At least 172 people remain missing days after devastating flash floods swept through central Texas, Governor Greg Abbott said Tuesday, marking a sharp rise from the previously reported 40 missing.
Abbott provided the updated figure after surveying the flood-ravaged region by helicopter. He also noted a grim milestone: the official death toll from the floods has climbed to 111, surpassing the 103 Texans killed during Hurricane Harvey in August 2017.
The latest confirmed death occurred in Williamson County, according to a county spokesperson.
“We sent out the update as the missing person was recovered. Now at three deaths,” Williamson County spokeswoman Connie Odom told CNN on Tuesday evening.
In Kerr County, which has seen 87 of the confirmed deaths, search crews are still looking for five girls missing from Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp that has reported 27 fatalities so far.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says at least 172 people are missing after floods, as the total quadruples overnight.
Abbott said the updated count reflects reports from friends, neighbors, and relatives of the missing.
“We will not stop until every missing person is accounted for,” Abbott told reporters. “There could very likely be more people added to the list.”
He explained that the updated total of missing individuals was based on reports from friends, neighbors, and relatives who said their loved ones were unaccounted for.
When asked about an investigation into the storm’s death toll—and specifically who might be to blame—Abbott bristled, dismissing the question’s wording as “the word choice of losers” before turning to a football analogy.
“Every football team makes mistakes,” the governor said.
“The losing teams are the ones that try to point fingers and assign blame. The championship teams are the ones that say, ‘Don’t worry, ma’am, we’ve got this,’” Abbott said.
During the press conference, Abbott noted that officials had been aware of the potential for severe flooding days before Kerr County was hit and had pre-positioned resources accordingly.
“We were ready with the resources on the ground to be able to quickly respond,” he said, outlining a day-by-day timeline of preparations.
However, he emphasized that the true scale of the disaster was impossible to predict.
“No one would know that would be a 30-foot-high tsunami wall of water, I don’t think,” Abbott explained.
“All I can tell you is that the information we had—and that the state acted on—prompted us to begin deploying assets and resources two days before the event occurred.”
