Conditions in the Texas Hill Country turned sharply more dangerous on Thursday, with the National Weather Service describing what it called a large and deadly flood wave, terminology that forecasters do not normally use. Officials said the Guadalupe River rose about 32 feet within just four hours during the morning, and warned that it was expected to crest very close to the area devastated by last year's flooding, as authorities urged anyone near the river to leave immediately.
The warnings carried a grim resonance for the region. The same stretch of the Guadalupe River was the scene of a catastrophic flood last July that killed scores of people, among them young children at a girls' summer camp known as Camp Mystic, and the prospect of the water cresting near that same point drove the urgency of Thursday's evacuation calls as residents and campers were told to get to higher ground without delay.
The catastrophic flooding gripping south-central Texas had already pushed into a second day, with the Hill Country and parts of South and West Texas placed under the highest level 4 of 4 risk for flash flooding. Forecasters warned that flash flooding was ongoing and was only expected to worsen through the day, keeping a vast stretch of the state on alert as the water refused to recede.
The threat was reflected in a wall of active warnings. Meteorologists said nearly a dozen flash flood warnings were in effect at once, alongside several flash flood emergencies, the most urgent category, and tornado warnings. Reports of flooding and high-water rescues continued to come in across the region, a sign that the rain was falling faster than the ground and rivers could handle it.
The severe weather also spun up a confirmed tornado earlier in the emergency. The National Weather Service said a tornado touched down on the northwest side of San Antonio at around 7:30 on Wednesday morning, and that it would carry out a survey to determine the exact path and strength of the twister. No injuries had been reported from the tornado as crews assessed the damage.
The wider emergency had already prompted Governor Greg Abbott to issue a disaster declaration for 59 counties in a flood he said was likely to break records in the state's history, warning that the primary focus throughout the downpour was saving lives and that more counties could be added to the declaration as needed.
Officials mounted a vast response. According to Abbott, more than 1,300 state personnel drawn from over 30 agencies were activated, including the National Guard, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Texas Game Wardens with Texas Parks and Wildlife, and the Texas Department of Transportation. He said more than 800 vehicles, more than 75 boats and more than 20 aircraft had been deployed to the affected region.
The immediate emphasis was on pulling people to safety. According to the governor, more than 75 people had already been rescued and, at that point, there had been no reported loss of life, an outcome the state was determined to maintain. First responders elsewhere in the region said they had carried out dozens of water rescues over the course of the day, some people walking to safety and others taken out by boat.
As the day wore on, however, the emergency took a darker turn and the death toll began to rise. In a later briefing, Governor Abbott said two people had died in the flooding: a man who was swept away in a recreational vehicle near Comfort, and a second person who was swept away while driving on a roadway. The governor said those were the only deaths confirmed so far, while officials in Kerrville, the community hardest hit by last year's disaster, had earlier said they could not rule out further casualties, expressing hope that the toll would remain far below the previous year's thanks to the warnings that had gone out.
The flooding struck across a wide area. In the city of Boerne, officials closed a road in the downtown area after the Cibolo Creek rose so high it became impassable, urged residents to evacuate where safe and told one nearby neighbourhood to shelter in place. Two apartment complexes on the 700 block of River Road were safely evacuated, with the occupants taken to a local shelter, and floodwater swept cars off a road near Uvalde.
Abbott singled out the areas of greatest danger, saying the Nueces River Basin and its tributaries were the most at risk while urging people elsewhere not to assume they were safe. He repeatedly warned against driving through or standing near rising water, said one location had already recorded more than 20 inches of rain with over 30 inches expected in total, and pointed to rapidly rising rivers over the coming day as the primary concern.
By the evening, the state had sharply scaled up its response as the rivers kept rising. Abbott said roughly 2,350 state emergency responders had been deployed, along with more than 1,400 vehicles and pieces of equipment, over 85 boats, 21 aircraft and more than 200 high-profile vehicles, including swift-water rescue boats, ambulance strike teams and Black Hawk helicopters, and that crews had already carried out more than 230 rescues. He warned that several rivers were poised to set records overnight, naming Uvalde and Johnson City as the cities most at risk over the next 24 hours.
The forecast crests were staggering. The governor said the Nueces River near Uvalde was expected to break a record that had stood since 1996, when it reached 24.88 feet, and to run at roughly twice the flow of Niagara Falls, a level also projected for the Frio River near Uvalde. He said the Pedernales River near Johnson City was headed for a top-five crest above 21.9 feet, worse than a 2019 event, while the Guadalupe River at Comfort was forecast to reach one of its highest crests on record, higher than the benchmark 1978 flood and higher than last year's disaster, with dangerous river flooding also unfolding across the Medina, Pecos, Rio Grande and San Antonio river basins.