Kerrville mayor snaps at reporters as Texas flood death toll climbs to 119 with 173 missing

Kerrville Mayor Joe Herring Jr. lashed out at reporters on Wednesday during the flood briefing as questions about the flooding disaster continue.

“Guess what? You’re in Kerrville and we’re going to do it my way,” Herring said during the Q&A. He said that if reporters continued to shout, he would stop responding. “If you feel the need to yell your questions, I will feel the need to not answer your question. In first grade they raise their hands. That might be a good start.”

The tense presser came as officials confirmed that at 119 deaths have been confirmed across the six Texas counties following the devastating flash flooding. Kerr County accounted for 59 adults and 36 children among the dead. 173 people remain missing.

"The recent numbers reported break my heart, and they break the heart of everyone up here, everyone who has been working since July the Fourth," said Herring Jr.

State Governor Greg Abbott restated that search efforts "will not stop until every missing person is accounted for," he said.

Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha took questions and addressed criticisms over the use of the Code Red Alert System. "I believe those questions need to be answered, to the family of the missed loved ones, to the public, you know, to the people that put me in this office," Leitha said, according to NBC. "I want that answer, and we’re going to get that answer."

He added: "We’re not running, we’re not going to hide from anything that’s going to be checked into at a later time. I wish I could tell you that time. I don’t know that time."

Governor Abbott directed flags to be flown at half-staff across the statedon through Monday. “The flags of the State of Texas shall be lowered statewide immediately to half-staff in mourning for those who lost their lives in the floods,” he wrote in a letter to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Rescue teams continue to search flooded areas. Officials say the chance of finding survivors is lowering by the day, and forecasts show more scattered showers and possible heavy rain across the Texas Hill Country and I-35 corridor.

Elsewhere in the country three people died in flash flooding in Ruidoso, New Mexico, a mountain town still recovering from wildfires that hit the area last year.