Rice says a lot of the areas that were hit have bad or no mobile (cell) phone service.

On the missing people, he says they know about those unaccounted for from the summer camps, but there are people outside of the camps who may be missing that they don't yet know about.

He also talks about scammers who he says have been reaching out to victims' families, and asking for money in exchange for their children, who they claim to have.

"It is absolutely heart-breaking", he says.

Kerrville city manager Dalton Rice says evacuations are a "delicate balance".

Evacuations done too late can risk putting vehicles into low water areas, which can then "make it even more challenging”, he says, before adding that flash floods can happen “very quickly”.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz is now asked about the times the alerts were sent out and about Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) cuts - the effort led by X owner Elon Musk - to the National Weather Service.

The senator again mentions "partisan finger pointing", and says some people have said that cuts to the National Weather Service led to a lack of warnings.

"I think that's contradicted by the facts", he says.

"The National Weather Service here", he says, had "three additional people working that night."

The officials are now taking questions from reporters.

Asked about warning systems and whether there was a need for better warnings, Cruz answers "this is not a time for partisan finger pointing and attacks".

He adds that after the ongoing search and rescue operation is over there "will naturally be a period of retrospection".

Cruz says he has spoken to President Trump, who told him that anything Texas needs “the answer is yes".

The senator says search and rescue operations are the first stage and that rebuilding - which follows - will take longer.

On the grieving friends and neighbours who lost children, he says they will need a lot of support, prayers and "holding them while they weep".

Senator Cruz is now speaking of moments of heroism that helped save many young lives.

He recalls how he heard a story of a camp counsellor who held up mattresses with campers on top as rising waters reached the counsellor's neck.

Image source, Reuters

We’re now hearing from Texas senator Ted Cruz, who says: "Texas is grieving right now."

He speaks of the little girls lost at Camp Mystic, describing the situation as "every parent's nightmare".

Cruz says he has spoken to a number of parents over the last few days who have been asking him if he knows where their daughters are.

He says: "The pain and agony of not knowing your child's whereabouts, it's the worst thing imaginable."

It's now Kerrville mayor Joe Herring's turn to speak.

"This will be a rough week", he warns, but adds that authorities remain hopeful, and "every foot, every bend" will be searched.

Rice continues saying some 40 power lines are down, with infrastructure in the area also damaged.

He adds that although additional personnel have been brought in for repairs, they do not have an estimated time on when power will be restored.

Image source, Reuters

Moving on to Kerrville city manager Dalton Rice now, who says "this is a massive field" and search and rescue operations continue.

Rice says they are facing a lot of challenges with terrain and water and warns that expected bad weather could further complicate things.

Leitha goes on to say that 75 bodies have been recovered in the county, including 48 adults and 27 children.

Of these, he says, 15 adult and nine children's bodies are still pending identification, and adds that ten campers and one counsellor from Camp Mystic remain unaccounted for.

The news conference has started and Kerr County sheriff Larry Leitha is speaking.

He says search and rescue operations are ongoing, and they are using local, state and national assets, including hundreds of trained first responders.

You can follow along by pressing watch live at the top of this page.

Officials from Kerr County, Texas are due to hold a news conference shortly. We are expecting to hear from them at 11:00 EDT (16:00BST).

We will bring you the top lines from the briefing, which you will be able to watch live at the top of this page.

Image source, Getty Images

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says she is not aware of any breakdown in emergency warning systems in relation to the Texas floods.

Asked on Fox News's Fox & Friends today whether there was any specific breakdown in this case, Noem says: "Not that we found so far."

“The National Weather Service put out the alerts when they received them and, unfortunately, in many places in our country we have flash floods like this that do occur, and the notification was proactive and out there", she says.

“Would everybody like more time? Absolutely. So many situations when we see terrible events like this and these natural weather disasters, more notification is always extremely helpful.”

Noem adds that the National Weather Service under US President Donald Trump "has been working to put in new technology and a new system because it has been neglected for years".

“It’s an ancient system that needed to be upgraded and so President Trump recognised that right away and got to work on it when he came into office in January but that installation is not complete and that technology isn’t fully installed."

More than 80 people have been confirmed dead across central Texas following Friday's flash flooding.

The worst hit area is Kerr County, with 68 fatalities confirmed, including 28 children, the BBC's US partner, CBS News, reports.

The county is home to Camp Mystic, a girls' summer camp on the banks of the Guadalupe River, which has said it is "grieving the loss of 27 campers and counsellors".

Elsewhere across central Texas, there have been six confirmed casualties in Travis County, which is home to state capital Austin, three casualties have been confirmed in Burnet, two in both Kendall and Williamson, and one Tom Green County, according to CBS.

As we often see in times of hardship and tragedy, people come together to help where they can.

In Texas, many volunteers are handing out food, clean water and donated clothes to those who need it.

Many have also volunteered - in trucks and on horseback - in the search for survivors and victims.

Image source, Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Image source, Reuters

Image source, Jim Vondruska/Getty Images

Image source, Jim Vondruska/Getty Images

Matt Taylor
BBC Weather

Several factors came together to create the devastating outcome we saw in Texas last week.

First there was the weather patterns at the time.

The remnants of an ex-tropical storm had become embedded within a broader area of very unstable air within the region. Unstable air is air which has the ability to rise rapidly to form large storm clouds.

Tropical Storm Barry, that caused flooding across the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico a week earlier, had tracked across the Gulf of Mexico to decay over north-east Mexico. This had meant there was already large supply of moisture in the atmosphere.

Wind patterns across the region at the time also resulted in a flow of humid, moisture-laden air from Gulf too.

The next factor was the geography and topography of the area: Kerr County, where the worst of the floods occurred, is a hillier area which forced moisture-laden air upwards helping to build huge storm clouds.

The ones that formed over the area were so large they effectively became their own weather system, producing huge amounts of rain over a larger area.

It was slow-moving, adding to the rain totals and creating further thunderstorms along a zone that continued to affect the area containing the Guadalupe River.

More than 80 people have been confirmed dead and dozens are missing following flash floods in central Texas on Friday.

The video below shows how the water level of the Llano River in Kingsland, Texas rapidly increased.

Image source, Reuters

With the death toll in Texas exceeding 80 people, questions are being raised about whether adequate flood warnings were provided and why people weren't evacuated ahead of the deluge.

In the space of 45 minutes in the early hours of Friday morning, the Guadalupe River rose by 26ft (8m), causing it to burst its banks.

By then there had been several flood warnings issued, including from the Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) and the National Weather Service (NWS).

The NWS has said it was heartbroken at the loss following the floods, but that it did all it could, conducting briefings on Thursday and issuing a flood watch warning that afternoon.

People have reported receiving text message alerts on their mobile phones early on Friday morning, warning them of flooding. Some residents told the New York Times, external they did not understand the seriousness of them and others said they never received any at all.

Before the tragedy, there had also been concerns over the Trump administration's budget cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) - the government agency that operates the NWS.

Read more about what flood warnings were issued and when in our news story.

The BBC’s chief North America correspondent Gary O’Donoghue reports from the devastated Camp Mystic – a popular girls’ summer camp.