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Erin Burnett Outfront

Texas Floods: 104 Dead, At Least 28 Of Them Children, 24 Missing; Man Clung To Life Standing On Home's Small Meter Box For Hours; Tesla Tanks As Musk Pushes New Political Party & Provokes Trump. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired July 07, 2025 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:24]

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:

The breaking news, the death toll in Texas soaring to 104 after one of the deadliest floods in decades. Ten young campers still missing tonight. And right now, there's a threat of more flooding in the same area.

Plus, a man who stood on top of an electric meter for three hours as the flood waters surged around him tonight, alive and here with us to tell his story.

And also breaking, $68 billion. That is how much Tesla lost in value today, just today, after Elon Musk said he's going to launch that new political party. Trump tonight calling Musk a train wreck who is off the rails.

Let's go OUTFRONT.

And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.

OUTFRONT tonight, the breaking news, the death toll just rising to at least 104 after the catastrophic flooding in central Texas. Tonight, that region is bracing for more flash flooding. They're anticipating that it's going to be more flash flooding through these next hours.

Right now, a flood watch is in effect. Forecasters saying that the atmospheric conditions are just right yet again, to produce heavy rain, which could seriously complicate what is a desperate search right now for survivors. They are still looking for survivors right now, 24 people still missing, including ten girls, ten children and a counselor from Camp Mystic that all girls Christian summer camp, where 27 children and counselors we already know have so tragically lost their lives because of the surging waters of the Guadalupe River on Friday night.

The images from inside that camp, gut wrenching. The beds, which housed some 750 kids at the time of the flooding -- now look at it -- it's covered in mud. The stuffed animals, blankets and books just strewn across the floor. No one had time to grab any of them. It is an area of Texas that is home to a number of nationally known children's summer camps. More than a dozen of them damaged when more than an entire summers worth of rain fell in just a few hours.

Now, at this hour, there are rescue crews that are out there. They're pushing forward. They're trying to cut through the debris, the downed trees. They are at this point hoping, against all odds, to still find a miracle and people alive.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE HERRING JR., MAYOR OF KERRVILLE, TEXAS: We remain hopeful. Every foot, every mile, every bend of the river, our work continues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: And while that work continues, the grueling search. Officials from the white house on down are facing questions about the warning system in place in Kerr County, which suffered most of the devastating loss of life. I mean, if you look at the times that warnings were issued in those early hours of Friday morning, 1:14 a.m. was the first warning for a life-threatening flash flooding, right?

That's what it said. Life threatening flash flooding would have gotten on your phone issued for parts of Kerr County, including Camp Mystic. Three hours later is when the most urgent warning forecasters can issue came, and that is a flash flood emergency.

The problem was, of course, the time of day. There are so many people, including the youngest victims, who were sleeping when these warnings were issued, which raises so many questions.

I mean, did anyone in the camp get the alerts? Did local authorities try to alert or evacuate the camps even by calling people, running them in advance, knowing that this area is prone to flooding, and that when you think about, I said, there's so many camps there, thousands and thousands of children in harm's way, and were mobile alerts ringing on cell phones that at the time were not even close to the kids, to the campers.

These are the official policies for Camp Mystic, right? Cell phones aren't permitted. That's part of why people send their kids to camp, according to this document, right? So they wouldn't have had them next to them, certainly wouldn't have woken them up.

Isabel Rosales is OUTFRONT live on the ground in Center Point, Texas.

And, Isabel, at this point, we've got these warnings again for tonight of the possibility again of heavy rain, flash flooding, as you are watching a race against time to try to find people still missing from the flooding, still alive.

Erin, now that we're on day four of this, I've spoken to so many volunteers and first responders off camera and why they -- while they want to hold on to that hope, a lot of them are clear-eyed. They're telling me painfully, painfully so that they don't think that they're going to find survivors at this point.

The Guadalupe River is to my right over here, but to the left, as volunteers and first responders go through this, searching meticulously, here's what they're finding and laying out on branches, clothing, personal effects left all over the place, and including a children's pajama, it appears, are shirt over here.

[19:05:03]

The search continues.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): Texas is grieving right now.

ROSALES (voice-over): Grieving and bracing for more rain as urgent rescues are still underway for dozens who are missing after the devastating floods that ravaged central Texas over the holiday weekend.

Bursting the seams of the Guadalupe River and taking the lives of at least 104 people, including 27 campers and counselors from a summer camp in Kerr County.

