Texans cleaning up after floods
As more rain fell on Houston, the 2-state death toll hit 21. Some residents west of Fort Worth were told to evacuate.
HOUSTON - Homeowners dragged soggy carpet to the curb and mopped up coffee-colored muck Wednesday after a barrage of storms and floods in Texas and Oklahoma left at least 21 people dead and a dozen others missing.
More rain fell on the hard-hit Houston area, threatening to complicate the cleanup a day after a downpour of nearly a foot triggered some of the worst flooding the nation's fourth-largest city has ever seen. Hundreds of homes were damaged.
Heavy weather continued in other parts of Texas, with hundreds of people west of Fort Worth told to evacuate along the rising Brazos River and flash-flood warnings posted in many areas.
Gadi Shaulsky spent the day cutting wet carpet from his home in Houston's Meyerland section and taking it to the curb. His neighbors were doing the same. A water mark showed that up to 6 inches of water had seeped into the home.
"That was just really frightening. It was just flowing in," said Shaulsky's wife, Jodi. With tears in her eyes, she added: "It's hard to wrap your head around all that needs to be done."
Houston Mayor Annise Parker said two people whose boat capsized during a rescue were missing. Another person was missing in suburban Houston. And in central Texas, crews resumed the search for nine people feared dead after the swollen Blanco River smashed through Wimberley, a small tourist town between San Antonio and Austin, over the Memorial Day weekend.
Matt Meeks and his wife, Natalie, worked to clean up the resort on the banks of the Blanco that has been in his family for five generations.
Of the 14 rock cabins at Rio Bonito Resort, probably only five will be salvageable, they said. Two were destroyed, and seven appeared structurally unsound.
Meeks' parents own the resort, but he took charge of removing the debris and salvaging the furniture because "they're too emotionally tied to the place to decide what gets junked and what stays."
On the night of the flood, they were able to get all 100 guests out safely after the fire chief called to warn that the river was rising. The river had never gotten so close to the cabins before, Meeks said.
This has been the wettest month on record for Texas, and there are still several days left. The state climatologist's office said Wednesday that Texas has gotten an average of 7.54 inches of rain in May, breaking the old record of 6.66 inches, set in June 2004.
Texas has been hit with almost continuous storms for the past week to 10 days. The wettest area has been from Dallas-Fort Worth to the Red River, where some places have gotten more than 20 inches of rain.
Wimberley saw some of the heaviest damage, including the loss of a two-story vacation home that was swept downstream and slammed into a bridge. Eight people in the home were missing, including three children.
The death toll climbed to 21 - 17 in Texas and four in Oklahoma. Houston alone had seven storm-related deaths.