Why Are More Than 100 People Still Missing in Texas, 2 Weeks After the Floods?

In the days after the deadly July 4 floods in Central Texas, Megan Newton spent hours sitting outside her parents’ home in Marble Falls, looking overhead to spot medical choppers among the Black Hawk helicopters searching for the missing.

“I was just waiting for someone to call and say, ‘We found him,’” Ms. Newton, 41, said, “that ‘we’ve got him and he’s good.’”

Since then, her hope has waned for her father, Michael Phillips, 66, the chief of the volunteer fire department in Marble Falls, about 80 miles north of San Antonio. Yet his name remains among more than 100 people still missing statewide after floodwaters roared through summer camps, riverside homes, campgrounds and R.V. parks, claiming at least 135 lives.

As days have turned into weeks, the number of missing, still stubbornly high, may be the flood’s biggest lingering question. The total in Kerr County, the epicenter of the disaster, dropped this week to 97 from 173, and then stalled, raising still more questions. At least four others are missing or unidentified from Travis County, just east of Kerr. And one person — Mr. Phillips — is missing from Burnet County, and still others across the region might be out there.

“Even though we are reporting 97 people missing,” in Kerr County, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas told reporters on Monday, “there’s no certainty that all 97 of those people were swept away by the storm.”

The fluctuation of the numbers has only contributed to the puzzlement, as bodies are recovered and it becomes clear that some counts are incorrect. Mr. Abbott has said that in the days following the floods, local and state officials were better able to identify people from out of town who had come to the Hill Country to stay at camps and hotels.

Officials in Kerr County have said that search efforts could carry on for months.

It is common for the number of missing to fluctuate after natural disasters. In the days that followed a devastating August 2023 wildfire in Maui, Hawaii, the number of missing reached a staggering 1,100, and then plunged. About six months later, there were only two, with 102 confirmed deaths. Few of the missing were actually dead.

As with a fire, a flood makes recovering bodies and identifying remains challenging. And like Maui, the Hill Country of Texas is a vacation spot, attracting visitors who complicate the tally.

Who gets counted as missing and how they might be found depends on several factors, including the accuracy of information that officials receive, experts said. Clerical errors, like a misspelled name, can land people who have already been accounted for among the missing.

In many cases, the people who were initially reported missing simply return home and do not check in with their loved ones, he said.

“Maybe,” Mr. Bastisch said, “they decided to go somewhere else and just don’t tell their friends.”

In Burnet County, three of the eight people initially reported as missing had been placed on that list after authorities recovered their possessions, like drivers licenses and vehicles, and assumed their owners were swept up in floodwaters, said Alan Trevino, chief deputy at the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office. When officials conducted a welfare check, though, they found that those people were alive.

For families who are certain that their loved ones were taken by the violent waters, every day that passes without their recovery can prolong their agony.

In Leander, northwest of Austin, where a creek swelled and engulfed residences, Sherry McCutcheon and Terry Traugott, who are sisters, said they would not hold funerals for their mother, Betty West, 84, and their brother, Doug West, 54 — killed together at the home they shared — until the fate of another brother who lived with them, Gary Traugott, 60, is known.

“I can’t stand it that Gary is laying out there by himself, on the ground or in that water,” she said. “He was so skinny — it hurts my heart to think about it.”

There is also the grim reality of the recovery process, which can complicate subtracting from the tally of missing and adding to the number of dead.

In the morass of mud, mangled trees and other debris along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, a search crew member pointed out the astounding force of the flood. The same force that splintered mighty cypress trees and tore apart fortified houses could do significant damage to a person as well, searchers said.

Officials would need a DNA sample to confirm identities, which can require help from family members.

And the search area is vast. Some survivors were washed 15 or 20 miles downriver before they found a tree or other anchor to hold onto until rescuers came. Remains might be miles farther east and south.

On Thursday, Ms. McCutcheon and Ms. Traugott anxiously awaited a call from the medical examiner’s office as they tended to errands, closing up their mother’s post office box and securing documents. A body had been found on Wednesday, and their DNA might be needed to help identify it.

“They’re heartbroken when they call us, but they don’t understand that they’re giving us relief,” Ms. McCutcheon said. “We can’t have funerals for two when there are three.”

In the same neighborhood of Leander, Jermaine Jarmon, 52, also provided a DNA sample to officials. He lost his longtime partner, Alissa Martin, 54, and his son Braxton Jarmon, 15, when the floods wiped out their home. His daughter, Felicity, 16, was still missing as of Thursday. Mr. Jarmon said he had come to accept that she would not be found alive.

“I already know there’s no hope for that,” he said. “I watched them go.”

He was confident, though, that search teams would find her remains. On Friday, he planned to hold a memorial service on his property. “It’s for all three of them,” he said.

In Marble Falls, Ms. Newton joined teams to scour the river banks for any sign of Mr. Phillips nearly two weeks after his emergency vehicle was swept away while he responded to a call for help. Ms. Newton shook trees, lifted debris and sifted through branches for any sign of her father. A small part of her still believed he would pop up from the brush and flash her a smile.

“I just figured that if anybody was going to get out, it would be him,” Ms. Newton said.

But the arduous search yielded nothing.

Ms. Newton and her mother, Cecilia Phillips, decided that it was time to suspend the search. At least 200 people, on foot, in helicopters and with drones and cadaver dogs, had been called in to try to find Mr. Phillips. His family told the sheriff’s office they could stop looking. Mr. Phillips wouldn’t have wanted so many resources expended on him instead of in Kerr County, which was hit harder, Ms. Newton said.

Ms. Newton and her family plan to hold a memorial service July 29 in the high school auditorium. Mr. Phillips retired about two years ago as the maintenance director of the Marble Falls Independent School District.

For now, Ms. Newton has found solace knowing that her father died while doing something he loved — helping other people — and that he is at rest around the serenity of the river, in an area so remote that there is no cell service.

“He’s in his backyard,” Ms. Newton said. “I feel like he’s at peace.”

Edgar Sandoval contributed reporting from Kerr County, Jenna Russell from Plymouth, Mass.