July 6 (UPI) -- Texas Gov. Greg Abbott visited the all-girls retreat Camp Mystic late Saturday as the death toll from Friday's flash flooding of the Guadalupe River continued to rise through the weekend.
A statement from the Kerr County (Texas) Sheriff's Department, issued Sunday, says that "there are over 400 first responders from more than 20 agencies at work in Kerr County. We have more than a dozen K-9 units working in and near the river. More than 100 air, water, and ground vehicles are in the field right now, working on search and rescue.
"As of 9 a.m. (Sunday), we have recovered 59 deceased in Kerr County. Among the those who are deceased, we have 38 adults and 21 children. Eighteen adults pending identification, and 4 children also pending identification. At present, there are 11 Camp Mystic campers unaccounted for, along with one counselor."
Abbott visited Saturday, and posted about it.
"Today I visited Camp Mystic. It, and the river running beside it, were horrendously ravaged in ways unlike I've seen in any natural disaster," Abbott said Saturday on social media. "The height the rushing water reached to the top of cabins was shocking. We won't stop until we find every girl who was in those cabins."
It remains unclear precisely how many people total are missing, beyond the girls from the camp, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told NBC on Sunday. He said there were "thousands" of people who were camping in tents, trailers or small houses on the banks of the river. More than 800 people have been rescued.
The National Weather Service said in an update Sunday morning that "much of the flood-ravaged region of central Texas should expect a lessening threat of widespread torrential rainfall." But the weather service warned that isolated and scattered thunderstorms could continue to cause flooding given that the ground is already saturated.
"By this evening, these thunderstorms are expected to taper off for a more quiet night tonight into Monday morning," the NWS said in its update. "Monday should see some more isolated to scattered thunderstorms to pop during the heat of the day across central Texas and into Oklahoma before tapering off during Monday evening."
The Lower Colorado River Authority has issued a notice strongly encouraging people to stay off Lake Travis, Lake Lyndon B. Johnson and Lake Marble Falls in the Texas hill country for the next few days because of the flooding.
Since the flooding began, the administration of President Donald Trump and its Department of Governmental Efficiency have received increased scrutiny from the public for cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Tom Fahy, the legislative director for the National Weather Service Employees Organization union, told The New York Times that the vacancy rate for positions at the NWS local offices in nearby San Antonio and San Angelo were double what they were when Trump took office. Those vacancies included the April 30 departure of a warning coordination meteorologist.
John Morales, a meteorologist and former NWS forecaster, said on social media that he hasn't seen any evidence that cuts to the NOAA have caused "any degradation" in the anticipatory weather warnings ahead of the Texas flooding.
"Those local officials blaming NWS are wrong! But the cuts will eventually bite us with unneeded loss of life," Morales said.
Morales noted that the NWS office in the city of Del Rio is among the locations where balloon launches "haven't skipped a beat" because they are automated and played a crucial role in warning of the flooding.
