24 dead in Texas floods and more than 20 children missing from a girls summer camp

KERRVILLE, Texas (AP) — Months worth of heavy rain fell in a matter of hours on Texas Hill Country, leaving 24 people dead and many more unaccounted for Friday, including more than 20 girls attending a summer camp, as search teams conducted boat and helicopter rescues in fast-moving floodwaters.

Desperate pleas peppered social media as loved ones sought any information about people caught in the flood zone. At least 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain poured down overnight in central Kerr County, causing flash flooding of the Guadalupe River.

At a news conference late Friday Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said 24 people had been killed. Authorities said 237 people had been recued so far, including 167 by helicopter.

The missing children were attending Camp Mystic, a Christian camp along the Guadalupe River in the small town of Hunt. Elinor Lester, 13, said she and her cabin mates had to be helicoptered to safety.

A raging storm woke up her cabin around 1:30 a.m., and when rescuers arrived, Lester said they tied a rope for the girls to hold as the children in her cabin walked across bridge with floodwaters whipping around the calves and knees.

“The camp was completely destroyed,” she said. “A helicopter landed and started taking people away. It was really scary.”

The situation was still developing and officials said the death toll could change, with rescue operations ongoing for an unspecified total number of missing.

Authorities were still working to identify the dead.

A river gauge at Hunt recorded a 22 foot rise (6.7 meters) in about two hours, according to Bob Fogarty, meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Austin/San Antonio office. The gauge failed after recording a level of 29 and a half feet (9 meters).

“The water’s moving so fast, you’re not going to recognize how bad it is until it’s on top of you,” Fogarty said.

On the Kerr County sheriff's office Facebook page, people posted pictures of loved ones and begged for help finding them.

At least 400 people were on the ground helping in the response, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said. Nine rescue teams, 14 helicopters and 12 drones were being used, with some people being rescued from trees.

About 23 of the roughly 750 girls attending Camp Mystic were among those who were unaccounted for, Patrick said.

Search crews were doing “whatever we can do to find everyone we can,” he said.

In Ingram, Erin Burgess woke to thunder and rain at 3:30 a.m. Just 20 minutes later, water was pouring into her home directly across from the river, she said. She described an agonizing hour clinging to a tree and waiting for the water to recede enough so they could walk up the hill to a neighbor's home.

“My son and I floated to a tree where we hung onto it, and my boyfriend and my dog floated away. He was lost for a while, but we found them,” she said.

Of her 19-year-old son, Burgess said: “Thankfully he’s over 6 feet tall. That’s the only thing that saved me, was hanging on to him.”

Matthew Stone, 44, of Kerrville, said police came knocking on doors at 5:30 a.m. but that he had received no warning on his phone.

“We got no emergency alert. There was nothing," Stone said. Then: "a pitch black wall of death.”

Stone said police used his paddle boat to help rescue a neighbor. He and the rescuers thought they heard someone yelling “help!” from the water but couldn't see anyone, he said.

At a reunification center set up in Ingram, families cried and cheered as loved ones got off vehicles loaded with evacuees. Two soldiers carried an older woman who could not get down a ladder. Behind her, a woman in a soiled T-shirt and shorts clutched a small white dog.

Later, a girl in a white “Camp Mystic” T-shirt and white socks stood in a puddle, sobbing in her mother’s arms.

Barry Adelman, 54, said water pushed everyone in his three-story house into the attic, including his 94-year-old grandmother and 9-year-old grandson. The water started coming trough the attic floor before finally receding.

“I was horrified,” he said. “I was having to look at my grandson in the face and tell him everything was going to be OK, but inside I was scared to death.”

The forecast had called for rain, with a flood watch upgraded to a warning overnight for at least 30,000 people. But totals in some places exceeded expectations, Fogarty said.

Patrick noted that the potential for heavy rain and flooding covered a large area.

“Everything was done to give them a heads up that you could have heavy rain, and we’re not exactly sure where it’s going to land," Patrick said. "Obviously as it got dark last night, we got into the wee morning of the hours, that’s when the storm started to zero in.”

Asked about how people were notified in Kerr County so that they could get to safety, Judge Rob Kelly, the county's chief elected official, said: “We do not have a warning system.”

When reporters pushed on why more precautions weren't taken, Kelly responded: “Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming.”

“We have floods all the time," he added. "This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States.”

The area is known as “flash flood alley” because of the hills’ thin layer of soil, said Austin Dickson, CEO of the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country, which was collecting donations to help nonprofits responding to the disaster.

“When it rains, water doesn’t soak into the soil,” Dickson said. “It rushes down the hill.”

River tourism industry is a key part of the Hill Country economy, said Dickson. Well-known, century-old summer camps bring in kids from all over the country, he said. Between Hunt and Ingram are many river homes and cabins for rent.

