuate Riverside RV Park in the Hill Country town of Ingram.

All his belongings — a mattress, sports cards, his pet parakeet’s bird cage — now sit caked in mud in front of his home.

“What’s going on right now, it hurts,” the 17-year-old said. “I literally cried so hard.”

Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Joshua A. Bickel in Kerrville, Texas, Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.

9 Jul 2025

‘Disasters Are a Human Choice’: Texas Counties Have Little Power to Stop Building in Flood-Prone Areas

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Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune. The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

Camp Mystic, the private summer camp that now symbolizes the deadly Central Texas floods, sat on a tract of land known to be at high risk for a devastating flood.

Nearly 1.3 million Texas homes are similarly situated in parts of the state susceptible to dangerous floodwaters, according to a state estimate. A quarter of the state’s land carries some degree of severe flood risk, leaving an estimated 5 million Texans in possible jeopardy.

Yet, local governments—especially counties—have limited policy tools to regulate building in areas most prone to flooding. The state’s explosive growth, a yearning for inexpensive land, and a state far behind in planning for extreme weather compound the problem, experts said.

While cities can largely decide what is built within their limits, counties have no jurisdiction to implement comprehensive building codes or zoning that could limit people from living close to the water’s edge.

Camp Mystic and many of the other camps along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, where the disaster’s wreckage has been concentrated, were far outside city limits and any regulatory authority of the Kerrville City Council.

Some guardrails exist when it comes to building on flood plains. For property owners in flood-prone areas to tap federal flood insurance, localities have to enact minimum building standards set by the federal government. And counties can use a limited supply of federal dollars to relocate residents out of flood zones. However, those programs have had mixed success. Other programs to fortify infrastructure are tied to federally required hazard mitigation plans, which most rural counties in Texas do not have on file.

Keeping people out of the state’s major flood zones altogether is unrealistic if not impossible, experts in flood plain management and infrastructure said.

For one, it’s human nature to want to be near water—whether it’s to live or vacation there.

“Everybody is drawn to water,” said Christopher Steubing, who heads the Texas Floodplain Management Association. “It becomes challenging when you’re telling people what they can and cannot do with their property. It’s a delicate balance, especially in Texas.”

Families have flocked to Texas from more expensive parts of the country in search of a lower cost of living, moving to places more vulnerable to severe weather events like flooding and wildfires intensified by climate change, research shows.

The state’s population has mushroomed over the last decade, spurring a building frenzy in cities and unincorporated areas alike. The state’s total population has grown by more than 7 percent since 2020. Meanwhile, the Hill Country, which includes Kerr County, has grown by about 9 percent.

Kerr County has seen relatively little population growth in the last few years, said Lloyd Potter, the state’s demographer. But other parts of the Hill Country, including neighboring Gillespie County, have seen relatively steady population growth.

“It is a desirable area for retirees,” Potter said. “It’s beautiful, and it’s reasonably close to urbanized areas, so I think that (growth is) likely to continue.”

Some people don’t have a choice but to live in flood-prone areas, where land is typically cheaper. Often, cities and towns only allow cheaper housing like mobile and manufactured homes to go in places that carry a higher risk of flooding, said Andrew Rumbach, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute who studies climate risk. When a weather disaster destroys a mobile home park, often it gets rebuilt right where it was, Rumback said.

“The only place you can build it is right back in the flood plain,” Rumbach said.

Determining what can be built on flood plains is largely left to local officials, who may feel uneasy about limiting what property owners do with their land—especially in a state like Texas, known for prioritizing personal liberty—for fear that doing so will harm the local economy or lead to retribution against them at the ballot box, experts said. Often, the aim is not to stop people from building there altogether, but to create standards that make doing so less risky. Even when places adopt new rules, development that predates those rules is often grandfathered in.

How strictly local officials regulate development in flood plains comes down to political will, said Robert Paterson, an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Architecture.

“Fundamentally, disasters are a human choice,” said Paterson, who specializes in land use and environmental planning. “We can choose to develop in relation to high risk, or we can choose not to. We can stay out of harm’s way.”

Texas adopted its first statewide flood plan last year. As more people move outside of the state’s major urban areas, cities, towns and counties have increasingly adopted flood plain management rules for the first time or enacted stricter ones, Steubing said.

“You have counties that are catching up and adopting standards, but the growth can happen a lot faster than we can get ordinances adopted,” Steubing said.

Even so, localities aren’t tackling development in flood zones quickly enough to keep up with the pace of massive weather disasters, Rumbach said, and states can’t afford to wait for every city and county to adopt stricter standards. State lawmakers, currently weighing what measures to take in the flooding’s aftermath, should consider ways to give cities and counties better tools to manage flood plain development, he said.

“States are the right level of government to do this because they’re close enough to their communities to understand what is needed in different parts of the state and to have regulations that make sense,” Rumbach said. “But they’re far enough away from local governments that we can’t have this race to the bottom where some places are just the Wild West, and they’re able to build whatever they want while others are trying to be responsible stewards of safety and lower property damage.”

