No relief expected from Texas, Oklahoma rain

Rain poured down Thursday for the 16th straight day across Texas and Oklahoma, where flash floods and high winds have already killed 11 people. With little relief expected until the Fourth of July, emergency crews were being flown in from other states to help with rescue efforts.

The rain comes on top of ground already soaked by unusually heavy rainfall this year. Dallas and Oklahoma City, both of which average about 33 inches a year, have already recorded more than 30 inches, and NBC’s Jay Gray reported that some isolated areas of central Texas had recorded more rainfall just this month than they did in all of 2006.

The storm was being driven by a tropical air mass that was stubbornly refusing to budge over south central Texas. NBC WeatherPlus forecasters predicted that the air mass would remain in place for several more days, spawning showers and thunderstorms daily into next week.

With the ground saturated and overrun, those rains will swamp even higher areas, meteorologists said.

“The creeks, the rivers, the lakes are all full, so any additional rain turns into flood,” said David Finfrock, a forecaster for NBC affiliate KXAS in Dallas, where meteorologists said this June could become the wettest on record.

Extensive damage expected
Officials declined to estimate the damage because more was expected. But in the town of Marble Falls, northwest of Austin, Mayor Raymond Whitman said it was “even worse than I anticipated. We are seeing an enormous amount of damage to our infrastructure, bridges, streets.”

Dennis Phillips, owner of Discount T-Shirt Co., said that his Marble Falls business was underwater and that the phones were out.

“All of our inventory, all of our presses — computer systems, everything — it’s pretty much taken out the entire shop,” he said.

In Arlington, Texas, a flood-swollen creek put Six Flags Amusement Park underwater, while residents of entire neighborhoods of Haltom City, outside Dallas, saw their yards wash away Thursday morning.

In Oklahoma, at least three bridges were destroyed in Pontotoc County, and officials statewide were on alert to respond to wind damage after as many as a dozen tornadoes were reported overnight.

Evacuations ordered
Officials in Tarrant and Parker counties, in the Dallas area, ordered mandatory evacuations of communities along the Brazos River.

“We had people in trees,” Gene Mayo, sheriff of Hood County, Texas, told NBC News. “We had mobile homes that actually had water completely over them.”

For residents of the Tin-Top neighborhood southwest of Forth Worth, the danger was coming from 40 miles upriver, NBC’s Don Teague reported.

Managers at Possum Kingdom Lake were forced to open floodgates, releasing millions of gallons of water. By midnight, authorities fear, the water could flood dozens of homes, including that of Robert Steele, who expects to return Friday to find his house underwater.

Larry Kolvoord / The Austin-American Statesman via AP Billy Bates wades across the receding floodwaters Wednesday in Marble Falls, Texas. The truck, which is not his, drifted down a flooded creek overnight.

“Long as we’re safe, you can always rebuild,” Steele said. “And that’s why you’ve got insurance.”

The Texas National Guard dispatched troops and vehicles to hard-hit areas from the Oklahoma border to the Rio Grande Valley.

About 150 troops and 50 vehicles were mobilized, but emergency crews were having trouble keeping up with the demand for high-water rescues, which have led to dozens of risky operations across the two states, officials said.

At least 20 people have been rescued so far in Austin, which was received more than 19 inches of rain in less than two days, NBC affiliate KXAN reported Thursday. So much debris was being dislodged by the racing waters that emergency officials began dispensing tetanus shots at shelters in Burnet County.

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