A Texas flag waves in the wind amongst debris from flash flooding at Cedar Stays RV Park in Marble Falls, Texas, Monday, July 7, 2025. (Mikala Compton /Austin American-Statesman via AP)

HUNT, Texas (AP) — More than 160 people are still believed to be missing in Texas days after flash floods killed over 100 people during the July Fourth weekend, the state’s governor said Tuesday.

The huge jump in the number unaccounted for — roughly three times higher than previously said — came after authorities set up a hotline for families to call.

Those reported missing are in Kerr County, where most of the victims have been recovered so far, Gov. Greg Abbott said. Many were likely visiting or staying in the state’s Hill Country during the holiday but did not register at a camp or hotel, he said during a news conference.

The county’s lowlands along the Guadalupe River are filled with youth camps and campgrounds, including Camp Mystic, the century-old all-girls Christian summer camp where at least 27 campers and counselors died. Officials said Tuesday that five campers and one counselor have still not been found.

Search-and-rescue teams are using heavy equipment to untangle and peel away layers of trees, unearth large rocks in riverbanks and move massive piles of debris that stretch for miles in the search for the missing people. Crews in airboats, helicopters and on horseback along with hundreds of volunteers are part of one of the largest search operations in Texas history.

The flash flood is the deadliest from inland flooding in the U.S. since Colorado’s Big Thompson Canyon flood on July 31, 1976, killed 144 people, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist with Yale Climate Connections. That flood surged through a narrow canyon packed with people on a holiday weekend, Colorado’s centennial celebration.

Public officials in charge of locating the victims are facing intensifying questions about who was in charge of monitoring the weather and warning that floodwaters were barreling toward camps and homes.

The Republican governor, who took a helicopter tour of the disaster zone, dismissed a question about who was to blame for the deaths, saying, “That’s the word choice of losers.”

“Every football team makes mistakes,” he said. “The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who’s to blame. The championship teams are the ones who say, ‘Don’t worry about it, man, we got this. We’re going to make sure that we go score again and we’re going to win this game.’ The way winners talk is not to point fingers.”

Abbott promised that the search for victims will not stop until everyone is found. He also said President Donald Trump has pledged to provide whatever relief Texas needs to recover. Trump plans to visit the state Friday.

Outside the cabins at Camp Mystic where the girls had slept, mud-splattered blankets and pillows were scattered on a grassy hill that slopes toward the river. Also in the debris were pink, purple and blue luggage decorated with stickers.

Among those who died at the camp were a second grader who loved pink sparkles and bows, a 19-year-old counselor who enjoyed mentoring young girls and the camp’s 75-year-old director.

The flash floods erupted before daybreak Friday after massive rains sent water speeding down hills into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet (8 meters) in less than an hour. The wall of water overwhelmed people in cabins, tents and trailers along the river’s edge. Some survivors were found clinging to trees.

Some campers had to swim out of cabin windows to safety while others held onto a rope as they made their way to higher ground. Time-lapse videos showed how floodwaters covered roads in a matter of minutes.

Although it’s difficult to attribute a single weather event to climate change, experts say a warming atmosphere and oceans make catastrophic storms more likely.

Where were the warnings?

Questions mounted about what, if any, actions local officials took to warn campers and residents who were spending the July Fourth weekend in the scenic area long known to locals as “flash flood alley.”

Leaders in Kerr county, where searchers have found about 90 bodies, said their first priority is recovering victims, not reviewing what happened in the hours before the flash floods.

“Right now, this team up here is focused on bringing people home,” Lt. Col. Ben Baker of the Texas Game Wardens, said during a sometimes tense news conference.

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s chief elected official, said in the hours after the devastation that the county does not have a warning system.

Generations of families in the Hill Country have known the dangers. A 1987 flood forced the evacuation of a youth camp in the town of Comfort and swamped buses and vans. Ten teenagers were

killed.