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.
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