At least 1 dead, 3 missing in Texas flooding
Associated Press
BRENHAM, Texas
At least one person has died in Texas and three are missing after torrential thunderstorms caused floods and at least one tornado that closed roads and schools, prompted evacuations, damaged homes and forced dozens of students to spend the night on campus, officials said Friday as they braced for more rain over the Memorial Day weekend.
“It’s not going to take very much rain to get us in those flood stages again,” said Washington County Judge John Brieden.
Brieden said that in Washington County, located between Austin and Houston, one person has drowned and another person was missing after their vehicle was swept away. An Austin-area official has said two people were missing from a vehicle there.
Brieden, who didn’t release details on the circumstances of the drowning, said they had not yet determined if a second person who died in Washington County had died from drowning or a heart attack.
Mobile homes washed away in the flooding, and multiple houses had water inside, he said. Brieden said there have been more than 50 water rescues from houses and vehicles since the rains started Thursday morning. He said that at one point officials had nine boat teams out rescuing people.
“We had one guy that got out of his vehicle and managed to hang on to a tree while the vehicle washed away,” Brieden said, adding that the man was in the tree for a couple of hours before being rescued by a boat crew.
He said some people in homes had to evacuate through windows to be rescued.
The county seat, Brenham, received 16.62 inches of rain Thursday, breaking the city’s daily rainfall record, said National Weather Service meteorologist Wendy Long.