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At Least 105 People Dead in Catastrophic Texas Flooding; Camp Mystic Death Toll Now 27 Children and Counselors, 11 Still Missing; Trump Pushes Reciprocal Tariff Deadline to August 1. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired July 08, 2025 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[08:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): ... holding hands in death, no word on the grandparents.

Jane Ragsdale was the owner of another nearby summer camp. It was empty, but she died there just the same.

GREG WHITE, FRIEND BILL HOUSTON MISSING IN FLOOD: RV park was just gone everything. Everything, you know, it was, you know, it's -- it wasn't on this Earth anymore.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Greg White's friend Bill Houston is nowhere to be found, although White says the body of Bill's dog Sage was discovered in the debris. High school soccer coach Reece Zunker and his wife Paula were swept away. Psychologist and college professor Catherine Eads too.

And even as some campers have ridden away from the calamity, singing songs of faith, sad search for more victims goes on.

Tom Foreman CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, frantic search and rescue efforts underway in Texas for two dozen people still missing after the deadly floods as new questions are raised about who received emergency alerts and who didn't. And leaders demanding answers about local officials actions before the flooding.

We're also hearing the harrowing stories of those who were trapped in flooded homes or swept away by the rushing waters. One woman was rescued after clinging to a tree for four hours.

And President Trump announcing a new round of global tariff threats to countries he's now targeting as he pushes for more trade deals. The trade war is back on.

I'm Sara Sidner with Kate Bolduan and John Berman. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: The breaking news this morning. The death toll from the catastrophic flooding in Texas now climbing to at least 104 people. And urgent search and rescue operation continues this morning to find possible survivors five days into this tragedy. At least 24 people are still unaccounted for and there are growing questions of could more have been done to save more lives.

New in today, this harrowing image of campers and a counselor huddled together. You can see them plugging their little ears as they're being evacuated via helicopter from Camp Mystic. The girls summer camp that was devastated when the banks of the Guadalupe River broke.

The campus confirmed 27 campers and counselors were killed in the floods. At least 10 campers and one counselor remain unaccounted for still this morning. We're hearing more incredible stories as well of survival, like a mother and her three children saved by a neighbors yell.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRISSY ELIASHAR, FAMILY SURVIVED TEXAS FLOODS: We tried to get to our car and my key, I thought I had a plan and as soon as we looked at it, it floated away. And Matthew just kept screaming at us and the the the only sensible things he could say just keep walking this way. Keep walking in.

My daughter actually fell and lost her shoe and nearly lost her life

My God, I slipped and fell my daughter and nearly was washed away and my son grabbed her and saved her by her hair. And he just kept telling us keep walking and grabbed us and helped us get to just enough high, high ground.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Unbelievable, that gives you chills.

And now to the questions Texas officials are facing. Were they prepared enough? Did they heed warnings? Why did some residents fail to receive the mobile alerts that were sent out? A lot to be learned as this search still continues today.

We have team coverage from the flood zone. CNN's Pamela Brown in Kerrville, Isabel Rosales in Center Point. Pam, what is the latest you're learning at this hour?

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, we're learning more about what happened in those hours following that deadly flooding at Camp Mystic and that the fact that some counselors and campers didn't even know the reality of what had happened in those overnight hours until around lunchtime because those counselors didn't even have a phone with them in the cabin. They weren't allowed to have a phone unless they were in their off hours. The public alert system was offline because there was no power.

And there is no signal system here in Kerrville if there is flooding. So while some counselors on the sprawling campus more than 700 acres

had to jump into action in those early morning hours and really showed heroism saving their campers, others didn't have any idea until hours later. Here's what one counselor told our Anderson Cooper.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAROLINE CUTRONA, CAMP MISTIC COUNSELOR: Throughout the day, slowly kind of figured every little bit of information I continue to get.

[08:05:00]

I continue to think it was more and more severe when everyone had finished lunch, the director of Cypress Lake came by to the girls and the counselors that were at my cabin and she said -- she pulled all the counselors out and informed us that 27 girls were unaccounted for. And that Dick Eastland was missing too.

