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UVALDE, Texas (AP) — Dangerous flooding in Texas has intensified after days of pounding rain, sending emergency crews scrambling to rescue people from high water before sunrise Thursday and setting off urgent warnings from forecasters: “Move to higher ground now!”
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The National Weather Service in San Antonio said a “large and deadly flood wave” was barreling down the same river devastated by floods a year ago when two dozen children and counselors were killed at Camp Mystic.
The storms threatened multiple counties close to the border with Mexico and in the Texas Hill Country, where city officials in Kerrville urged people to shelter at the highest levels of their homes.
The Uvalde County Office of Emergency Management issued its own shelter-in-place message. “All major highways and many city streets are closed due to flooding and water over the roadway,” it said.
There was no immediate word of any deaths or injuries from the flooding. Several tornado warnings were also issued.
Texas Game Wardens have participated in rescues of more than 40 people so far from the flooding, mostly in the Uvalde County area, according to a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesperson.
Another test for the Texas Hill Country after the Camp Mystic disaster
The weather service said 10 to 20 inches of rain (25 to 50 centimeters) had fallen in the past two days, with 8 inches (20 centimeters) in just two hours early Thursday.
One gauge less than 10 miles (16 kilometers) from Kerrville showed the river had risen 32 feet (9.7 meters) in four hours. It was expected to reach a crest similar to the July 4, 2025, catastrophic river flood, the weather service said.
Forecasters had warned that already dangerous conditions were likely to worsen in some hard-hit communities. The deluge dumped nearly a foot of rain in some counties and put people in multiple counties under flood watches. That included parts of the Texas Hill Country where last summer’s devastating floods killed more than 100 people.
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Some of the flood watches were expected to remain in effect through Friday evening.
Families rush to get to higher ground
By Wednesday, Uvalde police had ordered mandatory evacuations for some parts, with first responders notifying people affected directly, the department said on Facebook. Others were asked to stay vigilant in case more evacuations are needed.
Some people walked out of their homes into the street to see the water growing closer every hour, their faces worried. People living along the Leona River scrambled to pack up their cars and head out, although many did not yet know where they should go. One man threw two kayaks into his truck bed, just in case.
Lightning flashed as clouds darkened the landscape, and brown water created large rapids in the typically calm river, which was pushing up against the town’s high bridge and into neighborhoods by Wednesday afternoon.
The Texas flood watches affect 6 million people
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has issued disaster declarations for dozens of counties.
As of Wednesday evening, just over six million Texas residents in 57 counties were under a National Weather Service flood watch that was scheduled to continue through early Thursday night. Watches for 34 of those counties were scheduled to expire Friday evening.
Some of the highest rainfall totals so far have been in Uvalde County, where officials conducted dozens of rescues and said more people needed help as river levels rose. Highways and roads were closed across the region because of high water.
The county normally gets about 23 inches (58 centimeters) of rain a year, according to the Uvalde County Extension Office.
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Stengle reported from Dallas.
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