Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has announced a multi-million dollar relief initiative for victims of last month's deadly July 4th floods. CBS News correspondent Jason Allen reports on ongoing recovery efforts.

Texas

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has announced a substantial relief initiative to support victims of the recent deadly floods in Kerrville, which resulted in at least 135 fatalities, primarily in Kerr County. The initiative includes $40 million in private donations, which the governor believes will be sufficient to rebuild every home damaged or lost in the disaster, potentially at a faster pace than initially expected.

The state's role will focus on general rebuilding efforts, including debris removal. The announcement comes after parents of young flood victims testified at a state hearing, prompting the governor to prioritize camp safety in the legislative agenda. While recovery has seen progress due to volunteer support, local residents remain uncertain about the next steps and the timing of additional aid.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announces relief initiative for flood victims

Texas Governor Greg Abbott has announced a multi-million dollar relief initiative for victims of last month's deadly July 4th floods in Kerrville. At least 135 people, as you may remember, were killed with most of the deaths in the Kerr County area. Now this comes just a day after parents of some of the young girls who died in the floods testified during a state hearing and called for stronger safety standards at youth camps. CBS News correspondent Jason Allen is in Kerrville. Jason, great to have you on. You had the opportunity to speak with Governor Abbott about ongoing recovery efforts in Kerrville. What did he tell you? Drake, I think it was notable today that the governor said he believes there is going to be enough money in those donations you just talked about. Those were private donations announced today, 40 million dollars, so that plus other donations, enough money to rebuild every home that was damaged or lost and probably do it faster than they had expected. Now the state's role in this, he says, is really general rebuilding at this point. So it's what you see behind me, right? It's all of this debris pickup and look, there's a couple trucks lined up here and piles lined up here and we're right across the river from downtown Kerrville and so you'll still see this for miles and miles up and down the river. Now you were talking about redistricting a little earlier and there's been some question has some of the state relief maybe been put on the back burner as legislators have really worked on that redistricting through the first special session and really the beginning of the second special session. I asked the governor about that today and here's what he said. It was only recently that we had the meeting with the parents who lost a child here and that was very helpful and it actually changed what my issues were on the call on the agenda for the special session to make sure that the very first item was camp safety and that came in the aftermath of meeting with those parents. And so the governor making the point there that there has been discussion all along and it's really only in the last you know few weeks where they've had meetings with those impacted that's kind of affected some of those bills that are passing through the house in the Senate now Jerica. Jason you were there that week of July 4th you spoke to business owners and residents back then what are they telling you now about how they're dealing and coping with this after this tragedy? Jerica there's been some dramatic improvements a lot of that they credit to the surge of volunteers that came in here for weeks but now it's somewhat hit a stall they're really not sure now what happens next when does the next amount of money come in what's the next step they have to take they're hoping that those are the things that get resolved over the next few weeks. All right Jason Allen for us in Kerrville thank you.

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Breakdown