Dallas (AP) -Texas officials worked to take into account more than 160 people originally missing along the Guadalupe River after the deadly fourth floods of July before they finally concluded that most were safe and only three people were still not found, the top manager said in the most difficult struck district on Monday.
“Most of them were tourists who entered and left and returned and did not report that they were there,” said Judge Rob Kelly Kelly during a special meeting of the County Commissioner Court. He called the process a 'Herculean effort'.
The flashy floods killed at least 135 people in Texas, and most dead were in Kerr County, where destructive, fast-moving water rose 26 feet (8 meters) on the Guadalupe river, buildings and vehicles in the area in the area of about 60 kilometers (100 kilometers) northwestern San Antonio.
The sharp overhaul in the number of missing by Kerr County officials On Saturday, a well-known pattern followed in the often chaotic aftermath of large-scale disasters. Hundreds of people were missing in the first days after the floods via a telephone hotline and e -mail address, which launched researchers about an “exhausting effort” to verify the status of each of those people, Jonathan Lamb said the police spokesperson for Kerrville, said Kerrville's police.
“We understand how critical it is to accurately report this information – not only for the affected families, but also for the integrity of our emergency aid as a whole,” Lamb said.
Sharp swings follow disasters
Drastic changes in the missing count after a disaster are not unusual.
For example, the number of deaths from the Maui Fire from 2023 turned out to be slightly more than 100 – far below 1,100 initially feared missing.
In 2017, a natural fire in the wine country of North California killed more than 20 people, but most of the 100 people initially reported as missing, were safe.
The nature fire of 2018 that the Californian city of Paradise largely destroyed, in the end, almost 100 people kill, although Butte County researchers at one point had the names of more than 3,000 people who were not justified in the early days of the disaster. The names were knocked down when the list was published in the local newspaper, and many people realized for the first time that civil servants were looking for them.
Tourists and campers reported missing
Hill Country from Texas is a popular tourist destination, where campers are looking for places along the Guadalupe River in the middle of the rolling landscapes.
Holiday cabins, camper parks and youth campsites fill the river banks and hills of Kerr County, including Camp Mystic, a centuries -old Christian summer camp for girls where at least 27 campers and counselors died in the floods.
The flood was much more serious than the 100-year event presented by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, experts said, and it moved so quickly in the middle of the night that many people were overdressed in Kerr County, which missed a warning system.
Tracing the missing
During a press conference of 14 July, the government of Texas Greg Abbott had lowered the number of staggered in the state to around 100 and suggested that it was difficult to secure that number. In the days after the floods, civil servants had brought the number of missing to around 170 all over the state, where all except 10 only came from Kerr County.
Campers, residents or people who have registered with RV parks or hotels are easier to explain, Abbott said. Others may be missing by a friend, family member or colleague.
In Travis County, including Austin, at least 10 people killed the floods. The Sheriff office has said that one person remains on their missing list, but can be removed if they can verify the person's observations.
Kristen Dark, a spokesperson for the Sheriff office, said that researchers are working on the missing person and the deceased list “just like we would work other cases.” For example, if someone reports that he has not seen his neighbor, representatives can start reaching the employer and the neighbor's family.
“They use all kinds of different ways to see if they can discover that the person has not been seen or that the person lives and here is where they are,” she said.
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Associated Press writer Nadia Lathan in Austin contributed to this report.