CRUZ: There's still ten girls and one counselor from Camp Mystic that are unaccounted for, and the pain and agony of not knowing your child's whereabouts, it's the worst thing imaginable.

ROSALES: Four months of rain fell in a matter of hours. The destructive and fast moving floodwater beginning just before sunrise on the fourth of July, the river rising 22 feet in just 30 minutes, taking everything in its path with it.

And many are asking why alerts weren't received and evacuations didn't take place.

DALTON RICE, KERRVILLE CITY MANAGER: Well, evacuation is a delicate balance because if you evacuate too late, you then risk putting busses or cars or vehicles or campers on roads into low water areas trying to get them out, which then can make it even more challenging because these flash floods happen very quickly, it's very tough to make those calls, because what we also don't want to do is cry wolf.

ROSALES: But many families wishing they had taken that chance, the timeline as we know it now. The first flood watch was issued on Thursday in the afternoon and in the early evening at 6:30 central time. Then the first emergency alert came out at 1:14, the morning of the fourth, and then again at 4:03 in the morning, just an hour before the river burst at around five in the morning.

Then a second emergency alert was issued for Kerrville at 5:24 a.m., and then at 5:34, an emergency alert was issued for the Guadalupe River area, but phone alerts were reportedly not received by some people in an area known to have spotty cell service.

Nineteen different local and state agencies are working urgently to find those still missing. Some rescue teams using the aid of cadaver dogs in their search. A man in Center Point, Texas, heard the screams of a young woman who

was clinging to a tree after being swept away in flood water from a camping site miles away with her family.

CARL JETER, CALLED FOR HELP FOR A STRANDED WOMAN: I didn't know that she was in a tree, but as it turned out, I finally spotted her in the tree and I began to yell back across to her that, hey, I see you, I'm going to get help!

ROSALES: And many others have come out to volunteer their time in search before the next rainfall comes.

MICHAEL GUYER, VOLUNTEER: I figured I can at least come and help relieve them of some stress and exhaustion. Now, I know that up towards Hunt and everything, they're still expecting possibly more storm surges. So, we have to be --

ROSALES: A big problem.

GUYER: Yeah, and we have to be on the lookout for that too.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROSALES (on camera): And, Erin, this is a rugged, rural, rough terrain for these volunteers, for these first responders. I've seen dangerous debris down barbed wire that that people have stepped on, I have stepped on, but luckily I'm wearing boots.

Also, fire ants that have bitten up the volunteers. Also, as they're going around. Take a look right up there. You see that? Thats a paddle boat showing the force of these flood waters, and also a reminder to look up -- Erin.

BURNETT: Yeah, to look up. And of course, that the miracles that we've seen have been by looking up in those trees.

Isabel, thank you so much for that important and powerful reporting.

I want to go straight now to Ryan Logue, deputy incident commander for the United Cajun Navy.

And, Ryan, I appreciate your time. I know you've been there now for, you know, ever since this started and crews have been racing against time, rescues, searches.

I know you have shared a few photos with us just showing the magnitude here of trees completely toppled over just from the power of the waters to look at the size of that tree next to the removal equipment, just to show the power of that water.

What else are you seeing on the ground today, Ryan?

RYAN LOGUE, DEPUTY INCIDENT COMMANDER, UNITED CAJUN NAVY: Today, it has been -- today was a busy day. We had -- we pulled out multiple trailers out of the water and we have begun planning on. We found an RV that looks like it may be covered with dirt with the whole body underneath there. And so, we are planning on getting our tractors out there and dozers to be able to build the roads just so we can get to this and be able to dig this trailer up to see if there's any victims in there.

It's -- I mean, the devastation is -- it's so widespread that, you know, we did about 100 yards a day and we found these, you know, two more trailers. And that's only out of 100 yards that we did.

BURNETT: I mean, the magnitude of it is obviously incomprehensible. Standing amidst it as you are, Ryan, is there just is there some moment or some, you know, just object that you've seen that just stands out to you right now?

LOGUE: How do I say this? So this morning, I got down to the site that we're at now near Center Point, and I turned around the corner and I looked down and there was a stump there. And laying on that stump was a child's bible, and it had her favorite bible verses in there. It had scriptures that she had written, notes that she had written to herself.

