Floodwaters begin to recede around Houston area as recovery begins after rescues, evacuations

HOUSTON — Floodwaters in the Houston area and parts of Southeast Texas began to recede Monday, allowing residents to begin returning home and assessing damage after days of heavy rain that hit the area and led to hundreds of rescues, including people who were stranded on rooftops.

While officials in Harris County, where Houston is located, have reported no deaths or major injuries from the flooding, Gov. Greg Abbott said there have been at least three deaths in the state. Among those killed was a 4-year-old boy in North Texas who died after riding in a car swept away by fast-moving water.

After days of heavy rain in the Houston area and other parts of Southeast Texas, Monday’s weather was dominated by mostly sunny skies and little to no rain.

“We can absolutely see the light at the end of the tunnel, and we have survived the worst of this weather event,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the county’s top elected official, told reporters Monday.

Areas near Lake Livingston, located northeast of Houston, received more than 23 inches of rain in the past week, said National Weather Service meteorologist Jimmy Fowler. Areas of northeastern Harris County, the nation’s third-largest county, saw anywhere from 6 inches (15 centimeters) to nearly 17 inches (43 centimeters) of rain during the same period.

Hidalgo said 233 people and 186 pets have been rescued in Harris County over the past few days. Active rescues stopped Monday and officials moved from a response phase to recovery and cleanup mode, she said.

Across Texas, more than 600 people were rescued by local and state authorities, Abbott said. A disaster declaration was issued by Abbott for 91 counties affected by the severe weather.

“It has been heartbreaking to watch our fellow Texans literally be inundated by record-breaking waterfalls,” Abbott said.

While many affected neighborhoods and subdivisions along the San Jacinto River in Harris County were accessible Monday, others remained isolated by flooded roads.

“We are a resilient community. I know we will continue to recover from this,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said.

At least five school districts around the Houston area were closed Monday due to flooding.

Houston is one of the most flood-prone metropolitan areas in the country. In 2017, Hurricane Harvey brought historic rainfall that flooded thousands of homes and led to more than 60,000 rescues.

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 a Conroe Police Department officer who died after being injured when a tornado hit his home in the county from Trinity 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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Follow Juan A. Lozano: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70

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