Sixty-eight of the fatalities, including 28 children, occurred in Kerr County, where a riverside Christian girls’ camp was deluged. Ten girls and a counsellor from Camp Mystic are still missing.

Officials say the death toll is certain to rise. More storms are expected in the next 24-48 hours in the region, which could hamper rescue teams who are already facing venomous snakes as they sift through mud and debris.

Three days after the inundation, one of the largest search-and-rescue efforts in recent Texas history was shifting towards a recovery operation.

Of those recovered in Kerr County, 18 adults and 10 children have yet to be formally identified.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Sunday that authorities would “stop at nothing” to ensure every missing person is found.

“It was nothing short of horrific to see what those young children went through,” said Abbott, a day after he toured the area.

A major focus of the search has been Camp Mystic, a popular summer camp for girls perched on the banks of the Guadalupe River, which suffered significant damage.

The catastrophe unfolded before daybreak on Friday as the river rose 26ft (8m) in the span of just 45 minutes while most campers were asleep.

Several young campers and the camp’s longtime director, Richard “Dick” Eastland, are among the dead.

Greg Froelick, a former Navy Seal and volunteer with the rescue group 300 Justice, is helping the effort to find survivors.

Speaking to the BBC, he said he had heard of victims being found up to eight miles downriver from where Camp Mystic once stood.

He said he has seen “clothing and items from the camp dressers scattered everywhere, up and down the river”.

There is also uncertainty about how many other people were camping in the area for the Fourth of July weekend, and how many may have been swept away in the floods.

A two-lane highway that skirts the Guadalupe River and connects the city of Kerrville to Camp Mystic is a scene of devastation.

Ravaged homes are surrounded by fallen trees and furniture on lawns. Fences are toppled and utility lines are down in some areas.

President Donald Trump signed a major disaster declaration on Sunday for Kerr County, activating the Federal Emergency Management Agency to Texas. He also said he would probably visit the state on Friday.

“We’re working very closely with representatives from Texas, and it’s a horrible thing that took place, absolutely horrible,” Trump said on Sunday in New Jersey.

On the ground, local residents are stepping up to support relief efforts – collecting supplies, offering shelter, and doing what they can to help neighbours displaced by the storm.

Alma Garcia drove in from the city of San Antonio to deliver home-cooked meals to residents and volunteers helping with the clean-up effort.

The BBC saw her pull over on the side of the road and take off a top layer T-shirt to give to a resident.

“She was all wet, I told her she’s going to need it,” Ms Garcia told the BBC.

Local resident Perla started collecting clothes and shoes on Friday after she finished her shift at Walmart. She dropped them off at a shelter the next morning.

“I’ve never seen something like this before,” she told the BBC.

Meanwhile, well wishes poured in from around the world.

In Rome, Pope Leo XIV offered special prayers on Sunday for the bereaved in Texas.

“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,” the pontiff said.

“We pray for them.”

Angélica Casas and Alex Lederman contributed to this report

Source: BBC

35-year-old Heather Schwab was reported missing by her mother in June.

She told police that she had not seen her daughter for about a year. 

An arrest warrant affidavit said that Schwab’s mother told police her daughter was living with her boyfriend and that he had allegedly been abusive to her.

Months later, on Nov. 3, Schwab’s mother told police that the boyfriend, 42-year-old Chad Stevens, had allegedly said sarcastically that he had killed the woman in a conversation to his daughter, who told his ex-wife.

A detective spoke to one of the man’s ex-girlfriends, who told them he had allegedly assaulted her when she threatened to leave him in January.

On the basis of her accusation, police obtained a search warrant for his home in McKinney.

When they searched Stevens’ home, police discovered a refrigerator wrapped in a “copious” amount of plastic wrap with the remains of a small-statured human being.

They said the refrigerator was found inside a kitchen the sole entrance of which was suspiciously obscured by sheetrock from the rest of the home.

The Collin County Medical Examiner’s Office later identified the remains as belonging to Heather Schwab.

Stevens was arrested and charged with tampering with evidence and assault to a family member causing injury, but police said other charges are being considered pending the outcome of the autopsy.

