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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

At Least 82 People Dead in Catastrophic Texas Flooding; Trump Signs Major Disaster Declaration for Texas; Tropical Depression Chantal Drenches U.S. Atlantic Coast. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired July 07, 2025 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:00]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

MIN JUNG LEE, ANCHOR, EARLY START: Good morning and welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world, I'm MJ Lee, Rahel Solomon is off. We begin with breaking news. Parts of Texas are bracing for even more heavy rainfall after the catastrophic flooding that's left at least 82 people dead, including 28 children.

New video shows the dramatic moment two people were rescued from the raging floodwaters. The El Paso Fire Department says they were clinging to a tree before the rescue. Texas Governor Greg Abbott says flash flooding still poses a threat for some areas as water levels begin to rise again.

That prompted officials to urge people in the Hunt community to move to higher ground on Sunday. The treacherous conditions are making it harder for search and rescue crews to find any more survivors. At last check, officials said at least 41 people were still missing. A local sheriff says more than 401st responders from more than 20 agencies are part of the mass rescue operation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY LEITHA, SHERIFF, KERR COUNTY, TEXAS: We extend our sincerest condolences and prayers for every single family affected by this tragedy, and we continue to work around the clock and reunite these families. We will continue to search -- our search efforts until everybody is found.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Among those missing are at least ten campers and one counselor from Camp Mystic. It's an all girls Summer camp near the Guadalupe River that burst its banks early Friday when most people were still sleeping. Some residents were caught off guard when the floodwaters began to quickly rise.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I live right here, right across the street here. I came out, opened the door, couldn't believe I could see water all the way across, already walked right here, right where we're standing. And the water was just ripping through here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: CNN's Marybel Gonzalez has more from Kerrville, Texas.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARYBEL GONZALEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Search efforts across central Texas continue. But here in the city of Kerrville, those search efforts were cut short this afternoon. And that is because on Sunday, we got an alert, an emergency alert indicating there was possible flash floods in the area.

There were dozens of people on the ground, volunteers, first responders, search and rescue groups. They were here along the river, the Guadalupe River, sifting through the debris. However, once they got that alert, they had to head out of the area. Momentarily, they tried to come back. They tried to resume those efforts.

However, they were turned right back around because it was just deemed too dangerous. And you can certainly see why the levels of the Guadalupe River can rise quickly. In fact, where we're standing is at what used to be an RV Park. That RV Park was washed away when the flash floods came in during the early morning hours of 4th of July.

And we're told by the property owner that it only took 20 minutes for the waters to completely cover all the vehicles that were here on the property. We know that help is on the way. Aerial drones that are making their way here, those are typically used to conduct surveillance.

And the search parties that we saw here today, including residents that were here on horseback, they will be returning tomorrow morning. Residents of this area say they need all the help that they can get. Reporting in Kerrville, Texas, I'm Marybel Gonzalez.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: Meteorologist Chris Warren explains the key causes behind the catastrophic floods in Texas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS WARREN, METEOROLOGIST: It really is hard to imagine how something like this could happen. And in this case, a lot of different things came together to create this disaster. One of those was the drought. Days, if not weeks in the making. And you might say, well, why would a drought make flooding worse?

Wouldn't that be more water in -- you know, to the soil, more room? Well, it doesn't necessarily work that way. With the very hot and very dry conditions, the soil kind of gets baked, and it gets hard. So, initially, you get this downpour of water, and it doesn't go right into the soil. It just runs off.

You think of how big the land is, it would go right into the soil, that would at least help. But in this case, there were a lot of things going against the situation here.

[05:05:00]

So, another one would be once the rain started, it was tapping into moisture, not just from the gulf, which helps make things very humid in Texas anyways, but a couple of these former tropical systems add a little bit extra juice. So, there's another thing. The other aspect of it, it was slow-moving. The overall system that was helping to trigger the showers and thunderstorms just wasn't moving very fast.