And at that moment I just dropped to my knees, and I cried. I cried for as hard as I could for as long as I could, just to get it out. The things that we're seeing out here, the amount of devastation it is, no matter if you find a body or not, it takes its toll on you. You -- this -- it's very hard to see for anybody that's out here.

BURNETT: I know that you have seen a community come together.

LOGUE: It -- yes. That -- you know, it's hard to say that you know anything about this is a blessing or that there's anything -- it's hard, you know, it's hard to find the good in something so horrible like this.

And the one thing that I can say is that if you want to find the good in this is you get to see what America is doing for America right here, and Texas is doing for Texas. We've had volunteers from six different states that have helped the organization. They are donating tractors. They are donating side by sides. They are bringing their boats, horses.

I mean, we have had people dropping their lives and promising this next -- the next two weeks of their life to us. And they said that no matter what happens, that they will not stop until the last person is found. I mean, it's -- it's a testament to how beautiful mankind actually is.

BURNETT: Amid such horror and ugliness.

Ryan, thank you so much.

LOGUE: Absolutely.

BURNETT: And thank you for sharing that story and being willing to talk about your -- your own moment and your feelings. We appreciate it. And there is a man there tonight who is lucky to be alive. And

frankly, we're very lucky to be speaking with him tonight. And that's Christian Fell because he survived the flood. He actually did that by standing for nearly three hours on a meter box.

And, Christian, I am grateful to be speaking with you. You know, we heard that story, Ryan, talking about seeing the child's bible with the verses highlighted. And we all know the incredible and incomprehensible loss that families are facing right now.

But you're alive, and it is a miracle. And amidst your family home, which is completely destroyed, can you tell me what happened? We go through timelines here of, well, an alert came at this time or at this time. How was that? Like when you're in the middle of the night asleep and you realize somethings wrong.

CHRISTIAN FELL, NARROWLY SURVIVED TEXAS FLOODING: You know, it's just kind of like a whirlwind of an experience. You just wake up and you. It's just like any other night, and then you come to realize that it quickly turned into a nightmare.

BURNETT: So, we have the actual meter box. This is the meter box that saved your life. You stood on it for nearly three hours.

So, when you got on to that, did you even think as you were getting on it, saying, okay, I'm going to do this to try to survive? Or did it almost happen instinctually? And then when you get on to that meter box, Christian, what did you think then as you're standing for three hours?

FELL: It definitely is a, I think, a blessing that the meter box was there because I don't even think I remembered that -- that was on that side of the building. So as I started to climb it, I just realized I needed to get out of the water as quickly as I could and just find something to hold on to, so the water couldn't take me away.

And I mean, I just saw cars getting carried away with their hazard lights flashing on and off, and industrial sized propane tanks just floating down -- floating down through a park that used to be there.

BURNETT: You had a lot of time there. I don't even know if you were able to think, but three hours. Did you think about whether you might die? And at what point did you realize you were actually going to live?

FELL: You know, it definitely crossed my mind. Standing there with nothing else to hold on to but a metal pipe, you know, screwed into a wall. It's not like an ideal situation. Just -- I just have to be thankful that the rest of the house stayed in place because I saw everything else that happened afterwards.

And, you know, I'm just -- I'm really thankful to be here, and I'm quite blessed to be honest.

BURNETT: Yes. Well, you are, but when -- I also want to try to understand Christian because we are all -- so many are trying to understand what seems to be such a tragic loss of life that that in so many cases didn't have to happen.

[19:15:10]

And I know that you woke up by the sound of thunder, right? If I'm right, you didn't actually wake up because you got an alert on your phone or, you know, hearing that blaring coming out of your phone and that your home was already flooding when you actually received that alert.

Can you tell us a little bit more about that? I mean, it was literally thunder that saved your life, not the alert?

FELL: Yes, ma'am. I woke up to the sound of thunder and I didn't think anything of it. I thought it was just like any other storm. And until I heard some odd noises coming from deeper in the house. And so, I get up to investigate.

And when I swing my feet over the side of the bed, I realized I was standing in water and, you know, that's not -- never a normal circumstance to be in. And so, I go to investigate, and I realize that the whole portion of the house is ripped up and there's water flooding through the floor.

BURNETT: Wow. Well, Christian, thank God you were able to think so quickly, to act so quickly and to be -- to be able to tell the story. Thank you very much for sharing.

FELL: Yes, ma'am. Thank you for having me.

