His optimism was fading. He paused along a Texas 39 grape orchard as friends searched across the highway in a massive field spanning half a mile. Trees once blocked the roadside view. Now, the still-swollen river, a mess of uprooted trees and scattering of volunteer searchers were visible from the road.

Searchers used helicopters, boats and drones to search for victims in flash floods that tore across Texas’s Hill Country at the start of the Fourth of July weekend.

Torrential rain and flash floods hit parts of central Texas on Friday. At least 24 people have died in the floods, and more than 20 children are missing from Camp Mystic. The National Weather Service said the Guadalupe River at Hunt hit its second-highest height on record.