And that's when we found out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: You have to think, Kate, so many of these counselors they were young teenagers and we're learning more about one of the counselors who lost her life. 19 year old Chloe Childress had just graduated from high school. Her family released a statement saying that it was shocked and that she was looking forward to spending the rest of the summer taking care of those little girls at Camp Mystic and helping them grow. And also her high school released a statement saying that she was such a wonderful young woman and had so much life ahead of her.

It's just so awful to think about counselors like her who lost her life. Other counselors so young who had to jump into action to save the lives of those kids. It's so much to grapple with -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: It absolutely is, and we're going to continue to learn much more as there are still some missing from that beloved camp, Camp Mystic, Pam, thank you so much for that.

We do have an update just in that we want to bring you news. Just word in that the death toll has risen. Once again, the death toll now, as we said this morning, was at 104. The death toll now rising to 105 this morning from these catastrophic floods.

Now let's get back to the flood zone. Isabel Rosales is standing by. Isabel, you've been laser focused on the search and rescue efforts as there are still dozens missing. What are you -- what's the latest there?

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The sun has now risen and as we walk along the Guadalupe River, really a tributary of the river, we can see just this incredible site. These Cypress trees with deep, deep roots how these floodwaters just snap them away like matchsticks and left them scattered all over the place. Volunteers are going to be focused today on removing all of this debris so that they can be carefully searched underneath all of this and make sure that they're not missing anyone.

Over there by the bridge you see that -- bridges especially take extra time. Yesterday we saw Texas A&M Task Force down there with a cadaver dog because underneath the bridges you can really see that debris accumulating so they went in there with that dog, cleared the site, made sure that there wasn't anyone there, and then that is when construction crews could inspect the bridge and also go in there and start to remove that debris.

And then we just keep seeing these incredible sites. Take a look right over here. A dump truck just folded in half, breaking apart that Cypress tree right over there. I've seen RV trailers, campers, semis, all sorts of things that you would imagine are unmovable, just snapped away by these rushing floodwaters. And as we move over this way, you can see right over here a line of cars that are starting to to pile up.

This is the way the entrance into the Center Point Volunteer Fire Department where more and more volunteers are going to crowd today and get started on this work. I was really taken by the items that these volunteers have found throughout their search, including a child's Bible with handwritten notes over on the margins. Another volunteer found an American flag all the way to the top of a tree -- 20 feet up.

He also found pictures of a child holding a child's dance recital. Just these very deep and personal mementos and of course these volunteers just don't know what happened to those families. If they're OK -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes, it's a great point. Isabel, thank you very much for staying on top of this one for us. Thanks to Pam as well as she continues her coverage from Kerrville.

So if you have more -- if you would like more information about how you can help all of these victims in Texas, you can go to cnn.com/impact or you can text flood and there's also two you can text flood to 707070 -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you Kate.

The breadth of the devastation is hard to calculate. One thing is clear, the worst of the damage and the highest death toll is in Kerrville so far.

One volunteer there says any homes close to the Guadalupe Riverbanks are gone, swept off their foundations. We're also hearing from a homeowner who says if she had not been familiar with her property, she would not have known where to go, how to survive, and likely would have been swept away in those waters.

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Joining us now is Jeremy Kurth. He lives in Kerrville. Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

Just give me some sense of where you were. This is your community that you were having to see in such a devastated state. Where were you when the flood waters came rushing in?

JEREMY KERTH, RESIDENT OF KERRVILLE, TEXAS: Yes, we're about a half a mile from the river, so frankly we weren't in harm's way, but we have a lot of friends and family in the area that were, and we got out early that morning and saw the river and saw how high it was. Never have seen it even, not even half as high as where it was. It was really concerning, and yes, we knew this was really bad.

SIDNER: You knew it was bad. You decided to do something about it. Can you describe to me what the destruction is like, what it looks like, what it feels like out there in these hot temperatures with the rain still coming down, the flood waters still high?

Give me some sense of what your community is like this morning.

KERTH: Well, Hunt, Texas is about 20 miles, I guess, to the west of Kerrville, and from Kerrville through Ingram to Hunt, Texas, it's total devastation. I can't even -- you can't describe it, sadly. Your eyes can't believe it, how, you know, destroyed and devastated everything is.