BURNETT: And our breaking news coverage continues. As I said, there are alerts of more rain and possible flooding in central Texas as I speak. And I'm going to speak to the former county commissioner for Kerr County, where so many of those young campers died because he was pushing for a different -- for a stronger flood alert system that he says could have saved lives.

Plus, we'll speak to the veteran meteorologist who made headlines across the world after he got emotional on-air reporting on storms that are becoming more powerful.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I apologize. This is just horrific.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Does he think what we are witnessing in Texas could become more of a norm and a, quote, train wreck? Trump tonight unleashing a new wave of attacks against his former first friend, Elon Musk, after the Tesla CEO said that he is starting a new political party. Tesla shares plunging on Musk's politics and Trump taking him on.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:21:46] BURNETT: The breaking news, the Texas flooding death toll reaching 104, 84 of those fatalities, obviously, the vast majority happening in one county, Kerr County. Fifty-six adults and 28 children. And the numbers are still changing. Rescuers are continuing to search for the missing at this hour.

Tonight, they do expect that the death toll will continue to rise. And a major focus of the search right now is near Camp Mystic, which is that nationally known summer camp for girls, which sits on the banks of the Guadalupe River. Past and current Camp Mystic campers and families will gather in Dallas tonight.

I want to go to Boris Sanchez, who is on the ground there.

And Boris, what do you know about the warning that was received at Camp Mystic, right, specifically there where all of those kids, hundreds of them, right, were sleeping in cabins as the flooding hit.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Erin, at this point, we're still working to find out exactly what kind of advanced warning, whether an electronic one or any other kind folks at Camp Mystic received that this wall of water was coming their way. What we know right now is that there was an emergency alert, the kind that turns off on your phone, that sends that really shrill sound that was sent off at 1:14 a.m., assuming that phones were on at camp mystic, that they were connected to service, those alerts should have gone off.

Again, it is the middle of the night. It's quite possible that no one received them, but more alerts were sent out. We understand that some three hours later, the sheriff's office put out an alert that there was a potential for severe flooding. And then at 4:03 a.m., we understand that a flash flood emergency was issued.

So, there were multiple alerts sent out through the morning. Again, this is in the overnight hours. It's unclear if folks had their phones on if in this rural area, people actually had cell service. Understandably, this question has been posed to local officials, if there was more that could have been done to alert the team and the campers there, that something like this could happen. They've been reticent to give direct answers.

Have a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Why that information didn't get down to the camps? And why they weren't evacuated? Can you answer that now?

DALTON: That is a great question.

REPORTER: Does any emergency alert given out on the fourth?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: So again, that first alert coming out at 1:14 a.m., it was at 4:03 that a flash flood emergency was issued across Kerr County. It was at 5:00 a.m., Erin, that the Guadalupe River, on the banks of which we are right now, just overflowed, sending a 20 plus foot wall of water going down. It's the path that it has here. Hitting Hunt, hitting places like here in Kerrville where we are right now.

Again, we're still working to find out exactly what advanced warning people had, but there was a very limited amount of time to act. And for some, clearly, they just didn't have enough time -- Erin.

BURNETT: Boris, thank you very much.

I want to go now to the former Kerr County commissioner, Tom Moser. He had pushed for a more robust -- robust alert system for such a tragedy as we have now seen.

And, Commissioner, I appreciate your time as people are trying to understand what happened. And with such an incredible loss of life and children being among those dead, so many children.

[19:25:03]

I know that you had pushed for changes, a stronger, more modern alert system, specifically in this area in Kerr County where the majority, the vast majority of the death is so far. Can you explain exactly what you wanted to happen?

TOM MOSER, FORMER KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONER, PROPOSED FLOOD WARNING SYSTEM: Yeah. Erin, thank you.

It was about 2015, a similar event happened in when -- south of Kerrville, okay, in Wimberley. They put in an emergency alert system for flood warning after that. And I visited that as a county commissioner and tried to understand what they did and understood that I got them to come back to Kerr County with me. And I convened a meeting that defined what we could do if we had the resources and the community wanted to do it.

I convened a meeting which probably had 40 or 50 people in it. All the commissioners court, city council, a lot of other people throughout Kerr County. We decided to pursue that. We had the concept. We had some potential funding identified from grants from the state, and we decided to move forward.

Everybody was in favor of moving forward with such a system. One of the aspects or features of the system was to have sirens. There was objection by some people that have false alarms, by sirens. Sirens were going to be very disruptive to a lot of people for false alarms so that was taken out of the first -- in the first phase of such a program.