There is evidence that some Texas cities are taking flood plain management seriously. Most parts of Texas saw relatively little development on flood plains during the first two decades of this century, according to a study published last year by climate researchers at the University of Miami and other institutions. But parts of the Hill Country like Kerr, Bandera, Burnet and Llano counties saw more flood plain development than other parts of the state, researchers found.

As the Hill Country population grows, people are increasingly finding themselves in harm’s way, said Avantika Gori, an assistant professor of civil and environmental at Rice University and flood expert. Local and state officials can make different decisions on how to develop around flood plains, she said.

“We can’t prevent extreme rainfall from happening, but we can choose where to develop, where to live, where to put ourselves,” Gori said.

The Hill Country, particularly the areas farther from the Interstate 35 corridor, is less developed. There could be a temptation to build more as part of the recovery.

Following the 2015 Wimberley flood, developers pressured regulators to allow for more building in the flood plain as the area’s population continued to grow, said Robert Mace, executive director and chief water policy officer of the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University.

“My advice is, a river is beautiful, but as we’ve all seen, it can be a raging, horrific beast, and it needs to be treated with respect,” Mace said. “Part of that respect comes from making careful decisions about where we build.”

A confluence of factors lead to structures being built on the flood plain, said Jim Blackburn, a professor of environmental law in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Rice University.

Lax regulations with loopholes that allow existing structures to remain on flood plains, out-of-date flood maps that do not show the true risks posed to residents and economic incentives for developers to build on seemingly attractive land near the water all encourage the development to continue, Blackburn said.

“I get it,” Blackburn said. “People want to be by the river. It’s private property, and we don’t like to tell people what to do with their private property, but there comes a point where we have to say we’ve had enough.”

The federal regulation of development on flood plains is largely done through the National Flood Insurance Program, which subsidizes flood insurance in exchange for implementing flood plain management standards. Under federal law, buildings on a flood plain must be elevated above the anticipated water level during a 100-year storm, or a storm with a 1 percent chance of occurring in any given year. Local governments must implement the program and map flood plains. Local officials may impose additional building restrictions for building in these areas, such as the requirement in Houston that all new structures be elevated two feet above the 500-year flood elevation.

Kerrville last updated its rules overseeing flood plain development in 2011, according to the city’s website. A city spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment.

Texas historically has been unfriendly to federal environmental regulation, which is viewed as excessive red tape that gets in the way of economic progress, Blackburn said.

That has led to the state being decades behind the curve in reacting to more frequent and intense rainstorms fueled by a warming climate. As temperatures on average go up, more water on the Earth’s surface is evaporated into the atmosphere, and the warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture. That extra moisture in the atmosphere creates more intense and frequent storms, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

Additional development can also leave flood maps even further out of date as more impermeable surfaces replace natural flood-fighting vegetation, Sharif said.

A 2018 study authored by Hatim Sharif, a civil and environmental engineering professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio and other UTSA researchers found that the 2015 Wimberley flood was worsened by new construction removing natural barriers to flooding, although natural causes were the primary drivers of the flood.

Experts said that the flooding in the less-developed Kerr County was likely not worsened in a significant way by development. Sharif did encourage the state to fund a study similar to the one he conducted on the Wimberley flood to allow regulators and residents to better understand how exactly Friday’s flood occurred.

Sharif also argued in favor of further investments in “impact-based forecasting.” That area of study combines regular forecasting with on-the-ground information about what the impact of that forecast will be and who is in harm’s way to provide clearer warnings to residents, or, in Sharif’s words, “What do 7 inches of rain mean for me as a person staying in a camp near the river?”

Many of the flood plain maps throughout the state are out of date, given the reality of more frequent and intense storms and continuing development, Blackburn said, and local officials face political pressures not to restrict new development with tougher building codes.

In 2011, the city of Clear Lake installed, then removed signs warning that a hurricane storm surge could reach as high as 20 feet in the city after concerns were raised that the signs were impacting property values.

“I think that tells us a lot,” Blackburn said. “We’re more worried about home sales than the safety of the people buying the homes.”

The post ‘Disasters Are a Human Choice’: Texas Counties Have Little Power to Stop Building in Flood-Prone Areas appeared first on The Texas Observer.

9 Jul 2025

Stocks open higher on Wall Street as trade talks press ahead

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By ALEX VEIGA, Associated Press Business Writer

U.S. stocks rose in early trading Wednesday as Wall Street weighed the latest developments in the Trump administration’s bid to win more deals with global trading partners.

The S&P 500 was up 0.7%, a solid start after posting a slight loss a day earlier. The benchmark index remains near the record it set last week after a better-than-expected U.S. jobs report.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 224 points, or 0.5%, as of 10:01 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.1% higher.

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Bond yields were mostly lower. The yield on the 10-year Treasury was at 4.38%, down from 4.40% late Tuesday.

Gains in technology stocks helped drive the market higher, outweighing declines in energy and other sectors.

