Wimberly - Recovery teams were resuming the search Tuesday for 12 members of two families who are missing after a rain-swollen river in Texas carried a vacation home off its foundation, slamming it into a bridge downstream.
In Houston, authorities recovered three more bodies from the floodwaters, bringing to 11 the number of people killed by the storms in Oklahoma and Texas.
A holiday weekend of storms dumped record rainfall on the American heartland, caused major flooding and spawned tornadoes. More than 1 000 homes have been damaged or destroyed in Texas, and thousands of residents are displaced.
Authorities were also searching for victims and assessing damage just across the Texas-Mexico border in Ciudad Acuna, where a tornado Monday killed 13 people and left at least five unaccounted for.
Houston Mayor Annise Parker said officials in the nation’s fourth-largest city would be “on the alert” as the waters rise. Fire crews conducted hundreds of water rescues overnight, mostly retrieving stranded motorists from their vehicles, the mayor said.
A runway was closed at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport after a sinkhole developed in a nearby grassy area.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared disasters in 37 counties, allowing for further mobilization of state resources to assist.
“It’s absolutely massive,” Abbott said after touring the destruction.
The worst flooding damage was in Wimberley, where the vacation home was swept away. Witnesses reported seeing the swollen river push the home off its foundation and smash it into a bridge. Only pieces of the home have been found, Hays County Judge Bert Cobb said. Young children were among those thought to be missing.
Early Tuesday, Hays County spokeswoman Laureen Chernow said officials were not able to confirm whether all 12 people were in that house.
The Blanco river crested above 40 feet (12 meters), more than triple its flood stage of 13 feet. The river swamped Interstate 35 and forced parts of the busy north-south highway to close. Rescuers used pontoon boats and a helicopter to pull people out.
The four other Texas deaths included a man whose body was pulled from the Blanco; a 14-year-old who was found with his dog in a storm drain; a student whose car was caught in high water; and a man whose mobile home was destroyed by a reported tornado.
The Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management reported four fatalities between Saturday and Monday across the state, which saw severe flooding and reported tornadoes.
In Ciudad Acuna, Mayor Evaristo Perez Rivera said 300 people were treated at hospitals after the tornado, and up to 200 homes had been completely destroyed.
The twister devastated a seven-block area. “There’s nothing standing, not walls, not roofs,” said Edgar Gonzalez, a spokesman for the city government.
Rescuers were looking for four members of a family who were believed missing and for an infant who was missing after the tornado ripped the baby carrier the child was in from its mother’s hands.
ANA-AP