A Travis County Sheriff's
Office Deputy looks at a truck that was swept away in a flood and
recovered from a pond in southern Austin, Texas, Tuesday, May 31, 2016.
Searchers are continuing to look for a missing person. (Jay
Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP) MANDATORY CREDIT
RICHMOND, Texas—Residents of some rural southeastern Texas
counties were bracing for more flooding along a river that reached a
record high Tuesday as more rain was expected in the coming days.
Large swaths of suburban communities southwest of Houston were
underwater and hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes before
the Brazos River reached 54.37 feet in Fort Bend County, just two years
after it had run dry in places because of drought.
National Weather Service meteorologist Charles Roeseler said the
54.37 feet at Richmond early Wednesday was not yet the crest and the
river was expected to slowly rise even more overnight.
An additional 1 to 3 inches of rain expected later this week could keep the Brazos in major flood stage into the weekend.
“I’m scared,” said Abigail Salazar, standing in knee-deep water
outside her home in Richmond, where she was retrieving personal
belongings after the city issued a voluntary evacuation advisory. “My
kids ask me in the morning, ‘Ma, what happened? The water is here.'”
During four days of torrential rain last week, at least six people died in floods in Texas.
Scott Overpeck, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said that
the Brazos will recede in the coming days but that its levels will
remain high for up to three weeks, in part because water will need to be
released from swollen reservoirs upriver.
Sixth
Street is impassible due to rising flood waters from the Brazos River
Sunday, May 29, 2016, in Rosenberg, Texas. (Jon Shapley/Houston
Chronicle via AP)
“There’s so much water on the Brazos that it’s going to take a long
time to drain through the whole river and drain out into the Gulf of
Mexico,” Overpeck said.
Four of the six people killed in flooding were recovered in
Washington County, which is between Austin and Houston, County Judge
John Brieden said Monday. Lake Somerville, one of the Brazos reservoirs,
was “gushing uncontrollably” over the spillway and threatening people
downriver, he said.
About 40 people were rescued Sunday and Monday from low-lying homes
in a flooded neighborhood of Simonton, a Fort Bend County community of
about 800 residents. The county had set up a pumping system to divert
the water from the neighborhood, but it was overpowered by the flooding,
county spokeswoman Beth Wolf said.
Wolf said any additional rain in the region would be a problem.
“The ditches are full, the river’s high, there’s nowhere else for that water to go,” she said.
In the Fort Bend County city of Rosenberg, which is next to Richmond,
about 150 households were evacuated and city officials were
coordinating with the county’s office of emergency management to have
rescue boats in place, city spokeswoman Jenny Pavlovich said.
Heavy rains moved across the Dallas-Fort Worth area on Tuesday. In
Hood County, southwest of Fort Worth, several roads were washed out and
authorities performed about 15 water rescues, including from homes and
vehicles, said Sheriff Roger Deeds. He says they were still trying to
determine how many homes flooded.
Elsewhere, authorities were searching for the body of an 11-year-old
boy who fell into a creek in Wichita, Kansas, and is presumed dead.
Relatives have identified the boy as Devon Dean Cooley, who disappeared
Friday night.
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Associated Press writer Jim Suhr in Kansas City, Missouri, contributed to this report.
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This story has been corrected to reflect that it’s not clear whether
the six people who died in flooding were killed along the Brazos and
that the 54.37 measure on the Brazos was taken early Wednesday.
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