So, we pursued that that program for a couple of years, trying to get funding for it. We were not successful. It was, you know, not a large amount of money, like $1 million to do the system, probably without the sirens, a little bit more than that. If we'd had the sirens in place.

BURNETT: So, so sirens I understand you were willing to take out because there was some pushback on that, but what else was in there? I mean, obviously, everyone from Kerr County, where you were from and, and the surrounding counties know about the risks here, right? Flash floods happen, but I know in other counties nearby, they did things like door-to-door knocks, and they saw fewer deaths.

Now at this point, you can't say was that exactly the reason why or not? But what were some of the other things that you had hoped to get that I guess you're saying you weren't able to get the funding to pursue?

MOSER: Well, what we hope to do was to have an alert system that that went out on cell phones. Now, that was a bit risky in itself because there's a lot of places in the county that, you know, cell coverage is not there, but that was one feature of it.

Another thing we hope that some private camps and all would install a siren system to alert their campers. And of that. But we did not implement a general siren system.

BURNETT: And when you think about what happened at these camps, obviously, the camp policy is that kids don't have cell phones with them. That's the point of camp for most kids in most places, but it would seem that they wouldn't have had their cell phones with them, according to camp policy.

So, you were aware, I guess, of the fact that there -- that there are thousands of kids and there are so many camps in the area as you thought of your system, right? I mean, it was -- is that part of why you wanted things like sirens to alert a large population who wouldn't have access to technology?

MOSER: Absolutely. There are two types of major events that can happen in Kerr County. Number one is the flood. Number two are fires. So, we needed to -- and it's very remote for a lot of people. We were looking to have a system that would alert, you know, the general populace, okay, and do it in a -- in a timely way.

So that was our objective. That was our plan. And we had the concept by with which to do that. Let me add one thing. I think in a positive sense, this -- this event, as tragic as it is, can be a catalyst to bring technology to date. There's a lot of technology that exists today with digital topographic materials, information algorithms, communications, weather satellites, other types of satellites could all be together, put together in in a very short period of time, in my opinion, okay, that could help to be available 99 percent of the time and effective in a high percentage of activity for warning people.

I hope that happens. I think it will happen. It's like when Kennedy said, put a man on the moon, we didn't know exactly how it did it, do it, but we did it. Okay, so this would be that kind of thing, somebody to take charge and say, let's go do it and -- within a couple of years identify what needs to be done in a year, and have a system in place in a couple of years.

[19:30:08]

BURNETT: Commissioner, thank you so much.

MOSER: We're talking about $2 million, not a lot of money.

BURNETT: Yeah, no. And in the context of what's happened, it was absolutely nothing. The loss of life obviously cannot be -- no one could put a value on such a horrible thing.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate your time.

And our breaking news coverage does continues as we're monitoring these alerts for flash floods in Texas tonight. I'll talk to a veteran meteorologist who has been sounding the alarm about why there seems to be more intense storms. He's been talking about climate change and talking about whether what has happened in Texas could become more normal.

And the White House dismissing Elon Musk's efforts to launch a third political party. So, is Musk going to melt like a wallflower or be motivated to stand up even more?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:35:00]

BURNETT: Breaking news, President Trump just confirming he will be heading to Texas on Friday to see the damage and destruction caused by catastrophic flooding there. Central Texas also on edge right now as it faces the threat tonight of even more flash flooding as crews are still searching desperately for 24 people who are still known to be missing already from the flooding. Flooding already blamed for at least 104 deaths, is a horrifying reminder to Americans anywhere about how quickly flash flooding can become a life-or-death situation.

CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam is OUTFRONT.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST (voice-over): More than a summers worth of rain fell in a matter of hours across the Texas Hill Country, triggering unprecedented flash flooding.

The deadly tragedy described as a 1 in 100-year flood disaster, struck in an area that was entrenched in the worst drought anywhere in the country. This weather, whiplash from drought to flood, is yet another example of human induced climate change and its impact on extreme weather, one we have seen play out in California multiple times in recent years as a multiyear drought was followed by atmospheric river fueled flooding and mudslides, and then came the deadly wildfires in January.

The frequency and intensity of heavy rain events are increasing. Last year alone, a record 91 flash flood emergencies the rarest, most extreme warning issued less than 1 percent of the time came from the National Weather Service.

