Texas flood death toll hits triple digits, many missing

The death toll from the flood in central Texas has risen to 109, with another 161 still missing as of late Tuesday, said Texas Governor Greg Abbott at a news conference.

The flood began in the early morning on Friday when the Guadalupe River overflowed, unleashing a torrent of water that swept away people as well as cabins, RVs and cars.

Volunteers and first responders, some from out of state and even Mexico, continued their search for bodies in the Hill Country. The hope to find survivors dimmed considerably as the disaster dragged into its fifth day.

TV footage from The New York Times showed a body covered in an unknown black material being lifted out of the water. The NYT reporter on site said the rescuers had begun to rely on smell to find bodies and the scene was "grim".

Abbott was touring the Hill Country on Tuesday. He vowed the search would not stop until every last person was found.

He said that issues surrounding disaster response will be addressed in a special state legislative session that will begin in less than two weeks. A siren system will be in place in this region before next summer.

In the regular legislative session that ended a month before the flood, state lawmakers voted against a measure, HB 13, that aimed exactly for that.

It proposed to create a new government council to establish an emergency response plan and administer a grant program. The bill included "emergency alert systems" such as "the use of outdoor warning sirens".

When asked who's to blame for the disaster, Abbott responded: "Know this: that's the words of the losers".

"The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who's to blame," Abbott said. "The championship teams are the ones that say, 'Don't worry about it, man, we got this.'"

However, local officials blamed the National Weather Service for inadequate weather information. Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management, pointed to NWS forecasts that projected up to 152 mm of rain. "It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw," Kidd said.

The White House rejected criticism that the Trump administration's recent staffing cuts to the NWS contributed to the deadly floods, calling it "a depraved lie".

"This was an act of God. It is not the administration's fault that the flood hit when it did," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday, noting that the NWS "did its job" by sending "early and consistent warnings".

Over 500 workers were reportedly fired by the administration or left on their own, leaving NWS short-staffed.

Xinhua contributed to this story.