- 7/7/2025
Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) and other officials hold a press briefing to discuss the response to the deadly flooding in Texas Hill Country.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Time to be here for us to update a nation that really wants to find out what's going on and
00:17the response has taken place here in the center part of Texas. This is something where we need
00:28to begin now and we need to continue to invoke God Almighty. The one thing I hear the most from
00:36people across the country, really across the globe, are the prayers that are being sent
00:41for those who are in harm's way to be successfully rescued. Those who are giving thanksgiving to God
00:51right now because their family member has been located. Those who remain prayerful that their
00:59family member, too, will be found. This is a time when we as a state, we as a community,
01:06need God more than ever. Little kids off at camp, joyfully excited about the upcoming day to
01:18celebrate the 4th of July. Campers alongside the river doing the same thing and enjoying
01:26one of the beautiful spots in the state of Texas, asleep probably just a few hours from waking up.
01:35people that I know of who were not in harm's way but went into harm's way to try to save the lives of
01:44others but who lost their life. So many people have been swept up into an extraordinary catastrophe.
01:57It needs God but it also needs a robust response by the state and local governments and by people who live in
02:11these communities impacted by this. We had a meeting with officials at the state and local level and there is
02:19extraordinary collaboration to make sure that we are going to address everybody's concern as quickly
02:28as we possibly can. At the state level we have Texas Task Force 1 and Texas Task Force 2.
02:36There are some of the best experts in the world at search and rescue missions. And know this, we remain
02:46in a search and rescue posture right now. So it's been going on over the course of the day and you're
02:51going to hear stories here momentarily about exactly what has been achieved through those search and
02:56rescue missions. They will continue in the darkness of night. They will be taking place when the sun rises
03:03in the morning. They will be non-stop seeking to find everybody who is unaccounted for. The Texas
03:12National Guard has been a part of that process and you'll hear the general in charge of that speak
03:17here soon as well as the Texas Department of Public Safety and their operations. We also have game
03:24wardens from the Texas Parks and Wildlife that are involved in this process as well as the Texas Division
03:31Association of Emergency Management. I have assured all of the local officials here that whatever they
03:39need, whether it be personnel, whether it be equipment, whether it be search and rescue operations,
03:44whether it be supporting them in their endeavors, whatever these communities need, the state of Texas
03:51is going to step up and provide it. But we know that what is needed and wanted the most
03:57important thing to do is all the families out there who are waiting for information about their child or
04:06their loved one. And as you will hear, we are working on strategies to deliver on that information that
04:15families are craving. We want to make sure we get information to families as quickly as we possibly can. But most importantly,
04:24we will stop at nothing to ensure that every asset and person and plane and whatever is needed is going to be involved in the process of rescuing every last person and ensure everybody involved in this is going to be fully accounted for.
04:46And as a part of this, I'm signing a disaster declaration. Definitely one that includes this area, but includes more than this. And this, this is the proclamation here that I'll sign, but I want to tell you in here,
05:03I'm declaring a state-based disaster for those in the following counties, Bandera,
05:15Cope, Kumail, Concho, Gillespie, Kendall, Kerr, Kimball, Lano, Mason, McCullough, Menard, Reeves, Sanseba, and Tom Green counties.
05:33This will ensure all the counties that are identified in this, and there may be more that need to be added later,
05:46are going to have access to every tool, strategy, personnel that the state of Texas can provide to them,
05:54which will be limitless. We'll put in everything we have in the entire state.
06:00Someone who's been involved in this and shares a commitment is the Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick.
06:08Thank you, Governor. Dalton, who's our city manager, told us earlier that he was jogging at 3 in the morning along the river,
06:21and there wasn't a drop of rain falling. And within a few hours, the Guadalupe had risen
06:30about 26 feet, and actually it rose that quickly in about 45 minutes of those two hours.
06:39And since that first alert went out early this morning, between 4 and 5 a.m., the city officials here, the sheriff,
06:49immediately sprung into action. And since 4 or 5 this morning, they have not stopped. We put forth 400 to 500 state employees, DPS, game wardens.
07:08I'll let the speakers talk about the specifics of everyone we had in the air, drones, helicopters.
07:15But from the first minute that this storm went from 3 in the morning, not a drop of rain, until the tragedy struck and the river rose,
07:27these people behind us, Governor, have done everything they can. And there have been a number of rescues, and they'll speak to that as well during the day.
07:36And I echo what the governor said. As I said earlier, we will not stop until we find every body, and the rescue continues that effort.