Generational flood events like last year's Hurricane Helene killed over 200 people and produced historic rain in North Carolina.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Many more down there.

VAN DAM: Texans will remember Hurricane Harvey that dropped over 50 inches of rain in the Houston metro and was one of Americas costliest weather disasters. It's not just with hurricanes. Residents across Kentucky and Tennessee are still recovering from inland flash flooding over the last couple of years.

These events are a product of a warmer atmosphere that's able to hold more water vapor acting to enhance rainfall rates, turning 100-year events into something every generation has to deal with. And even while the flood threat continues in Texas, parts of the East Coast are reeling from their own flash flooding as the remnants of tropical storm Chantal dropped months' worth of rain in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, also resulting in floods that turned deadly.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAN DAM (on camera): Erin, adaptation is crucial as we plan for our warming future as all regions of the United States have experienced a marked increase in these heavy rainfall events over the past several decades.

Erin, back to you.

BURNETT: Derek, thank you so much.

And I want to go now to the veteran meteorologist, John Morales. He's the longest serving meteorologist in south Florida. He's with NBC 6. He's reporting on the severe weather that has been pummeled that area, frankly, for more than 30 years.

And you may recognize Morales for making national headlines when he known as being a stoic meteorologist became emotional during hurricane coverage just a few months ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN MORALES, HURRICANE SPECIALIST, NBC 6 SOUTH FLORIDA: Just an incredible, incredible, incredible hurricane. It has dropped -- it has dropped 50 millibars in 10 hours. I apologize. This is just horrific.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: John is with me now.

And, John, I'd say I'm glad to see you again, but of course I'm not, because were talking again in this context.

You have sounded the alarm every day. Youve sounded the alarm on this show when you've come on in the past and you have cautioned about the role of climate change, and you've said its fueling more intense and unpredictable weather events.

I mean, do you think that the pictures, like the ones that we are seeing out of central Texas, are going to become something that people don't refer to anymore as 100-year events, but that do become some sort of a horrific new normal?

MORALES: Well, indeed. And Derek just did a terrific job because this is the type of framing that we need to see more often from, from media sources. It's excellent to frame it that way, because people need to know everybody out there needs to understand that these type of events, which, based on the 20th century climate, used to be 1 in 100, 1 in 1,000 year events. Well, guess what?

They're happening a lot more frequently than they used to. And it's because of, you know, the atmosphere on steroids. The fact that, yes, indeed, were holding more moisture in the air that we see these whiplash events going from, you know, drought to extreme rainfall, which, by the way, that the whole flood situation was worsened by the fact that the ground could not absorb the rainfall runoff because it was parched and dry from the drought.

So people need to be prepared and like -- like your meteorologist stated, adaptation is going to be important.

[19:40:02]

And obviously, we can't ignore mitigation. We have to cut down on the injection of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

BURNETT: So, John, you know, I want to show you the time lapse video, which, you know, people, when I hear people talking about this horrific story, they talk about the time lapse video, which just shows how quickly the water rose in a town near Kerr County on Friday. I mean, over a span of 50 minutes. We're watching this just how quickly it rose.

And, you know, people get alerts on their phones. And oftentimes, no matter where people may be, they may sort of shrug them off or not be sure what they really mean. But do you think seeing images like this, seeing how fast this water rose will change anything when people watch this actually roll out before their eyes?

MORALES: You know, social scientists have been studying this for years, if not decades. The National Weather Service, well, assuming they haven't been fired or are planned to be fired, has social scientists contracted and as part of the staff to be able to look at how do we get people to act on those calls to action, right? And what it turns out in the end is that, folks, if they don't have that lived experience, if you haven't lived through a major hurricane, like, let's say, Andrew or Harvey, which was mentioned in that piece, then you tend not to act. You think it's never going to happen to you.

So, people need to see more of this and they need to realize that, yes, sometimes the worst does happen.

BURNETT: You mentioned the National Weather Service and cuts, so I want to just play something, John, that you said on your newscast on NBC 6 just a month ago. Let me play it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MORALES: Let's talk about the federal government cuts to the national weather service and to NOAA. Did you know that central and south Florida National Weather Service offices are currently basically 20 to 40 percent understaffed. From Tampa to Key West, including the Miami office, 20 to 40 percent understaffed.

