Deadly Texas flooding came without warning


KERRVILLE, TEXAS—Before heading to bed before the Fourth of July holiday, Christopher Flowers checked the weather and nothing in the forecast alarmed him.
Hours later, he was rushing to safety: He woke up in darkness to electrical sockets popping and ankle-deep water. His family scrambled into the attic. Phones buzzed with alerts, Flowers recalled on Saturday.
“What they need is some kind of external system, like a tornado warning that tells people to get out now,” Flowers, 44, said.
The destructive fast-moving waters that began before sunrise on Friday in the Texas Hill Country killed at least 43 people in Kerr County, authorities said on Saturday, and an unknown number of people remained missing.
Those still unaccounted for included 27 girls from Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along a river in Kerr County where most of the dead were recovered.