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Families frantically plead for information about 23 missing US girls

Texas parents frantically posted photos of their young daughters on social media with pleas for information as more than 20 campers from an all-girls summer camp were unaccounted for on Friday after floods tore through the state's south-central region overnight.

At least 13 people were dead 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.

The flood-prone region is dotted with century-old summer camps that draw thousands of kids annually from across the Lone Star State.

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Damaged vehicles and debris are seen roped off near the banks of the Guadalupe River after flooding in Ingram, Texas.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said about 23 girls attending Camp Mystic, a Christian camp along the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas, were unaccounted for on Friday afternoon.

Search teams were working to conduct helicopter and boat rescues in the fast-moving floodwaters.

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"I'm asking the people of Texas, do some serious praying this afternoon — on-your-knees kind of praying — that we find these young girls," Patrick said.

Families of campers struggle with uncertainty

Dozens of families shared in local Facebook groups that they received devastating phone calls from safety officials informing them that their daughters had not yet been located among the washed-away camp cabins and downed trees.

Some were waiting to hear if their children could be evacuated by helicopter.

Mother of missing Camp Mystic camper Janie Hunt says she had not yet heard anything about her whereabouts after catastrophic flooding hit Kerr County on Friday.

"We are just praying," Janie's mother told CNN.

Nine-year-old Lainey Landry is also missing from the camp, according to her mother Natalie.

Lainey Landry is among the children missing in Texas.

She is "brave and sweet," her mother told CNN.

Nine rescue teams, 14 helicopters and 12 drones were being used in the search, Patrick said.

Camp Mystic said in an email to parents that if they have not been contacted directly, their child is accounted for. Safety officials said there were roughly 750 campers.

At an elementary school in nearby Ingram that was being used as a reunification centre, more than a hundred people milled around a courtyard with hopes of seeing their loved one step out of buses dropping off those who had been evacuated.

One young girl wearing a Camp Mystic T-shirt stood in a puddle in her white socks, sobbing in her mother's arms as she rubbed her hands together and watched the buses arrive.

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Many families hoped to see loved ones who had been at campgrounds and mobile home parks in the area.

Camp Mystic sits on a strip known as "flash flood alley," said Austin Dickson, CEO of the Community Foundation of the Texas Hill Country, a charitable endowment that is collecting donations to help non-profits responding to the disaster.

"When it rains, water doesn't soak into the soil," Dickson said. "It rushes down the hill."

Decades prior, floodwaters engulfed a bus of teenage campers from another Christian camp along the Guadalupe River during devastating summer storms in 1987.

Janie Hunt was at a summer camp when a flash flood swept away dozens of children in Texas.

A total of 10 campers from Pot O' Gold Christian camp drowned after their bus was unable to evacuate in time from a site near Comfort, 53km east of Hunt.

Leaders at Camp Mystic said they are without power, Wi-Fi and running water, and the highway leading to the camp has washed away.

Two other camps on the river, Camp Waldemar and Camp La Junta, said in Instagram posts that all campers and staff there were safe.

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Flood turns Camp Mystic into a horror story

Chloe Crane, a teacher and former Camp Mystic counsellor, said her heart broke when a fellow teacher shared an email from the camp about the missing girls.

"To be quite honest, I cried because Mystic is such a special place, and I just couldn't imagine the terror that I would feel as a counsellor to experience that for myself and for 15 little girls that I'm taking care of," she said.

"And it's also just sadness, like the camp has been there forever and cabins literally got washed away."

Crane said the camp, which was established in 1926, is a haven for young girls looking to gain confidence and independence.

A flood gauge marks the height of water flowing over a farm-to-market road near Kerrville, Texas.

She recalled happy memories teaching her campers about journalism, making crafts and competing in a camp-wide canoe race at the end of each summer.

Now for many campers and counsellors, their happy place has turned into a horror story, she said.

The camp is split into two neighbouring sites. Cabins housing the youngest campers, who can start attending at age eight, are situated at water level along the banks of the river and were likely the first to flood, Crane said.

Teen campers stay in cabins higher up on the hillside.

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Water rises from severe flooding along the Guadalupe River.in Kerr County, Texas.

One family survives a terrifying ordeal

Erin Burgess’ home sits directly across from the river in the Bumble Bee Hills neighbourhood, west of Ingram. When she woke up to thunder at 3:30 a.m. Friday morning, “it was raining pretty heavy, but no big deal,” she said.

Just 20 minutes later, Burgess said water was coming in through the walls and rushing through the front and back doors.

She described an agonizing hour clinging to a tree and waiting for the water to recede enough that they were able to walk up the hill to a neighbour's.

“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, becoming emotional.

Of her 19-year-old son, Burgess said: “Thankfully he’s over six feet tall. That’s the only thing that saved me, was hanging on to him.”

A flood watch issued Thursday afternoon estimated isolated amounts up to 17cm of rising water. That shifted to a flood warning for at least 30,000 people overnight.

A raging Guadalupe River leaves fallen trees and debris in its wake.

When asked about the suddenness of the flash flooding, Kelly said “we do not have a warning system” and that “we didn’t know this flood was coming,” even as local reporters pointed to the warnings and pushed him for answers about why more precautions weren’t taken.

“Rest assured, no one knew this kind of flood was coming,” he said. “We have floods all the time. This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States.”

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the state was providing resources to Hill Country communities dealing with the flooding, including in Kerrville, Ingram and Hunt.

The Texas Hill Country, a scenic and rocky gateway to booming vineyards and vacation rentals, begins west of the state capital and is a popular outdoor summer getaway. Parts of the region are prone to flash flooding.

Ingram Fire Department posted a photo of a statement from Camp Mystic, saying the private Christian summer camp for girls experienced “catastrophic level floods.” Parents with a daughter not accounted for were directly contacted, the camp said.

The Guadalupe’s river gauge at the unincorporated community of Hunt, where the river forks, recorded a 6.7m in just about two hours, according to Bob Fogarty, meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Austin/San Antonio office.

A helicopter flies over the Guadalupe River after a flash flood swept through the area, in Kerrville, Texas.

Fogarty said the gauge failed after recording a level of nine metres.

“This is the kind of thing that will catch you unaware,” Fogarty said. “The water’s moving so fast, you’re not going to recognize how bad it is until it’s on top of you.”

Areas east along the Guadalupe River were preparing for their own flooding as the rapid waters rushed downstream from Hunt and Kerrville. In Kendall County, home to the unincorporated community of Comfort, the sheriff’s office sounded the alarm.

“We regret to inform everyone that the flood situation in Comfort is not improving,” the post read. “We have sounded the flood sirens and urge all residents in low-lying areas of town to evacuate immediately.”

New Jersey also sees deaths due to severe weather

Meanwhile, strong thunderstorms were being blamed for at least three deaths in central New Jersey, including two men in Plainfield who died after a tree fell onto a vehicle they were traveling in during the height of a storm there, according to a city Facebook post.

The men were ages 79 and 25, officials said. They were not immediately publicly identified.

“Our hearts are heavy today,” Mayor Adrian O. Mapp said in a statement. “This tragedy is a sobering reminder of the power of nature and the fragility of life.”

The city cancelled its planned July Fourth parade, concert and fireworks show.

Mapp said the “devastating” storms had left “deep scars and widespread damage” in the community of more than 54,000 people and it was a time to “regroup and focus all of our energy on recovery.”

Continuing power outages and downed trees were reported Friday throughout southern New England, where some communities received large amounts of hail. There were reports of cars skidding off the road in north-eastern Connecticut.

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