“It’s generally a very tranquil river with really beautiful clear blue water that people have been attracted to for generations,” Dickson said.

This story has been updated to correct that Patrick is the lieutenant governor.

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Fingerhut reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Associated Press reporters Adrian Sanz in Memphis, Tennessee, Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City, John O'Connor in Springfield, Illinois, and Susan Haigh in Norwich, Connecticut, also contributed.

A man surveys debris along the Guadalupe River after a flash flood struck the area, Friday, July 4, 2025, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

People are reunited at a reunification center after flash flooding hit the area, Friday, July 4, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Onlookers survey damage along the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area, Friday, July 4, 2025, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

A helicopter flies over the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area, Friday, July 4, 2025, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

A Texas DPS helicopter conducts arial searches along the Guadalupe River in the wake of a destructive flooding event in Kerrville on Friday July 4, 2025. (Christopher Lee/The San Antonio Express-News via AP)

Members the Kerrville Fire Department and Texas Department of Public Safety refuel trucks after deadly flooding in Kerrville, Texas, Friday July 4, 2025. (Christopher Lee/The San Antonio Express-News via AP)

Thomas Rux, a resident of Riverside RV Park, goes through the wreckage of his RV that was swept away by floodwaters in Ingram, Texas, on Friday, July 4, 2025. (Christopher Lee/The San Antonio Express-News via AP)

Garrett Burleson shows the damage to the office of his family's architectural business as a dirt line shows the extent of the flooding that the building faced, in Ingram on Friday July 4, 2025. (Christopher Lee/The San Antonio Express-News via AP)

Members of Task Force 1 deploy boats along the Guadalupe River in the wake of a destructive flooding event in Kerrville on Friday July 4, 2025. (Christopher Lee/The San Antonio Express-News via AP)

A man surveys damage left by a raging Guadalupe River, Friday, July 4, 2025, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Debris is left behind by a raging Guadalupe River, Friday, July 4, 2025, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

A raging Guadalupe River leaves fallen trees and debris in its wake, Friday, July 4, 2025, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

A man surveys damage left by a raging Guadalupe River, Friday, July 4, 2025, in Kerrville, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

A flood gauge marks the height of water flowing over a farm-to-market road near Kerrville, Texas, on Friday, July 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

A flood gauge marks the height of water flowing over a farm-to-market road near Kerrville, Texas, on Friday, July 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Water rises from severe flooding along the Guadalupe River.in Kerr County, Texas on Friday, July 4, 2025. (KSAT via AP)

Water rises from severe flooding along the Guadalupe River.in Kerr County, Texas on Friday, July 4, 2025. (KSAT via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The CIA was behind a drone strike last week at a docking area believed to have been used by Venezuelan drug cartels, according to two people familiar with details of the operation who requested anonymity to discuss the classified matter.

The first known direct operation on Venezuelan soil since the U.S. began strikes in September marks a significant escalation in the administration’s months-long pressure campaign on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government. The strike has not been acknowledged by Venezuelan officials.

President Donald Trump first made reference to the operation in an interview Friday with John Catsimatidis on WABC radio in New York, saying the U.S. had knocked out some type of “big facility where ships come from."

In an exchange with reporters Monday as he hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump added that the operation targeted a “ dock area where they load the boats up with drugs.” But the president declined to comment when asked whether the attack was conducted by the military or the CIA.

The CIA and White House officials also declined to offer further comment on the matter. CNN first reported on the CIA's involvement in the operation. Col. Allie Weiskopf, a spokesperson for Special Operations Command, which oversees U.S operations in the Caribbean, said in a statement that “Special Operations did not support this operation to include intel support.”

The strike escalates what began as a massive buildup of U.S. personnel in the Caribbean Sea starting in August, which has been followed by at least 30 U.S. military strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific. More recently, Trump has ordered a quasi-blockade aimed at seizing sanctioned oil tankers coming in and out of Venezuela.

Trump for months had threatened that he could soon order strikes on targets on Venezuelan land. He's also taken the unusual step of publicly acknowledging that he had authorized the CIA to carry out covert action inside Venezuela.

“I authorized for two reasons, really,” Trump replied. “No. 1, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America,” he said in October as he confirmed to reporters his approval for the CIA to act. “And the other thing, the drugs, we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea.”

All the while, Trump has repeatedly said Maduro's days in power are numbered. The Venezuelan leader and members of his inner circle have been under federal indictment in the United States since 2020 for narcoterrorism and other charges.

Maduro has denied the charges. The U.S. Justice Department this year doubled to $50 million the reward for information that leads to his arrest.

The Venezuelan president made no mention of the CIA operation during an hourlong speech Tuesday at an international leadership school for women.

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AP writer Regina Garcia Cano in Caracas, Venezuela, contributed reporting.

President Donald Trump listens during a news conference with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago, Monday, Dec. 29, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)