07:51We will not stop. And it is God Almighty that we need. Not a thought and prayers message.
08:02Hey, get down on your knees and pray for these families tonight and all these children. Thank you, Governor.
08:07Thank you. There's going to be other people who speak here, but before they do speak, I want to recognize a few others who will be involved in this process.
08:16One is the state representative from this area, West Verdell. Why don't you let people know who you are?
08:24And we're also in the State Senate District of Senator Pete Flores.
08:29And we have the Texas Parks and Wildlife Game Warden, Colonel, who's here with us. Where is he?
08:38Thank you all for being a part of this process. And now I want to turn things over to Sheriff Letha.
08:45Yes, Sheriff Larry Letha, Kirk County. What I'd like to let you all know and the public know is, like the governor said, we do have all the resources we need at this time, and we will continue to have them until we finish this mission.
08:58I want to tell you all that we will be working around the clock 24-7 until every person is found. What I can confirm at this point, we're at about 24 fatalities.
09:09We're not going to be giving any names out at this time. We're still notifying next to Ken. Also, I've been notified one fatality has been found in Kendall County.
09:18I cannot say it's related to this incident at this time, but we'll let you all know when we find out more information.
09:24I ask the media to be real patient with us during this time. We've got a lot of things going on. You all see what? There's a lot of people here. We have a lot of resources. We just need more time and we're looking really forward.
09:35We'll be working 24-7 overnight into tomorrow through the next several days in this mission. We will get you information as we get it. We will get it to you. We'll continue to have briefings. We'll continue to keep updated at this time. At this time, I'll turn it over to Mayor Herring.
09:51I'm Joe Herring Jr. I'm mayor of the city of Kerrville. My job today is to tell people thank you. People from across the state have come to help city, county, state, all working together, all working for the same goal.
10:14I want to say thank you to the dedicated men and women of the first responders. You are our heroes today. We will not stop. We will rescue those in peril. And we will find those who are missing.
10:37But I'd also ask, please pray for our community. This is a hard day. And there will be hard days to come. Pray for us. We covet your prayers. Thank you.
10:58The task of the Texas Department of Public Safety is to serve and to protect our state as well as to keep people safe. I want the director, Colonel Freeman Martin from the Texas Department of Public Safety to explain to you all the details about the links that DPS has gone through over just less than the past 24 hours, which is
11:28the past 24 hours, which has been very helpful in what you guys helped accomplish.
11:33Well, this was a catastrophic event. It was a mass casualty event. And we don't want to get up here and brag about, you know, the successes when there's life lost and kids that are still missing. But I can tell you every asset, every resources that the Department of Public Safety has is being used here today.
11:54We have long lasting relationships with the sheriff, Larry Letha. They go back 30 years working with the mayor and we brought in over 100 troopers this morning and they worked all day rescues, high water vehicles, boats, rescue drivers, divers, seven rescue helicopters with voice capabilities.
12:15And that was just today. We have another shift coming in tonight and another shift in the morning. We'll really ramp it up in the morning, but we will not stop. In addition to the search and rescue, that's the priority right now. Moving forward tomorrow, we're going to bring in communications operators, victim services, people to help our partners here in Kerr County and HHSC. We have Parks and Wildlife here. They're providing just many, many boat teams that they have to rescue helicopters. Today, we have two rescue helicopters.
12:44Today, we had the Texas Military Department, the Texas Department of Public Safety, Parks and Wildlife, Task Force One, everybody working in support of our local partners. That's what right looks like. There are no eagles here. There's nobody in charge. We're all working together. We're all communicating and we will not stop until we find every last person. So we'll be here for days to come. This is not, this won't end. Tomorrow is going to be a very important day. We had a hard time getting in this morning with the weather the way it was. So as the day went off, we had a hard time getting in this morning with the weather.
13:12The way it was. So as the day went on, it picked up and we were able to rescue more and recover more that will continue tomorrow. We have more, uh, more resources in route. So with that, I'll turn it over to General Seltzer.
13:25General Seltzer. Good afternoon. As the governor has already said, he has ordered me to provide every capability that the Texas National Guard has to these local officials in this community. Today, we activated five helicopters with hoist to do rescue operations. They were paired with rescue swimmers from Texas Task Force One. These crews trained
13:55to respond. Additionally, we have three additional helicopters, uh, on the way to support the community. We are also using high profile tactical military vehicles to move evacuees out of high water areas, um, to, uh, shelter locations.
