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Two missing after Texas floods as storms move east through state Texas flooding death toll reaches three as one remains missing
(about 4 hours later)
Another round of storms and strong winds was moving east across Texas on Saturday, and two people were missing from earlier flash floods in the Austin area. The death toll from flooding in central Texas reached at least three after emergency services officials recovered a body on Saturday. Another person was still missing.
Related: Texas buffeted by rain, storms and suspected tornado near San AntonioRelated: Texas buffeted by rain, storms and suspected tornado near San Antonio
In the Houston area, an official said a tornado has been reported in southern Harris County, and officials were checking on any possible damage there. A Travis County emergency services spokeswoman said the body of a man who was driving a vehicle that was swept away near Elroy on Friday was recovered on Saturday morning.
Francisco Sanchez of the Harris County Office of Emergency Management said four to seven inches of rain has fallen since Friday night and more was expected. He said many locations had high water and more than two dozen water rescues had taken place. The spokeswoman said several other people managed to escape from the flooded vehicle in the community that is south-east of Austin. She had no immediate details on where the victim was located, or the survivors.
About 32,000 customers were without power, CenterPoint Energy said. Block said a woman who was caught in floodwaters near her home in the same area remained missing. Block said the woman’s husband was rescued from the water.
Two people already were known to have died – in Austin and near San Antonio – when they were swept away by flood waters. A man and a woman also were still unaccounted for in separate incidents. Two other bodies were recovered on Friday amid heavy rain and flooding in the San Antonio and Austin areas. Another round of storms and strong winds moved east across Texas on Saturday, with three radar-confirmed tornadoes damaging homes and causing injuries in the Houston area.
The storms and suspected tornadoes have socked an already-sodden swath of Texas that was still drying out from the remnants of Hurricane Patricia, forcing evacuations of flood-prone areas and slowing or shutting down traffic on long stretches of Interstate 35. As the storms moved east, National Weather Service meteorologist Patrick Blood said a tornado went through Brazoria County near Alvin about 5 am Saturday, injuring at least two people and damaging about 25 mobile homes in the community 30 miles south of Houston.
Teams from the National Weather Service were to examine three areas Saturday where tornadoes were thought to have wreaked havoc on Friday. Thirty minutes later, a tornado hit the Houston suburb of Friendswood, collapsing the roof of one home. No one was injured because residents were not home, officials said. Another 30 or so homes had minor damage. And about 7 am Saturday, between 10 and 30 homes were damaged by a tornado in a subdivision in eastern Harris County, Blood said.
More than 16in of rain soaked one neighborhood and Austin Bergstrom international airport suspended all flights after a half-foot of water flooded the air traffic control tower. A lazy creek cutting through Texas wine country swelled into a rushing torrent, sending eight members of a vacationing church group scrambling to a second floor before they were rescued by the national guard. In the Houston area, up to 8in of rain have fallen since Friday night, and will continue to fall until early Saturday afternoon, Blood said. That has resulted in flooded streets, which led officials to suspend public light-rail and bus transportation in the morning; limited rail service was restored around 11 am.
Powerful winds tossed a trailer from an RV park on to the roof of a three-story Holiday Inn. Abandoned cars, many submerged in water, littered back roads that weary drivers risked after heavy downpours flooded Interstate 35 between San Antonio and Austin, closing one of the busiest stretch of roadways in the US. The Houston fire department said it had responded to more than 90 water rescues by midmorning Saturday.
Last weekend, storms from Patricia’s Category-5 aftermath dumped nearly a foot of rain in parts of the same region. Although not deadly, that drenching left the ground saturated and unable to sop up the latest deluge. “A lot of the feeder roads are under water and we have some bayous that are out of their banks, contributing to the flooding around the city,” Blood said.
Forecasters say an upper-level disturbance from Mexico carried the storms into Texas as a strong El Niño is expected to make for a wet winter in the US. Utilities in east Texas said 44,000 customers were without power. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood watch for areas near Houston, Galveston, Bryan, College Station, Tyler and Texarkana until Saturday afternoon.
Most eyes were on Wimberley, a popular getaway spot in the Texas Hill Country where the church group found themselves stranded. Similar conditions in May – soaking storms on the heels of others – caused devastating flooding on the Blanco River that swept homes from foundations and killed families who were carried downstream. The storms and suspected tornadoes, which forecasters say were caused by an upper-level disturbance from Mexico, socked an already-sodden swath of Texas that was still drying out from the remnants of hurricane Patricia. Austin, San Antonio and surrounding areas were first hit Friday.
The Blanco River this time swelled to about 26ft in Wimberley, nearly twice the flood stage. Residents were evacuated from the area and a community center was opened as a shelter. More than 16in of rain soaked one neighborhood on Friday and Austin Bergstrom international airport suspended all flights after a half-foot of water flooded the air traffic control tower; 40 flights were canceled there on Saturday.
Farther south in Floresville, a suspected tornado caused only minor injuries, said Sgt Jason Reyes of the Texas department of public safety. Ruth Veliz, whose parents own a taco shop in town, said one of her employees yelled “Tornado!” and tried to keep the winds from blowing inside before a customer pulled her to safety. Meanwhile, a lazy creek cutting through Texas wine country, a popular getaway spot, swelled into a rushing torrent, sending eight members of a vacationing church group scrambling to a second floor before they were rescued by the national guard.
“The door was flying open with her as she was trying to close it,” Veliz said. Similar conditions in May – soaking storms on the heels of others – caused devastating flooding on the Blanco river that swept homes from foundations and killed families who were carried downstream. This time, the river swelled to about 26ft in Wimberley, nearly twice the flood stage.
Wind gusts of up to 70 mph were reported in some places. The flooded portion of Interstate 35 was reopened later Friday, but not before southbound drivers turned against traffic and tried driving north along the shoulder. Winds peeled off roofs elsewhere and collapsed a historic 19th-century building in the small town of D’Hanis, one of three cities where suspected tornadoes touched down. More than 70 people spent Friday night at shelters because of the flooding in central Texas. Hundreds of high-water crossings were closed Saturday in Hays County, and some residents in south-east Travis County, near Austin, were asked to move to higher ground because of residual flooding.
“If it would have happened at 10 am instead of 4 am, might have been a different story,” Medina County sheriff Randy Brown said.