(CNN) — Disastrous flash flooding has hit southern Texas after days of torrential rain, leaving at least two people dead and hundreds of people rescued across the same region struck by last July’s catastrophic floods.
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More than 230 rescues have been made so far, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday afternoon, adding more than 85 boats, 20 aircraft and 200 high-profile vehicles have been deployed to assist the response.
One of those who died was a man swept away in a recreational vehicle, Abbott said Thursday. John Mark Steward, 65, died after being carried off in his mobile home in Kerrville, his wife told The San Antonio Express-News. CNN has not been able to confirm Steward’s death with authorities.
A 74-year-old man, whose identity has not been released, also died while driving near Uvalde, police said. A Department of Public Safety crew spotted his vehicle bobbing in floodwater about four miles north of the city around 10:30 a.m. local time and later confirmed his death, the Uvalde Police Department said Thursday.
About a year’s worth of rain has fallen in parts of southern Texas this week, but the forecast is now improving in the hardest-hit areas. Isolated showers remain possible, but the threat of additional significant rainfall has, for the most part, ended.
Today’s flash flood threat will instead focus on areas farther west from San Angelo and Junction to El Paso, all of which have not seen nearly as much rain this week. Flash flood warnings were ongoing in the area Thursday morning.
‘The priority was to get out’
The National Weather Service early Thursday issued a flash flood emergency – its highest alert – for Kerrville, Ingram and Hunt, among the communities hit hardest a year ago by devastating floods that killed at least 130 people, including 25 girls and two counselors.
Authorities warned that “a large and deadly flood wave” was moving down the Guadalupe River, before it crested at 37.94 feet in Center Point Thursday morning – a height slightly below last year’s flood. A river gauge in Comfort found levels rose 25 feet in a single hour.
More than 80 people were evacuated from riverside campgrounds before floodwater reached dangerous levels, the governor said.
In Comfort, a group of 42 relatives who had gathered for their family’s 40th annual reunion fled a riverside hotel on Thursday morning, CNN affiliate KENS reported.
“We grabbed just what we needed and what we could get right away,” Amy Thogmartin, who had traveled from Brooklyn, told KENS. “But the priority was to get out. And we’re glad we did, because the people that got back immediately after that, maybe 20 minutes later, the water had risen maybe another 10 feet.”
In the Hill Country, videos showed water inundating streets and swallowing bridges as first responders plucked stranded residents from the current and families surveyed the wreckage. One family told CNN it sheltered for hours in the attic of its Kerrville home as the water rose beneath them, until a rescue boat arrived. In Boerne, footage captured a group of deer being carried off by the flood.
All children’s summer camps in Kerr County confirmed their campers were safe, according to the county sheriff’s office. First responders cleared about 50 homes in flood-prone areas, said Jerel Haley, the Kerrville police chief.
‘We are still reeling’
Officials said the warning systems built since last year’s catastrophic floods were activated in Kerr County in the early hours before water levels began to rise, allowing for people to react quickly to flooding threats.
“The same circumstances that occurred last year occurred again this morning but this time, our towers intervened and woke people and got them out of the way,” said Ian Cunningham, founder and CEO of River Sentry, a Texas-based company that installed 105 flood-warning towers along the Guadalupe River since last year. “You could make the argument that these were critical in intervening and saving lives.”
The flooding brings back painful memories for the community, as many residents are still grieving the losses caused by last July’s floods, Kerrville Police Chief Jerel Haley said Thursday.
“We are still reeling from what happened a year ago,” Haley said. “To have this happen again so suddenly is literally quite devastating for a lot of us.”
Some residents said the alerts bought them time. Jake Lamb, 22, of Kerr County, told CNN the area “hasn’t fully recovered” from last year, but that this time the warnings were relentless.
“A lot of phone alerts, a lot of flash flood alerts. Just constant. We got calls, we got texts, we got a good amount of them,” he said. “The learning experience from last year was major.”
At a Kerrville RV park, which saw a number of deaths last July when people were trapped inside their vehicles, the owner, Lorena Guillen, said everyone was safe in the recent flooding. Sirens went off around 2 a.m. local time along the river, she said. Last year, the warnings did not come until it was too late, she said.
Abbott said last year’s disaster reshaped how the state responds to floods. “What happened last year was a warning to people on or near rivers … that no one can be complacent when rainfall and waters rise,” he said. “Now we’re being very aggressive when the waters start coming down the skies and start rising out of rivers.”
The-CNN-Wire
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