AUSTIN, Texas/SAN ANTONIO — A U.S. Army truck overturned in a rain-swollen creek at Fort Hood on Thursday, killing three soldiers and leaving six missing as storms dumped more rain on flood-hit parts of Texas on Thursday.
The rising floodwaters in Texas scrambled transportation, further swelled rivers already over their banks and sent more people to evacuation shelters.
The U.S. Army said the truck overturned at Fort Hood’s Owl Creek low-water crossing, and three bodies were recovered downstream. A search was being conducted for six soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division, it said in a statement. Fort Hood is about 70 miles (110 km) north of Austin.
Three soldiers were rescued from the water and were
in stable condition at a hospital, the statement said.
A mobile home lies almost completely underwater after heavy rains in Richmond, Texas, U.S. May 31, 2016. REUTERS/DANIEL KRAMER
The National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for parts of east Texas and Louisiana. It placed most of Texas on a flash flood watch because of a slow-moving storm system expected to linger through the weekend.
About 200 flights were canceled in Houston and Dallas as of Thursday evening because of heavy rains, according to tracking service FlightAware.com. Major highways have seen delays caused by accidents linked to the storms, transport officials said.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster in 31 counties on Wednesday, mobilizing state resources to help cope with the disaster.
Six people were killed in the past week in Texas due to severe weather.
Thousands of people have evacuated their homes in low-lying areas, rivers have swelled to levels not seen in more than 100 years and emergency workers have completed hundreds of high-water rescues.
Evacuations were ordered for parts of two towns in Fort Bend County, about 30 miles (50 km) southwest of Houston, where the Brazos River has risen to levels not seen for more than a century.
The pounding rains led to some dramatic rescues, including one in San Antonio of a man described as a Polish immigrant with limited knowledge of English who suddenly found himself and his car washed away by a wall of water.
Crews putting up flood barricades heard the man scream and a helicopter was sent out to look for him, said James Keith, spokesman for the Bexar County Sheriff’s Department.
“We were able to locate this man standing on the top of a submerged car holding on to a tree,” he said, adding the man was rescued.
— by Jon Herskovitz and Jim Forsyth | Reuters