Texas flooding: Hundreds await rescue after heavy rains hit Houston area

Most of the city of Houston was not heavily affected by last week’s rainfall, with the exception of the Kingwood neighborhood, where some homes and roads were flooded.

Abbott said preliminary reports showed at least 800 structures across the state were damaged. But he expects that figure to rise, as officials in many affected communities have not yet begun to assess the destruction.

As of Monday, various counties and communities north and east of the Houston area were also transitioning from rescue to recovery.

“I don’t think it will be a short-term recovery, that’s for sure. This will be a very long-term recovery,” Polk County Judge Sydney Murphy said.

At least 174 water rescues were carried out in Polk County, where many areas still remained underwater Monday, Murphy said.

In Walker County, water rescue operations were halted, but swift water rescue teams were monitoring residents of about 100 homes who had decided not to evacuate but could no longer leave due to high waters, said Sherri Pegoda, the county’s deputy emergency management coordinator. . Rescue teams were bringing food and water to these residents, she said.

“Just another week or maybe two before the waters recede enough for them to get out on their own,” Pegoda said.

As he boated through a flooded rural neighborhood in Trinity County on Sunday, Sheriff Woody Wallace said during a Facebook livestream that residents in his county had “suffered a lot.”

During the live broadcast, partially submerged cars and street signs could be seen around Wallace. At one point, a game warden on the boat rescued an armadillo that was swimming in the floodwaters.

“Poor little thing here about to drown,” Wallace said, adding that they would take the armadillo, which he named Sam, to shore.

In Johnson County, south of Fort Worth, a 4-year-old boy died when he was swept away after the vehicle he was in became stuck in fast-moving waters near the community of Lillian just before 2 a.m. Sunday, an official said. . The Tarrant County medical examiner’s office said the cause of death for the child, who would have been 5 years old later this month, was drowning.

Abbott said two other weather-related deaths were a Bosque County man who was swept away by rushing waters and an officer with the Conroe Police Department who died after being injured when a tornado struck his home in Trinity County on April 28.

Murphy said she’s tired of dealing with historic weather events, but “whatever happens, whatever Mother Nature throws at us, we’ll deal with it.”

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Associated Press journalist Jamie Stengle in Dallas and video journalist Lekan Oyekanmi in Houston contributed to this report.

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