14:14As of, uh, a few hours ago, we had rescued or evacuated 237, uh, people in 167 of those were by helicopter. So we're having a very, uh, good, uh, helicopter response. Uh, when the weather allows.
14:33Additionally, uh, in our operations tomorrow, we'll be sending personnel to help with, uh, evacuees shelter management and also the Texas emergency tracking network. It's a banding system, uh, so that we can band evacuees to help get accountability of who's being, uh, evacuated into the shelters. Thank you.
14:57Thank you. Thank you, general. And thank you to the men and women of the Texas National Guard. Uh, and now, uh, Nim kid, the chief of the Texas division of emergency management.
15:06Thank you, governor. Our, uh, our prayers are rooted in action. We've had folks on the ground since yesterday afternoon here and our state emergency operations center was opened at one o'clock yesterday afternoon.
15:16The original forecast that we received on Wednesday from the National Weather Service predicted three to six inches of rain in the Concho Valley and four to eight inches of rain in the Concho Valley.
15:26We worked with our own meteorologist to fine tune that weather statement. And as many of you know, and many of you in broadcast journalism meteorology, you can go back and look at your own forecast and the amount of rain that fell in this specific location was never in any of those forecast.
15:43Nonetheless, in partnership with our local officials here, we have resources that have been surrounding this area since yesterday when the rain fell and the calls came in, we immediately jumped into action alongside of our
15:56local partners. In addition to the local partners that are here, we have 150 personnel search and rescue experts from Texas A and M task force one. We have over a thousand state officials and state partners that are responding here with over 804 assets, vehicles, boats, and helicopters. I want to run through that list really quickly.
16:18One hundred and fifty from Texas task force one, that is 30 boats and additional high profile vehicles. You heard from Colonel Martin and the Texas Department of Public Safety. Colonel Vander Roos down on the end has over 170 personnel here, 167 four wheel drive vehicles and over 53 boats in addition to their aircraft. You heard from General Selser about the military departments. The A and M four services here to help us do tree removal and get trees out of the way and help with incident management. The Department of State Health Services has 164
16:23members from the emergency medical task force here with over 71 pieces of equipment for the emergency medical task force and over 71 pieces of equipment in the emergency management office
16:48members from the emergency medical task force here with over 71 pieces of
16:51equipment. You may see ambulances in this county that aren't anywhere from near
16:55here. They're part of the emergency medical task force. There will be
16:58questions about reunification centers. There'll be questions about noticing.
17:02Our local partners will answer those questions when you have them. And
17:05governor at this point that ends my prepared remarks. Thank you very much.
17:08So this is a 24 seven effort. Everyone needs to know day or night, whatever hour
17:17of the day. There will be local officials, state officials collaborating
17:22together. Also want to thank the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, who
17:28gave me a phone call today to offer any assistance that we need. Secretary Doug
17:33Burgum, Secretary of the US Department of the Interior, who called and offered any
17:39resources we need. Senator Cruz called and offered any support that they could
17:45provide. So this is something where the federal government is leaning in and
17:49wants to assist the community here in the heart of Texas to accelerate the
17:56process to be able to draw this to a very positive conclusion. And it's
18:03something that Texas will continue to lean into. We'll take a few questions.
18:08Any estimate on how many people are missing or unaccounted?
18:13No, at this time, sir. No, we don't. We don't have an estimate. The problem was
18:16it's a holiday weekend here. We have a lot of campers here and we do not know that
18:21number at this time. What about the 23 missing from Ken missing? Has that number changed?
18:26No, it's still between 23 and 25. We have not confirmed that yet. We're still working on that, sir.
18:32You said that federal workers were helping with us, but we didn't see any National Weather Service
18:39forecasts until the storm. Can you give us any insight on why there wasn't any updates for the
18:47National Weather Service about flooding? I'm going to give you a good example. Where's he at?
18:53City manager. Dalton. Yeah, the city manager can explain to you
18:58in real life terms exactly what happened when it happened and how it happened and why it was so
19:05unpredictable. Thank you, governor. And as the lieutenant governor alluded to, I was out on the
19:09river trail this morning, which is again at water level of the Guadalupe. I was out there about 3.30
19:15this morning doing a jog. I left there probably about four o'clock. There was very light rain,
19:21no signs of the river. I come from the Houston area, so very used to hurricanes, very used to flooding.