Now, this type of staffing shortage is having impacts across the nation because there's been a nearly 20 percent reduction in weather balloon releases, launches that carry those radio signs. And what we're starting to see is that the quality of the forecasts is becoming degraded.

BURNETT: So how degraded is that quality right now?

MORALES: Well, there were statistics looking at both actually at three different global models in the spring that showed that they were less accurate than they had been well before January, frankly. Now, does that short term trend mean that this is going to continue into, for example, hurricane season? We don't know yet. Right?

But I can tell you, this garbage in, garbage out with the models and the fact that we have missing data means that these forecasts are likely to be less accurate going forward. And as far as the vacancies, well, they're double the amount of vacancies right now in the San Angelo and San Antonio offices in Texas.

And yeah, I mean, San Antonio very did very well in bringing five people on instead of two during that shift when the worst of the weather was going on. That's a common practice in the national weather service.

But I tell you what, you know, when you're missing warning coordination meteorologist, meteorologists in charge, hydrologists -- those are positions that are crucial and need to be filled.

BURNETT: John, thank you very much. I really appreciate being able to talk to you again. Thanks.

MORALES: Thanks, Erin.

BURNETT: And we have more breaking news. Just getting this in. Tesla is now lost $68 billion in value as it continues to fall. Elon Musk said that he's launching a new political party. Trump came out slamming him, calling him a train wreck and worse. So, the stock plunges. So, what's going to happen here? Is Musk serious?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:48:04]

BURNETT: All right, the breaking news Tesla shares tanking, closing down nearly 7 percent for the day. That's a massive drop, $12 billion gone from Elon Musk's personal net wealth worth, according to Forbes. And the reason for this is Musk's latest public fight with President Trump. I mean, just to imagine juxtaposing me saying this with what we were

saying two months ago, talk about what a weird, warped world we're living in. But anyway, now this is the reality. Trump is accusing Musk of going, quote, off the rails, becoming a train wreck -- these are all his words -- after Musk said that he is making good on his threat to start a new political party called the American Party because he's upset about that bill that just passed. He's upset about deficit spending. He wants to primary Republicans who voted for what Trump calls his big, beautiful bill.

OUTFRONT now, Dan Ives, tech stocks analyst who covers Tesla, and Ryan Mac, "New York Times" reporter who also covers Musk extensively and his coauthor of the book "Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter".

All right. Thanks to both of you.

Dan, can I just start with you? Neither of these individuals are people who deescalate. They didn't de-escalate on the love that they had, and they're not now de-escalating on the war that they are engaged in against each other. How bad could this get for Tesla and Musk?

DAN IVES, GLOBAL HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH, WEDBUSH SECURITES: Yeah, they're not going to be playing pickleball drinking lemonade right. And I think the biggest problem here is, is that for Musk, it's the last thing as a Tesla shareholder, you want to see him do in terms of take this sort of political gamble.

And ultimately it really creates for -- relative to Trump, he's no longer a friend. He's a foe. And that's why the stocks down because the worries about what the autonomous regulatory roadmap could be. Look is it Tesla shareholder. It's a soap opera that's really turned into a nightmare. And it continues to play out.

BURNETT: Right. And of course, on one level, whatever one's politics may be, it is a bizarre world where literally the opinion of the president against an individual person could be resulting in so much, you know, animus and perception of, you know, that the company could lose so much money.

[19:50:04]

So, Ryan, Musk is even with that $12 billion loss, I just referenced the richest person in the world, and he's threatening to use this third party that he started to primary. Republicans who voted for Trump's bill.

So do you think, Ryan, that that threat is real? And I guess I ask this in the context of the joke I made, right? The whiplash of the love affair with Trump that has now become a war. Do you think you can count on him to do over the next 18 months in this primary process, what he says he's going to do now?

RYAN MAC, REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I think with Elon Musk, you can never tell until he actually does it. You know, he's talked about, for example, having a cage match with Mark Zuckerberg, which he never followed through with. But he's also talked about, you know, buying Twitter and working himself up to that and, you know, working himself into a frenzy until he actually did it.

And so, with this political party, what we can say is that he is becoming more and more obsessed with it. You know, he had his poll over July 4th asking his followers whether or not they supported him. And he got a pretty resounding response from those followers. So, you know, he seems to be talking about it more and more and kind of working himself up to actually doing the thing.

BURNETT: So, Dan, Tesla investors, how -- how do they feel about Musk starting a new political party? I mean, can such a thing be done? I mean, how immune is the company from perhaps personal retribution brought out by Trump?

