Recovery teams were resuming the search early Tuesday 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 11 in Oklahoma and Texas. More than 1,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed in Texas, and thousands of residents are displaced.
In the Houston area, authorities located two bodies Tuesday after powerful storms rolled through the area, The Houston Chronicle reported. It is believed the two drowned in the flooding in the area. Authorities urged Houston residents to avoid all travel, and CenterPoint Energy reported that over 70,000 customers in the Houston area were without power.
Authorities say a total of three people died in Harris County, Texas — which includes Houston — and between 500 and 700 homes have sustained some level of damage.
Houston Mayor Annise Parker says city officials will be vigilant as the area’s waterways swell with several inches of rain.
Parker said at a news conference on Tuesday morning that “we’re on the alert for folks in their houses as the bayous continue to rise.”
The National Weather Service says about 11 inches of rain fell in six hours in parts of southwest Houston. Firefighters reportedly responded to 131 water rescues in the area after the storms hit. The paper reported that motorists abandoned their cars throughout the city.
Meteorologists say storms that have been virtually parked over Texas for weeks are not yet done, raising the prospect of even more flooding.
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.
Trey Hatt, spokesman for the Hays County Emergency Operations Center, which is outside Austin, said Monday “the search component is over,” meaning that no more survivors are expected to be found in the area’s flood debris. Hatt said recovery operations are expected to begin Tuesday.
Witnesses reported seeing the swollen Blanco River push the vacation house off its foundation and smash it into a bridge. Only pieces of the home have been found, Hays County Judge Bert Cobb told the Associated Press.
One person who was rescued from the home told workers that the other 12 inside were all connected to two families, Cobb said. KTBC reported that eight of the missing had traveled to the area from Corpus Christi.
The house was in Wimberley Valley, an area known for its bed-and-breakfast inns and weekend rental cottages approximately 30 miles southwest of Austin. In Bastrop County, southeast of the state capital, water from the Colorado River breached a dam at Bastrop State Park.
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