At least 68 deaths—including the deaths of 21 children—have now been confirmed in the central Texas flash floods, according to the latest update from officials, though dozens of children from a summer camp remain unaccounted for as blame swirls over preparedness and whether residents were properly alerted.

Rescuers scoured a devastated landscape in an increasingly bleak mission as they searched for missing people, including 27 girls at a camp that was slammed with a wall of water in a historic flash flood.