The wife of Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt has confirmed the tragic loss of a family member as a result of the devastating Texas floods.
The total death toll has risen to 82 after the Guadalupe River flooded and surged by up to 30 feet above its usual water level on Friday. 68 bodies have so far been found, including 28 children.
Clark's wife, Tavia, revealed that Janie Hunt - a young cousin in the family - was among the Camp Mystic campers who died during the incident.
Taking to Instagram, she wrote: 'Our hearts are broken by the devastation from the floods in Wimberley and the tragic loss of so many lives — including a precious little Hunt cousin, along with several friend's little girls.
'How do we trust a God who is supposed to be good, all knowing and all powerful, but who allows such terrible things to happen — even to children?
'That is a sacred and tender question — and one the Bible doesn't shy away from. Scripture is filled with the cries of those whose hearts have been shattered, who still wrestle to trust the same God they believe allowed the pain.'
The loss of life there included an unspecified number of fatalities at the Camp Mystic summer camp, a nearly century-old Christian all-girls retreat on the banks of the Guadalupe where authorities reported two dozen children unaccounted for in the immediate aftermath of the flooding on Friday.
Beloved director of Camp Mystic, Richard 'Dick' Eastland, 70, died while trying to save girls as a month's worth of rain dropped in a matter of minutes.
One week before the tragedy, the camp shared videos on social media of the campers happily prancing around on stage during their first term chorus and dance production.
The youngest campers slept on low-laying 'flats' inside the camp's cabins, whereas older girls slept in cabins on higher ground, according to the NYT.
Most of the missing girls are from the younger age bracket, who were sleeping just yards away from the banks of the Guadalupe River.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that some 750 girls had been staying at the camp when the floodwaters hit.
Abbott also vowed that authorities will work around the clock as they continue to search for missing people and later declared Sunday as a day of prayer.
In a statement, he said: 'I urge every Texan to join me in prayer this Sunday — for the lives lost, for those still missing, for the recovery of our communities, and for the safety of those on the front lines'.
Relatives of the missing have started arriving in the Kerrville area from across the Lone Star State to provide investigators with DNA samples.
The federal agency issued a flood watch on Thursday at 1:18pm, estimating up to seven inches of rain on Friday morning in South Central Texas.
A flash flood warning was issued at 1:14am on Friday, with a more extreme warning coming at 4:03am, urging people to immediately evacuate to high grounds as the situation became 'extremely dangerous and life-threatening.'
Local officials, however, have accused the NWS of rolling out delayed warnings, especially in the Hill Country - dubbed 'Flash Flood Alley' - in Kerr County, where the devastation has been the greatest.
'This wasn't a forecasting failure,' meteorologist Matt Lanza told the Texas Tribune. 'It was a breakdown in communication.'
'The warnings were there. They just didn't get to people in time.'
Meanwhile, Daily Mail exclusively revealed on Sunday that Texas's Division of Emergency Management predicted the number of dead as a result of catastrophic flooding in Kerrville on July 4 would top 100.
In an email sent out Saturday, the state disaster office told partners the number of dead would surpass 100, two different sources confirmed to Daily Mail.
The estimate of the dead is vastly different than the message state officials are projecting publicly, insisting that they are still searching for people who are alive, and refusing to say rescue efforts have shifted to recovery of remains.
'Our state assets and local partners are continuing to search for live victims,' the head of TDEM W. Nim Kidd told reporters at a press conference Saturday.
'Our hope and prayer is that there is still people alive that are out there.'
Public officials, including Governor Greg Abbott, have vowed that the circumstances of the flooding, and the adequacy for weather forecasts and warning systems would be scrutinized once the immediate situation was brought under control.
In the meantime, search and rescue operations were continuing around the clock, with hundreds of emergency personnel on the ground contending with a myriad of challenges.
Thomas Suelzar, adjutant general of the Texas Military Department, said airborne search assets included eight helicopters and a remotely piloted MQ-9 Reaper aircraft equipped with advanced sensors for surveillance and reconnaissance missions.
Officials said on Saturday that more than 850 people had been rescued, some clinging to trees, after a sudden storm dumped up to 15 inches of rain across the region, about 85 miles northwest of San Antonio.
In addition to the 68 lives lost in Kerr County, three died in Burnet County, one in Tom Green County, five in Travis County and one in Williamson County, according to Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency was activated on Sunday and was deploying resources to Texas after President Donald Trump issued a major disaster declaration, the Department of Homeland Security said.
US Coast Guard helicopters and planes were aiding search and rescue efforts.
Trump, who said on Sunday he would visit the disaster scene, probably this coming Friday, has previously outlined plans to scale back the federal government's role in responding to natural disasters, leaving states to shoulder more of the burden themselves.
Some experts questioned whether cuts to the federal workforce by the Trump administration, including to the agency that oversees the National Weather Service, led to a failure by officials to accurately predict the severity of the floods and issue appropriate warnings ahead of the storm.
Trump's administration has overseen thousands of job cuts from the National Weather Service's parent agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, leaving many weather offices understaffed, former NOAA director Rick Spinrad said.
Ahead of Friday's floods, the Weather Service office near San Antonio, which oversees warnings issued in Kerr County, had one key vacancy - a warning coordination meteorologist, who is responsible for working with emergency managers and the public to ensure people know what to do when a disaster strikes.
The person who served in that role for decades was among hundreds of Weather Service employees who accepted early retirement offers and left the agency at the end of April, media reported.
Trump pushed back when asked on Sunday if federal government cuts hobbled the disaster response or left key job vacancies at the Weather Service under Trump's oversight.
'That water situation, that all is, and that was really the Biden setup,' he said referencing his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden. 'But I wouldn't blame Biden for it, either. I would just say this is 100-year catastrophe.'