There's cars everywhere in the river bottom. There's RVs. There's, you know, people's outdoor belongings. There's entire homes that, as you said, were wiped off foundation, so that's all littered throughout that bottom land.

And, you know, as you drive through it, every time I drive through it, I drove through it again yesterday because we're helping some friends that own a camp out there. Yes, I cry every time. It's just -- it just seems hopeless, but I will say this.

Yesterday, everybody -- I think the mood changed quite a bit because there's just so much help here in a good way. You know, the last couple of days, we had a lot of people trying to look, and, you know, because it's crazy how, nobody's ever seen this before, not in this area. And, yes, yesterday, the mood changed, at least for me, and I know for -- there were probably 200 people on this property that were helping, and things were changing fast, so it was -- it gave us a lot of hope.

SIDNER: You know, there have been a lot of -- there's a lot of talking now about, you know, warnings and how this happened, and who got alerts and who didn't, and sirens as well. Did you, by any chance, get an alert, or did you hear from any neighbors who were in the flood areas getting an alert? Because I know one of the issues with alerts on the phones is that it can be quite spotty to be able to communicate.

KERTH: Yes, just to give you a sense, we're in the middle of nowhere out here. I mean, Texas is a big place. We're west of what I would call Central Texas, and Hunt especially is, I mean, it's just, it's out there. So cell signals being spotty, I don't even know if there is one out there for the major providers. So from my perspective, you know, the warning system or not, I just, at this point, I don't care to talk about that because it -- we just don't -- I don't want to blame anything. This was an unprecedented 100-year, you know, 500-year flood that nobody could have seen coming.

And yes, will we learn from it? Yes, absolutely, and I hope we do something to help with this. But yes, I just don't know what else to say about that.

SIDNER: Yes, do you think sirens maybe is the answer? I know there's been a lot of talk back and forth about sirens where communities had looked into them, but the cost was too high. What do you wish that was there that does not exist right now and may exist in the future?

KERTH: Well, the hard part is this is -- we're talking about 50 miles. I don't know how -- I mean, I guess 50 miles of sirens could help, but you know, would they even be functioning? Because the power was lost.

I mean, when this water rips through, it rips down, you know, we have all the wires that go across the river. They don't go under it. They're ripped down.

[08:15:00]

Thankfully, they were replacing them yesterday. They're doing a great job, but you know, it's just hard to say and speculate, would that even work?

I don't know enough about it to really comment, but I can tell you that there was no power out there. Once that water got as high as it was and trees ripping through there, those lines were gone.

SIDNER: Yes, we heard that from a counselor at Camp Mystic that there was no power and they didn't get the local camp warning that normally would have gone off. So a big issue.

Jeremy, thank you so much. Thank you for speaking to us but also thank you for going out there and helping your community that is in desperate need now. Really appreciate it -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: You know, on that last point you were making, the Texas lieutenant governor says sirens might have saved lives, as other leaders demand to know why so many people were caught off guard when the water started rising.

The extension extended in the new deadline firm, but not 100 percent firm, which might make it not firm. The very latest for now on the president's tariff threats.

And standing by for a hearing that could determine when we learn the sentence for Sean Combs.

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BERMAN: So for the first time since last Thursday, there is no flood watch in Central Texas. Drier weather is expected there today, which could help with the search and rescue efforts. Elsewhere in the country though, there are threats of severe storms and flooding.

CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam tracking all of it for us. What are you seeing out there this morning, Derek?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, John, it is a glimmer of good news for the Texas Hill Country. We have a somewhat drier air mass moving in. That means that the chances of showers and storms go down significantly today.

Here's our water vapor imagery shows the amount of moisture basically in the atmosphere and it's a marked difference from this time yesterday, certainly over the holiday weekend as well. Just as John noted, this is the first time since last Thursday. We're going almost a week here without a watch, a flood watch. That's good news.

The radar is generally dry with the exception of a few thunderstorms bubbling up across the coastal areas, but the water is still there. It's still funneling into the tributaries and rivers.

