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At least 2 dead in Central Texas flooding as torrential rain slams region

▶ Watch Video: Flooding kills at least 2 in Texas as torrential rain continues

At least two people have died in Central Texas after torrential rain triggered dangerous flash flooding across the region, Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday.

A man died near Comfort, Texas, and a woman died in Uvalde, Abbott said at a news conference. The governor urged people to stay away from floodwaters, which he said will continue to rise, and to seek high ground if they encountered a dangerous situation.

More than 230 water rescues have already been completed, Abbott said. People have been rescued from homes, submerged vehicles and vehicles that were swept off roadways, according to the Texas Game Wardens. 

Texas Game Wardens were seen in a video wading through waist-deep water to rescue a family, including a young child, as water quickly rose around their home.

“We have helicopters flying over, we have drones flying over, we’re looking at every square inch of the entire area for anybody who may be stranded anywhere, and there will be help coming very rapidly to whoever may be displaced wherever they are,” Abbott said.

Abbott said Texas has deployed approximately 2,350 emergency responders, including Texas Task Force teams, game wardens, troopers and out-of-state resources. Emergency assets include more than 85 boats, 21 aircraft and more than 200 high-water vehicles.

In Uvalde, police told people living close to the Leona River to move to higher ground because it overflowed and there was a threat of a 20-foot wall of water rushing into the city. Uvalde has received almost 22 inches of rain as of Thursday, the National Weather Service said.

In a statement, FEMA said it was deploying five search and rescue teams to Texas “to provide immediate, on-the-ground coordination and resource support.”

“Our hearts go out to the people of Texas as they endure the devastating impacts of recent severe storms, tornadoes, and catastrophic flash flooding,” a FEMA spokesperson said. “We know the immense toll these disasters take on families and neighborhoods. FEMA stands fully prepared and ready to support the state with any needs they may have.”

Flooding inundates communities in Texas

Some parts of Texas have received over 2 feet of rain since Monday, some of it coming down as fast as 3 inches an hour, washing over roads and covering cars.

“It was bad,” Ryan Whaley of Boerne, outside of San Antonio, said while standing next to floodwaters rushing down a street. “All this was under water, and that’s when the game wardens came in, they put their boats in, and they were going down the river, and all that stuff. It just rose really, really fast.”

Members of the Boerne Fire Department rescue a woman from floodwaters July 15, 2026, in Boerne, Texas.
Members of the Boerne Fire Department rescue a woman from floodwaters July 15, 2026, in Boerne, Texas.

Darren Abate/AP Photo

Rescue workers pulled Robert Shelton and his family from their attic, the highest point they could reach, as their home in Kerrville, Texas, filled with water.

“The water got up to a foot of the attic,” Shelton told “CBS Evening News.” “I was scared the house was going to break apart.”  

In Ingram, Texas, flood alarms were installed after last year’s deadly flash floods started blaring as the river reached civilians. River Sentry co-founder Joe Swann told “CBS Evening News” the alarms have been in development since last summer.

“A couple people came up and met me on the front porch, and they started thanking me,” Swann said. “They’re like the flood towers; they woke us up. They got us out of there.” 

In July 2025, catastrophic flooding swept through Texas Hill Country, killing 137 people and leaving widespread destruction. The disaster remains the state’s second-deadliest flood on record, behind the 1921 Thrall flood, which claimed 215 lives.

Angie Nevarez told “CBS Evening News” that firefighters pounded on her door in the middle of the night to wake her and evacuate her.

“It doesn’t seem like there’s been as many deaths as there were last year,” Nevarez said. “I think we were more prepared in a way.” 

People told CBS News the Medina River is usually ankle-deep, but the river has risen amid the rainfall with creeks and springs feeding into it.

Extreme Weather Texas Floods
Flooding blocks off G Street along the Guadalupe River this Thursday, July 16, 2026, in Kerrville, Texas.

Joel Angel Juarez / AP

In one area, high water carried a group of deer down a flooded creek.

“I don’t want to mince words about how serious this situation is,” Chris Shadrock, director of communications and civic engagement for Boerne, said in a video posted to social media. “We are seeing flood conditions that we have not seen since 2015.”

The region could end up with half a year’s worth of rain in just days.

The same storm system spun up a tornado near San Antonio, causing power transformers to spark near a busy highway.

Powerful winds reached up to 100 mph, damaging businesses and ripping the roof off an apartment building.

