The number of people reported missing in Kerr County, Texas, as a result of last week’s flash floods continues to soar. Authorities say search teams combing through the debris and destruction there are looking for more than 160 people who disappeared in the raging waters.

Camp Mystic owners successfully appealed to the Federal Emergency Management Agency to redesignate some buildings that had been considered part of a flood-hazard zone.

“It’s hard not to feel like you are surrounded by a higher power when you’re down there, because it’s just so beautiful,” my friend Olivia Marrus told me.

In 2017, Kerr County and the Upper Guadalupe River Authority asked the state to give them federal disaster relief dollars, but their application was denied.

“Our hearts are broken alongside our families that are enduring this unimaginable tragedy,” the camp said on its website.