Before and After Photos Taken Above Texas Show Devastating Flood Damage
These before-and-after photos taken above Kerr County capture the devastation wrought by the floods in Texas this past weekend.
Nearmap captured the images using a fixed-wing aircraft to capture high-resolution imagery to survey the damage. Each slider image below has the before shot on the left and an after image on the right.
The photos were taken in Hunt, Kerrville, and Ingram — all in Kerr County — where the worst of the flooding occurred. They capture bridges that have been washed away, houses that have been destroyed, and roads that have been ripped apart.
At least 173 people remain unaccounted for five days after catastrophic flooding swept through the Texas Hill Country, Governor Greg Abbott said on Tuesday. The majority of those missing — 161 individuals — are from Kerr County, the region hardest hit by the disaster. Local officials report that no rescues have been made since Friday.
“The primary job right now continues to be locating everybody who was affected by this flood,” Abbott said yesterday, per The New York Times. “We will not stop until we identify, recover every single body.”
Among the confirmed dead are at least 30 children, making this one of the deadliest disasters for children in the U.S. in decades. A significant number of those victims were affiliated with Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp for girls located along the Guadalupe River. Twenty-seven campers and staff members at the camp were killed. As of Tuesday evening, the bodies of five campers and a 19-year-old counselor had not yet been recovered.
Republican officials have come under increasing scrutiny over the response to the flooding, particularly regarding federal forecasting vacancies and limited investment in flood control and early warning infrastructure.
Kerr County has reported the highest number of deaths, with 87 confirmed fatalities. Other affected counties include Travis County (7 deaths), Kendall County (8), Burnet County (5), Williamson County (3), and Tom Green County (1). Victims include children and adults, among them a beloved teacher, camp directors, and counselors.
Search and recovery efforts are ongoing as teams continue to comb through wreckage and flood zones. State officials have not given a timeline for when all missing persons may be accounted for.