19:26We kind of monitored that, checked some different areas. We did not see any signs of the river rising
19:32at that time. I started getting phone calls probably about five o'clock. We went, the fire chief Maloney
19:38and I went back out to Louise Hayes Park up on the top section. We did have national EMR and we already
19:45had a lot of our emergency plan ready for the Fourth of July event, which is at the river level. By the time
19:51we got to the national EMR truck, we could not get it out and we almost got stuck on the top level.
19:56So there's a pavilion down in Louise Hayes Park. Within an hour and a half, it had already risen well
20:01over 20-25 feet. So we were monitoring that as much as we possibly could.
20:08I'm sure the 1987 flood, there were some flood alarms installed along the river.
20:16Are those still working? Any reason why they wouldn't work?
20:20A lot of the times I think, and again, I'm relatively new here. There's alarms typically
20:24in comfort or further downstream. When you look at the headwaters of the Guadalupe, which we are at
20:29the headwaters of the Guadalupe, there's a north and a south fork. And so under, we'll say since 1987,
20:36under normal conditions, if you call it that, you'll hit water in one of those areas. And those two forks
20:41will converge into the Guadalupe, which comes through the city of Kerrville. This rain event
20:46sat on top of that and dumped more rain than what was forecasted on both of those forks.
20:51When we got the report, it was about seven feet or so on the south fork. And within a matter of minutes,
20:57it was up to 29 feet. And all of that converged at the Guadalupe. And that's where we saw those
21:03very quick rise and floods. So there's not alarms everywhere on the river. No, sir.
21:08Sheriff, you said there were 23 deaths in 24? No, 24. 24. And that's the entire river?
21:18That's just this county? That's just this county in the county. We know the total. That's what we
21:24said. That needed one more. We do have a report from one fatality in Tyndall County. I want to ask,
21:31what is the process in evacuation? Now, this seems like it came on very fast. I spoke with some flood
21:39victims in Ingram who said their home was flooding as rescues were happening down the river. They asked me,
21:47why aren't there evacuation notices at that point? What is the process like to get an evacuation notice?
21:53What's the threshold?
21:57So just like anything, with evacuations is very difficult, right? There's a balance between
22:02do you evacuate and then put chaos onto the road and potentially risk people getting stuck on a road?
22:08This is the hill country. For those that haven't been here, there are hills. There's a lot of low water
22:12crossings. And if you spark an evacuation at the wrong time or create an evacuation, you could go
22:20into a mass panic, get people on the road, which could be even more deadly by having vehicles swept
22:25away. So there's a very fine balance between sheltering in place, getting to the high grounds.
22:30A lot of our operations plans, especially with these camps, that is the plan is sometimes shelter in
22:36place, get them to those known high grounds, and then wait for rescue. Again, when this came in,
22:41people are sleeping, even if you were able to try to get, you know, notification,
22:44that evacuation period is a very delicate balance.
23:02Yes. So starting early this morning, we had about 107 wardens, along with our aviation group,
23:09trying to make access into the camp. Shortly after midday, we breached over into the camp,
23:15and we're able to start removing children from the camp from there.
23:18Is Camp Mystic the only camp that's under this sort of distress,
23:22blackout reports of other camps that seem to be evacuated okay, or is that the only one that we're
23:27really working on right now? Yes. That's the only one is Camp Mystic. All the other camps,
23:32we've accounted for everybody, and everything's fine. Camp Mystic is where we had all our trips.
23:35Also, for every image, it's just, you know, wet the weather.
23:40Yeah, I mean, I have no reports of it. It's just Camp Mystic at this time.
23:44What are the hardest hit areas, from what you can tell, as far as where the fatalities,
23:50where there's currently no missing person reports are coming from, and how far is your search area
23:57extending right now, from where upstream to where downstream? We're working anywhere from about
24:0330 miles west of Kerrville on the Guadalupe River at this time, but out west, you know, on our east
24:10side, we didn't have any problems. Everything is pretty much west of Kerrville all our issues are
24:13from this flooding. And as far as where the hardest hit areas were along the Guadalupe River?
24:18Yes, about 30 miles from. I would just mention, were there particularly properties or campgrounds
24:26where you're seeing the most damage or the most loss of life or missing people?
24:30Anything close to the rivers where we're seeing property damage and missing people.