And then the location, right? We need there was going to be storms and possibly flash flooding, but the fact that this one, this bad, horrible storm set up right here, right over the north and south forks of the Guadalupe River that feed into here, anything that falls from the sky, any rain, any water is going to drain that way.

And it was hours and hours of some of the heaviest rain you could even imagine. And it all ended up being well over 10 inches in some areas, around a foot in some spots, estimated by radar. And it's over several counties so that water drains out in many cases into the same locations.

And because of that, in just a matter of hours, going from -- this is the river gauge here, the Guadalupe River at Kerrville, going from less than a foot, below a foot water level to about a two-story house in a matter of couple of hours. That's all of that rain being funneled down the stream there. And then this is the forecast.

Not completely done just yet. Still have showers and thunderstorms to get through during the day tomorrow, but eventually, by tomorrow evening, things start to dry out and fortunately, really going to get a break. It's going to be hot, but back to a dry stretch next week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: And earlier, the editor and publisher of "The Kerr County Lead" spoke to CNN about what he saw on Sunday. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LOUIS AMESTOY, EDITOR & PUBLISHER, THE KERR COUNTY LEAD: I went out to the HTR RV Park, which is right on the Kerrville Ingram border, right on the river, and I knew that was probably honestly our worst -- our worst spot as far as the totality of missing and possibly dead. And that was an unbelievable scene. I know you guys had a crew out there earlier tonight.

I ran across them, and that was -- that was a sobering sight, completely wiped away all of the trailers that were there, gone. You see remnants of them strewn across the river, completely smashed up. You know, I don't know what that loss of life looks like at this point. I don't know if it's included in the count.

If thus, some of those folks have been identified already, but that's where I think the next few days were really going to see that number jump up. And you know, I knew going into that, this event on Friday, that was going to be a bad -- that was a bad spot. I already talked to the county judge about that area.

We haven't had the opportunity really to get out to Hunt and to Ingram from my reporting, just because of the road closures. It was pretty chaotic here today, really, because there was just so many people --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes --

AMESTOY: Who came to Kerrville to see the destruction.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: President Trump is pledging continued federal support for Texas following the devastating floods. But he stopped short of commenting on the future of FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. CNN's Kevin Liptak has more reaction from the White House.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER (on camera): President Trump says he will probably visit the affected areas of Texas on Friday. He actually said he wanted to visit this weekend, but decided against it because he thought the security apparatus could affect the search and rescue efforts there.

The President is calling what is happening horrible, and says the federal government will continue to assist state and local authorities as they deal with this tragedy. The President signed a major disaster declaration for Texas on Sunday. And what that did is, it unlocked federal resources for the community there.

It allows FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency to begin its work on the ground. The U.S. Coast Guard has also deployed resources there, including two helicopters, three fixed wing aircraft which have thermal cameras able to detect movement on the ground that might not be visible to the naked eye.

FEMA has also set up seven shelters, which as of 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, were housing 137 people. President Trump, in his letter to Greg Abbott; the governor of Texas, wrote a handwritten addendum in sharpie saying that "our wonderful Secretary Kristi Noem is available at all times." Kristi Noem, obviously the Secretary of Homeland Security.

[05:10:00]

Now, there are some questions being raised about staffing levels at the National Weather Service, some critical positions were left vacant after their occupants decided to take early retirement initiatives offered by the Trump administration, as they have worked to reduce the size of the federal government. And one of the positions is a warning coordination meteorologist at the Austin San Antonio office of the National Weather Service.

Now, it is not a definitive answer of whether these positions, if they were filled, could have changed anything on the ground there, but it is certainly something that will be scrutinized going forward. President Trump also addressed some of these questions on Sunday. Listen to what he said.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think that the federal government needs to hire back any of the meteorologists who were fired in the last few months?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I wouldn't know that. I really wouldn't. I would think not. This was a thing that happened in seconds. Nobody expected it. Nobody saw it. Very talented people are there, and they didn't see it. It's -- I guess they said once in a 100 years, they've never seen anything like this.

