More than 75 people rescued, 1 killed as rain deluges areas of Texas

Relentless rains were lashing Texas Hill Country on Thursday, with flash flood emergencies reported across the region, rescues ongoing and at least one person killed as water levels rose.

One person died overnight in the Kerrville area as the Guadalupe River flooded, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said in a Thursday news conference about economic development. More than 75 people had been rescued as of Wednesday evening, with the majority being stranded motorists.

“We are dealing with and responding to a flood that is likely going to break records in Texas history,” Abbott said in a Wednesday night news conference. “Our primary focus right now and throughout the remainder of this torrential rain is saving lives.”

The state issued disaster declarations for 59 counties, with about 1,300 emergency personnel on the ground, Abbott said.

More than 800 vehicles, 75 boats and 20 aircraft have been deployed. The expected rainfall from this storm is 30 inches, exceeding the total during last year’s deadly floods by more than 10 inches. Both Uvalde and Kerrville had been under flash flood emergencies early Thursday, with rainfall totals in the 15-to-20-inch range expected there.

The Nueces River Basin and its tributaries were the most at risk. The biggest dangers are driving through rising waters and proximity to rising rivers.

“If you don’t have to be out on Texas roads right now in this impacted area, do your best to stay home or work from home,” said Nim Kidd, Texas’s chief of emergency management.

Following extremely intense rain and thunderstorms on Thursday morning, there may be a lull Thursday afternoon, followed by increasing flood risks again from Thursday night into Friday.

Farther north, another flash flood emergency was occurring along the Guadalupe River southeast of Kerrville.

The region was hit hard by heavy rain beginning Wednesday, with reports of evacuations, water rescues and vehicles that were swept away. Some of the heavy rains and floodwaters hitting the region this week were also affecting areas where rising waters proved catastrophic last July.

That month, floods swept through Texas Hill Country, claiming the lives of at least 137 people, 28 of whom were killed when waters rushed through Camp Mystic, a camp along the Guadalupe River.

Razor Dobbs, of the Center Point Volunteer Fire Department, said he and fellow firefighters had been doing water rescues with two boats and amphibious machines all morning: first in Kerrville, then south along the Guadalupe where it flows through their small town.

“Our whole department is different from last year so we’ve been doing amazing things. I haven’t heard of any fatalities or people missing but there have been a bunch of crazy rescues: People stuck up in trees, on top of their houses. Our whole fire station was flooded again,” said Dobbs, who also worked the flood last year with the department’s roughly 15 volunteers.

“In some places it’s higher than last year. At our station we were ready — we’ve been manning the station the last two nights, and our swift water rescue team has quadrupled since last year. We have a lot more resources for water rescue, and we have a lot more people came out and joined and trained.”

This year, Dobbs said first responders also had more time to prepare compared with last year’s catastrophic floods, when they recovered flood victims’ bodies along the river, including on his family ranch.

“We’ve been expecting a flood could happen because everything has been so saturated. Last year was a surprise,” he said, and late Thursday morning they were still responding.

“We’re expecting another rise. We’ve been going back to places we evacuated to make sure no one went back,” Dobbs said as he tried to drive a fire truck around town, bypassing flooded streets.

“You’re just trying to get people out hoping you won’t get swept away. There have been lots of vehicles swept away.”

At the Kerr County emergency operations center in Kerrville — the same county barn emergency managers used last year — state Rep. Wes Virdell said local and state officials were still coordinating the response Thursday afternoon.

“One fatality that we know of, there might be some missing people. River’s coming down right now but they’re worried it might come back up this afternoon,” Virdell said.

Last year’s flood stripped towering cypress and other vegetation from the river, Virdell noted, so now “the water is moving really fast — there’s almost no resistance.”

The storm passed over Kerrville, he said, leaving much of Uvalde and Lakey to the north still stranded Thursday afternoon with roads washed out or damaged, including Garner State Park, a popular camping and tubing spot along the Frio River.

But Virdell said residents had more warning this year and took precautions.

“I think that’s why we’re seeing so few casualties: Evacuations and they had two days of watching it happen all around,” Virdell said. “Last year people went to bed and there wasn’t a high probability of concern. They woke up to a wall of water coming down the river. This time, they’ve had floods going on in counties around them in recent weeks. So they weren’t caught off guard so much. But the water was just as high or even higher, especially down in the Center Point area.”

Upstream from Kerrville in Hunt, Mike Little concurred. Homes flooded, but residents were not surprised the way they were last year.

The 71-year-old retired handyman lives in a house on a hill overlooking the Guadalupe River. Last year, he helped rescue people from surrounding trees after they were swept away by the river that had risen all the way up a hill to his porch.

This year, nearby Camp Mystic is closed; its owners bankrupt.

Little said he had not seen anyone swept away, that the river was out of its banks and had flooded some nearby homes — including those that had only recently been restored after flooding last year — but neighbors were prepared and accounted for.

“This doesn’t even begin to compare to the last flood for us here,” Little said.

He also noted that as opposed to last year, “There was a great deal of communication — texting and calling — among neighbors at 2 in the morning like ‘Wake up, get out, are you listening?’” and added that the heightened awareness “didn’t have anything to do with the state — it was neighbors.”

Kendall County Judge Shane Stolarczyk, the county’s chief executive, gave a brief update with the county’s emergency manager outside their command center Thursday afternoon.

Stolarczyk called the floods “reminiscent” of last July’s flood although “we’ve taken on a significant amount more water than last year’s flood.”

“Fortunately like last year we suffered no loss of life and no significant injuries,” he said, but noted road and property damage was “prevalent throughout the county” although it was too early to assess the total mount.

At least 68 residents had evacuated, he said. “We have state assets on the ground assisting us,” Stolarczyk said.

“Right now, we’re at a lull. We’re expecting a second wave coming down the pike sometime this afternoon. Nothing remotely like what we’ve seen, but it’s important for residents to remain vigilant.”

The National Weather Service warned Thursday that the waters could reach levels similar to those of the floods last summer, with the worst of the current flooding in a stretch between Center Point and Bergheim, Texas.

As of 5:30 a.m. Central time Thursday, the Weather Service warned of “a large and deadly flood wave” heading down the Guadalupe River.

“The river gauge at Center Point has risen 32 feet in 4 hours and is expected to reach a crest similar to July 4, 2025 catastrophic river flood. Flash flooding is already occurring.”

Just before 11 a.m. local time, the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office said in a post that the river gauge at Center Point had risen to 37 feet just before 6 a.m. In its update, the office said campers at county camps had been confirmed to be safe.

Amid ongoing flooding, the Weather Prediction Center issued a rare high risk, or Level 4 out of 4, of flash flooding and excessive rainfall for the region west of San Antonio into early Friday. High risks are only drawn 4% of the time but account for 80% of all flood-related financial losses and 36% of fatalities.

Most of the floodwaters were pouring into only a couple of rivers. According to hydrologist Reilly Dibble, the discharge of the Guadalupe River at Comfort, Texas, spiked 190-fold in just three hours.