The death toll from Friday’s flash floods in central Texas has risen to more than 100 people, with an unknown number still missing.
Search and rescue teams are wading through mud-filled riverbanks as further rain and thunderstorms threaten the region, but hope for finding any more survivors is waning four days after the disaster.
Camp Mystic, a Christian all-girls summer camp, confirmed that at least 27 girls and staff had died. Ten girls and one camp counsellor are still missing.
Meanwhile, the White House denied that funding cuts to the National Weather Service (NWS) hampered disaster response efforts.
At least 84 people died, including 56 adults and 28 children, in Kerr County, where the Guadalupe River was overwhelmed by severe rains before dawn on Friday, the July Fourth public holiday.
The county sheriff’s office reported that 22 people and 10 children had yet to be recognised.
Camp Mystic announced in a statement on Monday that “our hearts are broken alongside our families who are enduring this unimaginable tragedy.”
The Austin American-Statesman said that Richard Eastland, 70, Camp Mystic’s co-owner and director, perished while attempting to save the children.
Local pastor Del Way, who knows the Eastland family, told the BBC that “the entire community will miss him [Mr Eastland].” He died as a hero.
In its most recent forecast, the NWS predicts more slow-moving thunderstorms, which could lead to further flash flooding in the region.
Critics of the Trump administration have attempted to link the catastrophe to thousands of job layoffs at the NWS’ parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The NWS office in charge of forecasting in the region had five staffers on duty as thunderstorms raged over Texas on Thursday evening, the standard number for an overnight shift when severe weather is expected.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, rebuffed attempts to blame the president.
“That was an act of God,” she told a daily briefing on Monday.
“It’s not the administration’s fault that the flood hit when it did, but there were early and consistent warnings, and, again, the National Weather Service did its job.”
She described how the NWS office in Austin-San Antonio held briefings for local officials on the eve of the storm and issued a flood watch that afternoon before issuing many flood warnings that night and in the early hours of July 4.
When questioned if federal government cuts had delayed disaster response, Trump originally appeared to shift blame to what he called “the Biden set-up”, referring to his Democratic predecessor. He is slated to visit Texas later this week.
“But I wouldn’t blame Biden for it, either,” he added. “I would just say this is a 100-year catastrophe.”
Texas Senator Ted Cruz told a news conference on Monday that now was not the time for “partisan finger-pointing”.
Nicole Wilson, a local campaigner, has started a petition to install flood sirens in Kerr County, which are already in place in neighbouring counties.
For nearly a decade, Kerr County has debated the implementation of such a system, but no funds have been granted.
Texas Lt Gov. Dan Patrick recognised on Monday that such sirens could have saved lives and said they should be installed by next summer.