So I'm going to give you this as an example. The San Saba River at San Saba does expect to crest another time tomorrow morning into minor flood stage. So again, this water just doesn't disappear. It has to go somewhere, but there isn't more rain falling from the sky to add misery to what's happening across the Hill Country.

So this is our forecast radar. Notice that the majority of the showers and storms that pop up later today are east of the hardest hit regions. So we'll keep that precipitation there for the foreseeable future. Tomorrow there could be a bit of an uptick in thunderstorm activity near Kerrville and the general Hill Country region, but nothing like what we've experienced over the past few days.

Across the Northeast, John talked about the potential of severe storms. It's all because of the heat and a cold front that is smashing into this warm air mass. This is what it'll feel like as you step outside today. 98 in New York but look at down towards Philadelphia in the nation's capital, topping the triple digit mark. So that's just fueling thunderstorms this afternoon and then once again tomorrow evening.

So heads up be weather aware. Keep an eye to the sky. Some of these storms could produce -- be prolific rainfall makers as well. So it doesn't take much to produce urban flash flooding. That's why we have a flash flood watch in place from Boston through New York to Philadelphia, Baltimore, inclusive of the nation's capital.

Any of these thunderstorms that do form today, John, could produce a quick two to three inches of rain overwhelming the systems. Back to you.

BERMAN: All right, we we are on alert, been warned. All right, Derek Van Dam, thank you very much for that.

President Trump issues this new, new trade deadline along with some new threats as well. We're watching the stock market futures this morning.

Plus, a brand new look at key evidence shown in court in the trial of a woman convicted of murdering family members with poisonous mushrooms. What doctors found in a bag when she visited the hospital.

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BOLDUAN: President Trump is on a letter writing spree it appears. Sending word to 14 different countries telling them their tariff rate is about to go as high as 40 percent even for some of America's closest allies and largest trading partners that get letters to like Japan and South Korea. Trump now saying that they're about to see a new 25 percent tariff.

But at the very same time the president once again delayed and extended -- whichever one you wanted to describe it as -- the deadline for trade talks. Now saying reciprocal tariffs will take effect August 1st instead of tomorrow. As the trade war kicks into round whichever you want to say it is. CNN's Harry Enten took a look at how voters are feeling about all of these trade moves because I don't know what round this is, but it is -- you've we've seen the impact on markets. We've seen investors kind of try to pump the brakes on reacting in some cases because it's dragged on so long. But how are voters feeling about it? What do you think?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Yes, I would say that voters feel about the same way that folks felt about New Coke in the mid 1980s. They love them in theory and hate him in practice.

BOLDUAN: It is not the first time he has used that comparison. You are obsessed with New Coke.

ENTEN: I just love soda. That's the bottom line.

OK, think tariffs hurt the economy, you know go back to September of 2024 when Donald Trump was running for president running for that second term. Just 39 percent thought that terrorists hurt the economy. Look at where this number has jumped up to in June of 2025 -- 57 percent. That's a nearly 20 point rise in less than a year because they have seen the impact that tariffs and the thoughts of tariffs can have on the economy. And just 28 percent of Americans voters think that tariffs are now good for the U.S. economy, including just -- get this -- 16 percent of independents.

So the bottom line is like tariffs in theory, hate them in practice and 57 percent of voters now say that they believe that tariffs hurt the economy.

BOLDUAN: But how does this fit into the short-term pain long-term gain question in terms of like -- but Trump kept saying just wait. It'll be great for you. But how are the -- how is this impacting how voters view his handling of this?

ENTEN: Yes, exactly right. And if you all of a sudden the hurt number has gone up and so does the disapproval of Trump's -- disapproval rating of Trump on handling his trade policies.

Look at this disapproval of Trump's trade policies in January. It was 40 percent up like a rocket up to 54 percent now in June just 35 percent of Americans approve of his trade policies and get this just 30 percent of independents approve of his trade policies.

So voters are going against tariffs thinking they're hurting the economy and they're going against Trump in particular on his trade policy. Might have liked them at the beginning, might have liked them back during the campaign, but when they're actually in practice, they hate, hate, hate.

BOLDUAN: You have here also -- because April was like the critical month ...

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