So, I wouldn't -- I mean, people are trying to blame the school. They're trying to blame the camp. They're trying to blame -- it's just a horrible thing. But no, I wouldn't say that. No.

LIPTAK: Now, President Trump was also asked if he still plans to phase out FEMA. Remember, his goal is to eliminate that agency and put more responsibility on states for preparing and recovering for disasters. Those changes were set to go into effect after this year's Atlantic hurricane season.

The President declined to answer that question. He said that FEMA is busy working, and that it was a question for another time. Kevin Liptak, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: And as people search for answers, some are questioning the region's preparedness and wondering what, if anything, could have been done differently to avoid such a disaster. CNN senior national security analyst Juliette Kayyem weighs in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I do not buy into the argument that there's nothing that could have been done. This is a 100-year storm. There's -- we've got decades and decades of disaster management to protect children like this. So, everyone needs to stop pretending that either the other party did it or this was not preventable, this tragedy.

We have lessons to be learned. Here's what we know just from the timeline. National Weather Service begins to get -- really get more frantic over the course of the morning. It is a holiday weekend. It is in the middle of the night. Your worst case scenario for this situation. We do know that there were people who were in charge of what we call coordination, and the reason why we call it that is that, you have a warning, and then you have action.

And you need people to connect those two, right? Do you evacuate? Do you hide in place? Whatever it is. We also know that the county does not have a siren system on its rivers, which other counties in Texas do. Cell service was probably not good. So, we have a lot of factors that we need to learn from. I think it's wrong for Texas to blame the National Weather Service. And I think it's premature for the President to say it wasn't the

National Weather Service. I will say one thing, though, and these cuts to the National Weather Service, to NOAA, to FEMA, the potential elimination of FEMA, we will miss them when they're gone. I think we need to say that now. I don't know if there's a direct line between the National Weather Service and cuts and what happened.

But this is what government is for. It's to -- it's to help people and prepare them for the damage and the devastation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Tropical Depression Chantal made landfall in South Carolina on Sunday. It's now become the first named storm to strike the Atlantic Coast of the U.S. this hurricane season. More than 5 million people in North Carolina were under flood alerts by the early morning hours yesterday. And Virginia also put at least 2 million people under flash flood warnings as the storm tracks deeper inland.

Rain is expected to push further north later this week. Chantal was recently downgraded from a tropical storm, but it's still inflicting heavy damage on coastal communities. This image on screen shows a collapsed highway amid major flooding in central North Carolina. We have much more to come on the deadly flooding in Texas, and the race to find dozens of people still missing with more heavy rainfall likely on the way.

And next, could Israel and Hamas reach a ceasefire agreement this week? We'll bring you the details of the Israeli Prime Minister's upcoming meeting with President Trump, and the renewed talks taking place in Qatar. Stay with us.

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[05:15:00]

LEE: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet with President Trump today to discuss the latest hostage ceasefire proposal. Just before boarding his flight to the U.S. on Sunday, Netanyahu said President Trump, quote, "can help move us closer to a ceasefire agreement."

Trump was also optimistic a deal could be agreed to in the coming days, saying, quote, "we have to get it over with. We have to do something about Gaza." And in the meantime, a diplomatic source tells CNN that indirect negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release between Hamas and Israel restarted in Qatar on Sunday.

CNN's Nada Bashir joins us live from London now. Nada, set the scene for us ahead of this meeting, which is coming as President Trump is really pushing hard for a ceasefire deal.

[05:20:00]

NADA BASHIR, CNN REPORTER: That's right. And there has been that indication, of course, from the Israeli Prime Minister that, this meeting with the U.S. President could really help to push things along as we continue to see the ceasefire negotiations in Doha ongoing, as we heard from Netanyahu, who has said that President Trump could be key in advancing those discussions.

The U.S. President himself has been very vocal and clear in the fact that he does want to see a ceasefire reached. We heard, of course, following that ceasefire agreement between Israel and Iran. The U.S. President hoped that the next step would then be securing a peace deal in Gaza as well.