Maine Democrats’ first debate laid bare their difficulty in replacing Graham Platner

(CNN) — As Maine Democrats prepare to replace Graham Platner as their Senate nominee, eight candidates pitched themselves as best prepared to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins over two hours of debates Thursday night.The first hour featured four candidates who were on the primary ballot in different races this year. All lost — but all earned at least 20% of the vote in their contests.Former public health official Nirav Shah pointed to his performance in the gubernatorial primary (he earned the most first-place votes, but finished second once ranked-choice votes were tabulated). Former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson touted his state-level accomplishments. Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows highlighted her attempt to disqualify President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot. Former Capitol Hill staffer Jordan Wood said he’d be best able to separate himself politically from Platner.The second hour was an undercard of sorts, with four lesser-known candidates looking to break through in the abbreviated race. Among them was Dan Kleban, the Maine Beer Company founder who last year entered the Senate race, but ended his campaign after Democratic Gov. Janet Mills jumped in with the party establishment’s support. Mills would ultimately suspend her campaign in April as she trailed Platner in the polls.“I think people are sick and tired of career politicians,” Kleban said as he sought to vault into the top tier of Democrats in the race.The debate laid bare the reality of how difficult replacing Platner and mounting a serious challenge against Collins will be. None of the candidates in Thursday night’s debate could replicate the political skills that allowed Platner to emerge as a viral sensation, elbow a two-term governor out of the race and poll neck-and-neck with Collins before he ended his campaign after a woman accused him of rape – allegations he has denied. Shah’s delivery was one-note and Bellows’ was halting. Wood often turned to his notes. Jackson frequently cleared his throat and changed directions mid-sentence.It all comes ahead of a July 25 convention at which Maine Democrats will select Platner’s replacement on the ballot. The candidates are making their cases to an extremely small audience: The nominee will be chosen at a convention of 601 delegates, including 101 members of the Democratic State Committee and 500 chosen from the state’s 16 counties in local meetings this weekend.Here are takeaways from the Maine Senate debate night:Platner’s shadowA political certainty in the lead-up to November is that Republicans will seek to tie the Democratic Senate nominee to Platner. Those vying for the nomination Thursday night did little to discourage that comparison as they touted their progressive bona fides.Wood noted that, as he campaigned for the Senate nomination last fall before switching to a House bid, he’d been quick to call for Platner to drop out of the race amid earlier controversies. But none of the major candidates recounted the details of the allegations he faced, and all eagerly embraced some of Platner’s political positions when asked by the moderators what they would take forward from his campaign.Jackson said that like Platner, he supports Medicare for All. Shah said that he also supports abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.Wood said Platner was right to call Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide, and said that “it is so important in these moments to draw those moral lines.” And Bellows said Platner was right to say that “‘the democracy we thought we had has been deeply corrupted.”Furor over ICE shootingAlso looming over Thursday night’s debate: the fatal shooting of Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero by an ICE officer in Biddeford on Monday.Shah raised it in his opening statement, lambasting the Trump administration: “I’m angry that there’s a 3-year-old girl that’s never going to see her father again,” he said.But all four took shots at the agency, saying it should be abolished or – in Bellows’ case – that she wanted ICE out of Maine and remembered the United States before the agency’s 2003 creation.“I remember a day when the thugs weren’t in the government, and they didn’t have arms,” Bellows said.Jackson said he supports law enforcement but that ICE “is not law enforcement.”“It’s a rogue agency that goes around doing things that they’re being told to on high,” he argued. “They give us nothing in this country but heartache and racism.”Wood said ICE agents should be banned from wearing masks, and should be required to display identification and wear body cameras.Shah said he thinks about his immigrant mother, who didn’t speak English when she first came to the country, and “how terrified she would have been had she known the president’s goons were patrolling the streets and might snatch her up.”“The rot has gone to the core, and that’s why we must abolish it,” Shah said.Debating Collins, not each otherThursday night’s debate did very little to draw out differences among the candidates — all of whom trained their criticism toward Collins, the five-term Republican incumbent, and Trump, rather than other candidates in the Democratic race.That could be in part because the party’s July 25 convention could require several rounds of voting — with candidates’ cross-endorsements and alliances playing a pivotal role in the ultimate outcome.Shah had the most polished delivery, and the most unique material. He chided Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as “obsessed with testosterone levels of troops,” rather than focused on the challenges of drones and artificial intelligence, and said he should be booted from Trump’s Cabinet.Jackson sought to frame his campaign in working-class terms, saying he was running “so that everyday people get a government that they deserve.”But at no point did the top candidates clash over policy differences or challenge each other’s claims of electability or preparedness for what’s likely be one of the nation’s hardest-fought Senate races this fall.Candidates will have another chance to make their cases on July 23, when CNN will host a debate in partnership with the Bangor Daily News.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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