Nvidia rose 2.5% and Microsoft added 1.6%.

Wall Street has been focused this week on President Donald Trump’s renewed push to use threats of higher tariffs on goods imported into the U.S. in hopes of securing new trade agreements with countries around the globe.

Wednesday was initially set as a deadline by Trump for countries to make deals with the U.S. or face heavy increases in tariffs. But with just two trade deals announced since April — one with the United Kingdom and one with Vietnam — the window for negotiations has been extended to Aug. 1.

The extension has calmed Wall Street for the time being, unlike the tariff rollouts of the spring, which sent markets swinging wildly from day-to-day for weeks.

Still, this latest phase in the White House’s trade war heightens the threat of potentially more severe tariffs that’s been hanging over the global economy. Higher taxes on imported goods could hinder economic growth, if not increase recession risks.

On Tuesday, Trump said he would be announcing tariffs on pharmaceutical drugs at a “very, very high rate, like 200%.” He also said he would sign an executive order placing a 50% tariff on copper imports, matching the rates charged on steel and aluminum.

Copper prices eased Wednesday after spiking a day earlier. Shares in mining company Freeport-McMoRan were down 0.7%.

Outside of trade talks, some corporate news surfaced after a typically quiet early summer stretch.

Pharmaceutical giant Merck is buying Verona Pharma, a U.K. company that focuses on respiratory diseases, in an approximately $10 billion deal. If approved by Verona shareholders and U.K. officials, Merck will get access to Verona’s chronic obstructive pulmonary disease medication Ohtuvayre. Verona shares jumped more than 20% on the news, while Merck shares were up 2.1%.

Delta Air Lines kicks off earnings season on Thursday, with most analysts expecting the airline’s second-quarter profit to decline from a year ago. Delta and other major U.S. carriers have trimmed their flight schedules and pulled their forecasts this year as consumers pull back on travel and other nonessential spending due to uncertainty about how Trump’s tariffs will affect their budgets.

Later Wednesday, the Federal Reserve will release the minutes from its June policy meeting, when it left its benchmark rate alone for the fourth straight time, also due to uncertainty over how tariffs will impact the labor market and broader economy.

In overseas markets, stock indexes were broadly higher in Europe after a mixed finish in Asia.

U.S. benchmark crude was down 0.7%, while Brent crude, the international standard, was off 0.6%.

9 Jul 2025

Ramsey County law enforcement team seizes nearly 900 pounds of meth in Minneapolis

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The Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office Violent Crime Enforcement Team and federal agents seized nearly 900 pounds of meth in Minneapolis this week.

St. Paul police, which has officers on the team, and the sheriff’s office said it may have been the largest drug bust in the state’s history.

The Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office Violent Crime Enforcement Team and federal agents seized nearly 900 pounds of meth in Minneapolis on July 7, 2025. (Courtesy of the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office)

If sold by the pound, the value of the meth is estimated at $1.7 million, according to criminal complaints filed against two men Tuesday by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office.

Law enforcement found a document in a vehicle they searched that noted dates, vehicles and dollar amounts — a suspected “drug ledger,” said the criminal complaints. The case is “associated with larger drug sale organizations in Mexico,” the complaints also said.

The enforcement targeted drug trafficking rings, Dan Bongino, the FBI’s deputy director, wrote on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday. “We’re finding them and crushing their operations,” he wrote and thanked  Drug Enforcement Administration “partners for their coordination.”

Prosecutors gave the following information in the complaints:

An undercover officer bought one pound of methamphetamine in South Minneapolis from a man identified as Guillermo Mercado Chaparro, 44, of Chicago. Afterward, officers watched as he drove a Tacoma truck around South Minneapolis and made other suspected drug deals.

About 10:30 a.m. Monday, officers saw Chaparro walk to the Tacoma, which was parked on a South Minneapolis street. He then put two large bags inside a Jeep near the truck. Another man, identified as Joel Casas-Santiago, got in the Jeep.

Guillermo Mercado Chaparro (Courtesy of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office)

Both vehicles left the area and officers conducted surveillance on them. The Tacoma was located in South Minneapolis and the Jeep at 31st Street and Cedar Avenue in Minneapolis. Both Chaparro and Casas-Santiago, 46, of Minneapolis, were found in the Jeep.

“After a drug detection dog provided a positive alert to the odor of controlled substances, the Jeep was searched,” the complaints said. Officers found 251 pounds of meth inside.

Chaparro had the keys to the Tacoma and officers returned to it. A drug detection dog also “alerted,” officers obtained a warrant for the Tacoma and located about 638 pounds of meth inside. The ledger was found in the Tacoma.

After law enforcement arrested the men, Chaparro told them he was involved in drug trafficking, according to the complaints. The complaint against Casas-Santiago doesn’t say whether he gave a statement to police.

Joel Casas-Santiago (Courtesy of the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office)

Chaparro is charged with two counts of first-degree drug sale and Casas-Santiago with one count.

Both men are being held in the Hennepin County jail and are due to make their first court appearances today.

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