Texas floods kill one as Guadalupe River surges

At least one person has died as dangerous flooding swept across southcentral Texas on Thursday, inundating the same region where more than 130 people were killed in catastrophic flash floods last summer.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said about 80 rescues had been made and pledged an aggressive emergency response as rivers continued to rise. “We will be doing everything possible to save human life,” Abbott said in a social media post. His office said the person who died was not a camper in the region.

The National Weather Service office in San Antonio warned that “large and deadly” flooding from the Guadalupe River was expected to ravage the area after days of torrential rain. “CATASTROPHIC flooding is occurring. Move to higher ground now! Guadalupe River is rapidly rising and will continue!” the agency posted on X.

Flood alerts covered a wide stretch of Texas, from the Kerrville area south to Uvalde and beyond to Laredo. Several counties, including Uvalde, Kerr and Kendall, were affected. In parts of Uvalde County, muddy floodwaters covered roads and fields and rose nearly as high as rooftops, according to video posted by the Texas Department of Public Safety and reported by NPR.

The Guadalupe River rose with alarming speed near Comfort, northwest of San Antonio. NPR reported that U.S. Geological Survey data showed the river climbed from 5.46 feet at 5 a.m. CT to 37.05 feet at 8:05 a.m. The BBC, citing the Texas Tribune, reported that the river had risen 32 feet in four hours.

Flood sirens sounded Thursday morning in Comfort, about 35 miles east of Camp Mystic. “We have already had several vehicles swept away,” the Comfort Volunteer Fire Department said on social media, urging people to stay off the roads. “Even if the rain has stopped where you are, water levels are likely to continue surging throughout the day as runoff from upstream moves through our creeks and rivers.”

More than 1,300 responders and 46 boats had been deployed, Abbott’s office said at midday Thursday, according to NPR. In Kerrville, police said high water had mostly receded by noon but the emergency was not over, with numerous roads and bridges still closed. “There is a lot of people driving around to take a look and that is not helpful,” the department said.

Video from the region showed cars moving slowly through flooded streets, brown water rising to their windows. Deer drifted in the current, stretching to keep their heads above water. Rescuers carried small children through rising water to dry land, while parked cars sat half-submerged in residential areas.

Carter Lopez, 30, of Boerne, told BBC News he helped pull people from floodwaters near his apartment. His downstairs neighbors had nearly four inches of water flood their home after Wednesday’s storm and took shelter in his apartment. Last year’s floods were not “quite as bad” in Boerne, he said. “This is not something we could really prepare for.”

The flooding struck just after the region marked one year since the July floods that killed more than 130 people across the Hill Country, including 25 children and two counselors at Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp near Kerrville along the Guadalupe River. The camp did not reopen this year and filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, according to the BBC.

Abbott warned that the current storm could break records. “I want to give you a comparison: The Fourth of July floods last year had rainfall of 20.29 inches,” he said, according to the Texas Newsroom. “The expected rainfall during this rainstorm is expected to be more than 30 inches.”

The National Weather Service said more excessive rainfall was forecast across the Texas Hill Country on Thursday, with the storm moving west toward the Big Bend region on Friday.