A flash flood in the Texas Hill Country on the Fourth of July killed more than two dozen people and left dozens more missing, including 27 people at an all-girls summer camp along the Guadalupe River.

When the precipitation intensified in the early morning hours Friday, many people failed to receive or respond to flood warnings at riverside campsites known to be in the floodplain.

Meteorologists point out that hurricanes and flood-making storms possess extraordinary amounts of energy that humans can't reproduce or control.