He was booked at the Collin County Detention Facility with a bond set at $150,000.

According to investigators, Stevens allegedly told police that Schwab had died in July 2022 after slipping in the shower and hitting her head.

He allegedly claimed that, he hid her body in the refrigerator because he didn’t know what to do.

His neighbours said in interviews that Stevens had told them Schwab had died of cancer.

The Collin County Sheriff’s Office indicated that Stevens had been arrested 24 times just in that county for charges that included theft, DWI, assault, and engaging in criminal activity.

Holly Marie vanished alongside her parents Harold Dean Clouse and Tina Clouse shortly after they had moved from Florida to Texas.

The bodies of Holly Marie’s parents were identified in October 2021, having been found in Texas in 1981.

However, there was no sign of baby Holly until recently when she was found living in Oklahoma and positively identified.

The family that raised Holly are not being treated as suspects in the case of her parents’ murders.

Harold Dean’s mother Donna Casasanta has spent the last four decades seeking answers, according to the Houston Chronicle, and was delighted to receive a phone call confirming that Holly had been found this week.

“Finding Holly is a birthday present from heaven since we found her on Junior’s birthday,” Casasanta said in a statement released by a family spokeswoman to the Houston Chronicle.

“I prayed for more than 40 years for answers and the Lord has revealed some of it.”

Casasanta regularly received letters from her son after he relocated to Texas, before they stopped abruptly in October 1980.

Several months later she received an anonymous call from someone who said she had found the family’s car in California, with three women clad in white robes driving it all the was back to Donna in Florida.

One of the women, who referred to herself as ‘Sister Susan’, told Donna that her son had become a member of a cult, given up his possessions and would be cutting all ties with his past – including his family.

“That was weird,” Donna told the Chronicle. “We really got frightened, and we started searching and searching.”

In January 1981, a German Shepherd found the remains of a human arm, prompting a police search of an area in Harris County, Texas.

Two bodies were found a week later but it was only 40 years later, with improvements in technology and DNA databases, that they were identified as the Clouses.

Dean Harold had been beaten to death and Tina had been strangled; both had been dead for some time when they were discovered.

The Texas Attorney General’s Office took control of the case once the Clouse’s remains were identified, and at a press conference revealed that baby Holly had been dropped off at a church in Arizona by two white robe-clad women, who claimed to be part of a nomadic religious group.

“The Linn and Clouse families have been searching for answers concerning the welfare of the Clouses and their daughter, Holly since they were last heard from in 1980,” said a statement from the Texas Attorney General’s Office, reported the Houston Chronicle.

“Baby Holly has been located alive and well and is now 42 years of age. Holly has been notified of the identities of her biological parents and has been in contact with her extended biological family and they hope to meet in person soon.”

“Finding Holly is a birthday present from heaven since we found her on Junior’s [Dean Clouse’s] birthday,” Donna said through a family spokesperson.

“I prayed for more than 40 years for answers and the Lord has revealed some of it.”

Aimee ‘Jacqueline’ Ayala, 22, from El Paso, Texas, in the US, contracted the virus a month before she reached full term and was forced to give birth via emergency C-section just six days later on November 13.

Although doctors safely delivered baby Addison Mariand Morales, Jacqueline’s condition continued to decline and on November 30 she passed away.

The excited expecting mum looked a picture of health and happiness as she posed for several photos shown on her Facebook baring her baby bump or holding up garments for the new arrival.

But after testing positive for Covid-19 on November 13 Jacqueline was hospitalised and only got a brief look at her daughter before her health took a turn for the worst.

The new mum posted online about her “depression and despair” of being kept from her baby before she had to be intubated in a last ditch effort to help her breathe.

Two days later she died.

She has left behind her new daughter and partner, Juan Pablo Morales Orozco.

Her sister, Kimberly Ayala told KTSM: “As weeks went by she just got worse and then she went into cardiac respiratory arrest. She could breathe her heart stopped.”

“Knowing she never got to hold her, that was the worst part. She loved her so much we know she did because she gave her life for her,” said Kimberly.

At one point Jacqueline died for 15 minutes and though she was resuscitated, she was pronounced brain dead and officially died on November 30.