𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

The area where the flooding took place 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. Well-known, century-old summer camps bring in kids from all over the country, Dickson said.

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

Texas parents frantically posted photos of their young daughters on social media with pleas for information as they remain missing after flash flooding.

More than 20 campers from an all-girls summer camp were unaccounted for Friday after floods tore through the state’s south-central region.

At least 24 people were reported dead Friday and dozens missing after months worth of heavy rain fell in a matter of hours on Texas Hill Country, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said.

Up to 25 girls are believed to be missing from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp.

Hundreds of rescuers have been drafted in to desperately search for the girls, who were swept away by a wall of water after it surged the flood zone.

On social media, parents and families posted desperate pleas for information about loved ones caught in the flood zone.

“The camp was completely destroyed,” said Elinor Lester, 13, one of hundreds of campers at Camp Mystic. “A helicopter landed and started taking people away. It was really scary.”

She said a raging storm woke up her cabin around 1:30 a.m. Friday, and when rescuers arrived, 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.

Witness accounts from Texas have laid bare the horror of the ongoing flash flooding.

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.”

The National Weather Service (NWS) for Austin and San Antonio has warned that “life threatening flash flooding” is still ongoing in parts of Texas.

“Flash Flood EMERGENCY now in effect for Burnet County,” it wrote on social media. “5-12 inches of rain has occurred, an additional 2-5 inches possible. This is a Particularly Dangerous Situation with life-threatening flash flooding.”

The service earlier warned of “very dangerous” flash flooding in north-west Travis County, where a “very slow moving disturbance is producing extreme rainfall rates”.

The catastrophic flooding was caused by torrential rain – but city authorities and forecasters did not predict that it was about to strike.

One National Weather Service forecast this week had called for only between three and six inches (76 to 152 millimeters) of rain, said Nim Kidd, the chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management.

“It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw,” he said.

Officials defended their preparations for severe weather and their response but said they had not expected such an intense downpour that was, in effect, the equivalent of months’ worth of rain for the area.

At least 24 people are reported dead and many more are missing, including girls from a Christian summer camp, after catastrophic river flooding hit central Texas Thursday and Friday.

Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said by Friday evening 24 people have been killed in the flooding, according to The New York Times.

Texas officials said the number of missing is unknown but between 23 and 25 of them were girls who had been attending Camp Mystic.