The death toll from the July Fourth flash flood that ravaged a swath of central Texas Hill Country rose on Tuesday to at least 109, many of them children, as search teams pressed on through mounds of mud-encrusted debris looking for scores of people still missing.

Gov. Greg Abbott vowed Tuesday to continue rescue efforts in the flood-ravaged Hill Country “until every missing person is accounted for”.

Over the last decade, an array of local and state agencies have missed opportunities to fund a flood warning system intended to avert the type of disaster that swept away dozens of youth campers and others in Kerr County,

The storms that battered the Hill Country for the last four days began to lighten up, although isolated pockets of heavy rain were still possible.