FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Residents of some rural southeast Texas counties braced for more flooding on Monday as the Brazos River slowly rose to an expected crest of more than three feet above the previous record after torrential rains
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Residents of some rural southeast Texas counties braced for more flooding on Monday as the Brazos River slowly rose to an expected crest of more than three feet above the previous record after torrential rains last week.
National Weather Service meteorologists predicted that the river would crest at 53.5 feet by midday Tuesday in Fort Bend County, topping a 1994 flood that caused extensive damage.
During four days of torrential rain, six people have died in floods along the Brazos, which runs from New Mexico to the Gulf of Mexico and just two years ago ran dry in parts of Texas because of drought. A Brazos River Authority map shows all 11 of the reservoirs fed by the Brazos at 95 to 100 percent capacity.
A man whose body was recovered late Sunday from a retention pond in the Austin area near the Circuit of the Americas auto racing track appeared to be one of two people reported missing earlier, said Travis County sheriff’s spokeswoman Lisa Block.
There have been reports of others missing in Travis County, and crews will resume searching Tuesday, but Block said there’s no confirmation yet of additional missing people.
Four of the dead were recovered in Washington County, located between Austin and Houston, County Judge John Brieden said Lake Somerville, one of the Brazos reservoirs, was “gushing uncontrollably” over the spillway, threatening people downriver. Two of the bodies were found Saturday in different parts of the county, Briedan said.
About 40 people were rescued from late Sunday to Monday from homes in a low-lying neighborhood flooded with up to three feet of water in Simonton, a town in Fort Bend County with about 800 residents. Aerial photos taken Sunday showed large swaths of the county under water.
The county had set up a pumping system to divert the water from the Simonton neighborhood, which sits on a flood plain. But the water levels overpowered the system, according to Beth Wolf, a county spokeswoman.
Wolf said the additional rain forecast for southeast Texas was “problematic.”
“The ditches are full, the river’s high, there’s nowhere else for that water to go,” she said.
Further south in Rosenberg, about 150 households had been evacuated by Monday, and city officials were coordinating with the county’s office of emergency management to have rescue boats in place, according to spokeswoman Jenny Pavlovich. In neighboring Richmond, a voluntary evacuation order was in place.
Flood warnings across Texas remained in effect Monday though only isolated rainfall was expected in parts of the southeast.
Elsewhere, an 11-year-old boy was missing and presumed dead in Kansas and Tropical Depression Bonnie weakened near the South Carolina coast.