IVES: Yeah. Look, I mean, you went through the brand damage in terms of Musk with Trump administration and DOGE, and that backfired. And that's why he ultimately had to backtrack, get out of politics. Now he's gone into politics. He's dove into the deep end of the pool and he's on the opposite side. And I think that's the worry is that for as a Tesla shareholder, he keeps going down this path. It's going to be a huge overhang because the biggest asset for Tesla is Musk.

BURNETT: Yeah, I mean, which is -- that's the reality, right? It is built on a person.

And, Ryan, one more thing. Treasury Secretary Bessent -- now, Steve Bannon says that Bessent got into a physical altercation with Musk in the West Wing, which is incredible to imagine. But Secretary Bessent was just asked by my friend Dana Bash if the White House was worried about Musk's third party.

So, I mentioned the physical altercation because you know that he's not going to say something positive. But in that context, here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: The principles of DOGE were very popular. I think if you looked at the polling, Elon was not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Obviously, he was calm and collected in his response there. But hearing something like that from him, Ryan, does that motivate Musk even more? How does he respond to such a comment where Bessent's basically saying, oh, the whole thing was great. It was -- it was ruined because of you, Elon.

IVES: Certainly. I think, you know, they have become quite the enemies, even, you know, during the cabinet when Elon was involved, they were fighting. They were fighting internally over IRS -- and IRS appointment, for example.

And so that animus has kind of grown clearly, as you can see in that interview. And I think it's really interesting what Besson is saying there. He's kind of trying to thread that needle and say that the support of DOGE actually was actually popular and that actually is Elon's fault. You know, Elon is the unfavorable one.

So he's trying to cleave off Elon from the effort, even though, you know, for many people, Elon and DOGE are one and the same. But that kind of war of words will continue I think as we move through the week.

BURNETT: All right. Ryan, Dan, it's great to see you both and I appreciate you. Thank you.

And we have more on our breaking news as we continue. Right now, we know at least 104 people have been killed by the catastrophic flooding. There are still people missing. At least two dozen of them. The search continues.

And we want to share with you what we are learning right now about the known victims. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:57:19]

BURNETT: And back to our top breaking story, the deadly floods in Texas. A rescuer with the Cajun Navy telling us tonight that he found a little girls bible open with her favorite verses inside, and that he knelt down at that time and sobbed until he couldn't anymore.

Tom Foreman is OUTFRONT with more about the disaster's youngest victims.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the wake of the rising Texas floodwaters, the list of victims is growing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my God.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my God.

FOREMAN: Especially at Camp Mystic, where more than two dozen campers and counselors died. Lila Bonner was there, enjoying the summer before third grade. Her parents wrote, "We ache with all who loved her." They say she was killed with her cabin mate and best friend, Eloise Peck. Her family says she loved spaghetti dogs and animals.

A vigil was quickly called for Linnie McCown and Mary Stevens, two elementary school aged victims from Austin. While elsewhere, families are mourning Renee Smajstrla, Janie Hunt and Hadley Hanna, who was enjoying her first year at the camp. Her mom said she was the most joyful, happy kid.

Anna Margaret Bellows came from Houston. Sarah Marsh came from near Birmingham, and camp owner Dick Eastland came to the rescue as hundreds of campers were pulled to safety. His grandson says Eastland lost his life trying to reach more, noting on Instagram if he wasn't going to die of natural causes, this was the only other way -- saving the girls that he so loved and cared for.

HERRING: I've lost two friends. We love them. And they're gone.

FOREMAN: The search for the flood victims is stretching over dozens of miles along rivers and creeks, through valleys and trees.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've seen the debris fields here. I mean, there's probably people possibly buried in some of those debris fields. And it's going to take a long time to get those folks out.

FOREMAN: Anywhere anyone might be.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You just want them to be found for the sake of the families. But, you know, it's not going to be a good ending.

FOREMAN: It was not good for the Harber family. Blair, 13, and Brooke, 11, disappeared along with their grandparents. The family says the girls were found holding hands in death. No word on the grandparents.

(SINGING)

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

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The RV park was just gone. Everything. It was, you know, it's -- it wasn't on this earth anymore.

FOREMAN: 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 Katheryn Eads, too.

(SINGING)

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

Tom foreman, CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: And thanks to Tom, and thanks to all of you for joining us.

"AC360" begins now.