A deal to secure the release of hostages and bring an end to hostilities in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli Prime Minister himself at the time also saying that, that ceasefire with Iran could also pave the way for the expansion of further peace agreements. So, there is certainly some indications of positivity from those leaders involved in these discussions and negotiations. Take a listen to what U.S. President Donald Trump had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think we're close to a deal on Gaza. We could have it this week. I think there's a good chance we have a deal with Hamas during the week, during the coming week, pertaining to quite a few of the hostages, yes. You know, we've gotten a lot of the hostages out, but pertaining to the remaining hostages, quite a few of them will be coming out. We think we'll have that done this week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASHIR: Now, of course, as we understand it, according to a diplomatic source familiar with these ongoing discussions, those talks did restart on Sunday between mediators and key officials involved in those discussions from both the Israeli side and Hamas officials. It's understood that an Egyptian delegation was also present at those negotiations.

We understood, of course, last week that the Israeli officials and delegation had agreed to a ceasefire proposal put forward by the U.S., that would secure the release of some hostages, both those still living and those believed to be deceased, held captive in the Gaza Strip, as well as an end to the hostilities in Gaza for at least 60 days.

On Friday, there were indications, according to Hamas official, that they had also responded positively to that peace proposal on the table, but had also issued some amendments. Now, it's unclear what those are. Israeli officials have said from the Prime Minister's office that at this stage, those amendments are believed to be unacceptable.

But the understanding at this stage, MJ, is that these talks going on in Doha are focused on closing those gaps, trying to iron-out those finer details, and what we heard previously from Hamas officials is that their key focus really is on securing a long-lasting end to the war, and also on ensuring a mechanism for aid getting into the Gaza Strip through U.N., of course backed mechanisms, not what we're seeing at this stage, which is, of course, aid being distributed by the U.S. and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. MJ?

LEE: Nada Bashir in London, thanks for that update. Still to come, CNN's Pamela Brown reports on Camp Mystic, a place she herself knew so well as a child, now devastated by the flash flooding in Texas.

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[05:25:00]

LEE: New drone video shows fire crews making water rescues as the deadly flooding hit central Texas over the weekend. At least, 82 people are now confirmed dead, at least, 41 others are still missing. The National Weather Service warns more rain is headed for the state, with up to 10 inches possible in some areas.

And the flooding could still get worse in Kerr County, where the majority of the destruction has taken place. Search and rescue crews are still looking for at least ten campers and a missing counselor from Camp Mystic, an all girls Summer camp near the Guadalupe River. It took less than two hours for that river to rise more than 20 feet or about 6 meters on Friday. Governor Greg Abbott says crews will work to find every missing person.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): It was nothing short of horrific to see what those young children went through. And we will remain 100 percent dedicated, searching for every single one of the children who were at Camp Mystic, as well as anybody else in the entire riverbed, to make sure that they're going to be recovered.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: CNN's Pamela Brown is very familiar with Camp Mystic, having spent time there as a child. She filed this report not far from the camp in Hunt, Texas.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR (on camera): I'm Pamela Brown here in Hunt, Texas, right down the road from Camp Mystic that was just devastated by that flash flooding over the 4th of July. I was a camper there at Camp Mystic 30 years ago, and it's surreal to go back there to see that devastation, to see the cabins and the debris outside.

And just to think of those little girls who were inside fearing for their lives at that -- those waters ferociously and rapidly rose. I went back and I saw the Guadalupe River where I played in as a kid, as a camper there, that river was the source of so much joy. We played in that river, we played games, we looked for dinosaur fossils.

We played on this thing, this big inflatable balloon where someone would jump on it, and then the camper at the end would fly into the water. So many laughs in that river. And then that river became the source of terror for those campers and for this community. Several campers washed away. Some found dead, some still missing. There are many outstanding questions. We just don't know the answers

to at this hour. Questions about whether the cuts of the National Weather Service could have played a role here, whether the warning should have come earlier, any evacuations should have come earlier. Now, Texas officials have said this happened so rapidly overnight, there was not more that could have been done.