24:34To add on to that, you know, when you look at the 100-year flood map, you know,
24:37we're trying to get as much comparison as we can. While we don't know if it's the exact 100-year flood
24:43plain map, it is darn close. And so that shows a lot of stuff when you look at
24:48when you look at that. So anything along the forks, anything along, you know, camping,
24:54cabins, RV parks, even some some things that were kind of on the higher end RV parks were,
25:00again, the massive amount of water that came in, we're just moving those vehicles
25:05out of those areas.
25:06And there's been a lot of talk about how this was not
25:10perceived. Governor, you mentioned in your press conference earlier today that
25:15we could read the director and contact local officials to let them know about the possibility
25:20of flooding. But we're now hearing that we didn't know what was going to happen. So
25:25what was the warning or conversation that happened?
25:29Is Jay Hall? Yeah, Governor, I'll take that. So
25:33the State Emergency Operations Center started having daily briefings yesterday on the potential for flood
25:38for all of this part of Texas, from here out to San Angelo and Abilene and further out. We have been
25:45in contact with local officials and at some point in time in the future, we're happy to share those
25:49emails and contact information of what we had shared. But listen, everybody got the forecast from
25:54the National Weather Service, right? You all got it. You're all in media. You got that forecast.
25:58It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw.
26:01And what was the severity that you were warning about at that time?
26:05Well, using yes, sir. What were you warning like happened in terms of
26:11So using the National Weather Service data, which we are all looking at, they were warning three to
26:15six inches of rain. However, some of those models showed numbers that were higher than that, which
26:20caused us to activate additional resources and have them in the area just in case. And those were put
26:25immediately into use as soon as the rain fell and the 911 call started coming in.
26:30They were already here.
26:40Yes, a great question. It was Texas A&M Task Force one swift water rescue teams,
26:44as well as military high profile vehicles and the aircrafts were close in theater,
26:49but not directly in theater. Our boat teams are professionals from San Antonio and Austin
26:57and the surrounding area that, as the general said, train mission every day.
27:01The city manager said about three o'clock in the morning,
27:07it was a little dry.
27:08At what point from that,
27:09what was the timeline?
27:14They got here at noon yesterday.
27:17But they immediately, they immediately?
27:19Yes, sir.
27:20Yes, sir. To the point where one of the response vehicles got washed away. That's how fast they
27:24got caught up in it. They were in the middle of it. They were ready to go.
27:28Not to the group. No, sir.
27:29The nature of the camps. Are you getting updates from people because it's such a,
27:38they're from all over. Some of the kids we've had are missing from Austin and San Antonio and
27:43Beaumont. What was your phone going like for you when you were out in the area? I know that.
27:49It's blown up. The fact of the matter is calls were coming in. First, you know, from my team in the
27:57governor's office, Chief Kidd, the other leaders where we collaborate on this all the time. But
28:03over the course of the early morning hours, stories started coming in from people that we know well.
28:10This is an area that we've been coming to for close to 20 years. And we know the camp and the
28:17camps down here quite well. And we have a lot of friends involved in this. And so there were a lot
28:23of by fellow Texans who have great concern about everything that's happened here. And that spurred
28:30us into action to make sure that we were going to turn over every stone to make sure every Texan,
28:36every there may be people here not from Texas, everybody here is going to be accounted for as
28:42quickly as possible.
28:47As much as we can talk about it, can you talk about the timeline, what locals can expect, and again,
28:50where they can get the resources if they're concerned about missing people's website specifically that
28:54they can go to, the resources, and what we should expect before the updates?
29:01Can you rephrase that question for me? I want to make sure I understand it.
29:03Can you give any sense of the time, as best you can, the sense of the timeline as well for the general public?
29:17Yes, sir. I'll speak.
29:21Our search and rescue teams are here and we'll talk about additional volunteer resources
29:31and we manage our local partners at the city for volunteer and donations and they can give you
29:36those websites and put out in a little while.
30:01additional rain in this part right now can cause additional issues of flash flooding and so this is
30:23where I really need all of your help. Tell the people that don't live here and don't have family
30:27here and don't have family that are missing not to come here. Do not come in this area and start
30:31looking around. We had people that were blocking bridges today while we had emergency response
30:36vehicles trying to get out and do rescues. So if you don't live in this area and you're not
30:39personally involved in this response, don't come to Kerrville, Texas right now. That's part number
30:43one. Part number two is if if you do have someone that is missing, the city will be putting
30:49information out and we want you to report that back in. So I want to add on to your
30:57first question.
31:21Ever since I've been governor, we've had weather events that were completely unpredictable
31:26and that's just a part of nature.