The Latest on the Deadly Texas Floods

NBC News Radio National Correspondent Rory O'Neill joins us to discuss the latest as search and rescue efforts continue in Texas. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's just a terrifying story. Imagine the families. Recovery efforts
are still ongoing. This is West Michigan's Morning News Rory O'Neil,
NBC News Radio national correspondent on those floods in Texas.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
What more do we know? Well, we know the death
toll has now top to eighty. There are still more
than forty people missing, including at least ten children from
Camp Mystic and one of the counselors there as well.
I think nearly thirty children are among the dead as
they frantically try it to find those who were still
listed as missing, obviously hoping for daylight so that they

(00:34):
can really refocus their efforts. But they're using every bit
of technology available in order to find any potential survivors.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
The timeline on this thing is terrifying when you think
about how fast that amount of water made it to
those camps downriver, and the folks are worried about warning.
How is it possible that in twenty twenty five people
didn't hear about it beforehand?

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Well, right, And I think we don't have the answer
to that question yet. Now. The National Weather Service forecast
did call for some of these flash floods to happen.
There were even forecasts much earlier in the week that
were pretty much red on the nose, but that was
the outlying computer model that suggested more than a foot
of rain could fall in some of these spots. Most
of the models had it in the three to five

(01:23):
inches range. But what happened was about twenty feet of
water came down the Guadalupe River and they saw the
water levels rise that much in less than an hour,
about forty five minutes by most accounts, sweeping away so
many people who were caught off guard. It was the
middle of the night, fourth of July weekend. You know,
you weren't really paying attention to the radio or the

(01:45):
weather forecast, and that seems to be the combination of
events here and Roy.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
It's not going to get any easier, right because the
Weather Service has said that one to three inches of
localized hourly rainfall could be expected today.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
As they're going through that, that's right hourly rainfall, so
they're looking at perhaps another ten inches of brain and
some of these locations. You know, when this started, it
had been almost drought like conditions. The ground was hard compacted,
so when the rain fell and hit the ground, it
didn't really go down into the soil. It stayed on
the surface and then contributed to this flood. Obviously, now

(02:19):
the ground is more saturated, so now you have the
other problem where there's just nowhere else for this water
to go.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
The President has declared a state of emergency. Does that
mean that some more recovery response assets could be headed
that way?

Speaker 2 (02:35):
It's possible, you know, and with the President already saying
they want to eliminate FEMA put states more responsible, you know,
the President didn't really go into detail about that because, look,
they can talk about eliminating FEMA, but there still has
to be some sort of a mechanism for Uncle Sam
to help out when states are overwhelmed, right, and that's
what FEMA is supposed to be doing, is bridging that gap.

(02:58):
So what FEMA will look like and how the assistance flows,
that's still up for debate. But there's got to be
some sort of a mechanism for the federal government to
step in when states in times of crisis like this
need help.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
We will have the very latest on what is still
called rescue or recovery efforts throughout the morning. Rory O'Neil
NBC News Radio National correspondent, Thank you, Thanks Steve