DNA will be collected from both the bodies and family members searching for missing loved ones.
By Sarah Bahari
https://www.dallasnews.com/
Bodies recovered from the Texas Hill Country floods will be sent to Fort Worth for identification, authorities said Sunday.
Col. Freeman Martin, head of the state’s Department of Public Safety, said at a news conference that bodies of adults and children at a local funeral home are awaiting identification. Texas Rangers are collecting DNA from the bodies and family members searching for missing loved ones.
The bodies are being flown to the University of North Texas’ Center for Human Identification in Fort Worth, one of the premier DNA facilities in the country. A spokesperson for the center did not immediately respond to an email Sunday afternoon.
“We will have answers with rapid DNA in hours, not days, to get some closure to these families,” Martin said.
Anguished families have been searching for loved ones since the Guadalupe River surged to its second-highest height on record early on the Fourth of July.
At least 68 people were killed and many more remain missing, including 11 girls from Camp Mystic, a popular girls summer camp nestled along the Guadalupe River. The total number of unaccounted for is not known, but authorities have warned the death toll will rise.
Rescuers are using boats, drones, helicopters and horses to comb large swaths of the Hill Country, with mangled trees, overturned cars and muck-filled river banks.
“We’re doing everything we can,” Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring Jr. said during a morning news conference Sunday. “Our goal is to rescue those in peril and find those who are lost.”
By Sarah Bahari
Sarah Bahari is a trending news reporter. She previously worked as a writer for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where she covered a bit of everything. She is a graduate of Kansas State University.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
