12 missing after flooding in Texas sweeps away vacation home

WIMBERLEY, Texas (AP) — Recovery teams were resuming the search early today for 12 people who are missing after a rain-swollen river in Central Texas carried a vacation home off its foundation, slamming it into a bridge downstream.

The hunt for the missing picked up after a holiday weekend of terrible storms that dumped record rainfall on the Plains and Midwest, caused major flooding and spawned tornadoes and killed at least eight people in Oklahoma and Texas. More than 1,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed in Texas, and thousands of residents are displaced.

Authorities were also searching for victims and assessing damage just across the Texas-Mexico border in Ciudad Acuna, where a tornado Monday killed 13 people and left at least five unaccounted for.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared disasters in 37 counties, allowing for further mobilization of state resources to assist.

"You cannot candy coat it. It's absolutely massive," Abbott said after touring the destruction.

The worst flooding damage was in Wimberley, where the vacation home was swept away, a popular tourist town along the Blanco River in the corridor between Austin and San Antonio.