In San Antonio, heavy rains quickly inundated roads, submerging cars and forcing some individuals to climb trees to evade the swiftly rising waters on Thursday. Firefighters executed numerous rescues in the nation’s seventh-largest city. Officials reported at least five fatalities and mentioned two individuals were still missing.
The fatalities all took place in the northeast section of San Antonio, where authorities discovered more than a dozen water-logged vehicles. Numerous smashed and overturned cars were strewn across a creek, having been transported by the force of the floodwaters.
According to San Antonio Fire Department spokesperson Joe Arrington, some of the rescued individuals mentioned that they were swept away from an interstate access road by “sudden fast-rising water.” These vehicles were carried by the floodwaters into a creek and subsequently moved downstream.
Crews brought in search dogs Thursday afternoon to help find missing people, Arrington said.
By afternoon, crews could be seen pulling heavily damaged vehicles out of the creek.
Calls for water rescues began before sunrise, officials said. Two women and two men were found dead, according to police Chief William McManus, who did not have their ages.
The fire department made 70 water rescues, officials said. Fire officials said that while most of the rescue calls consisted of crews helping drivers from vehicles that were stalled in high water, several “harrowing” calls involved their crews entering swift-moving water to rescue someone.
Fire officials said in a press release that the rescue effort in the area where the people were found dead was “extremely difficult.” Officials said 10 people whose cars had been swept away in that area were rescued from trees and bushes about a mile from where they had entered the water.
The flooding occurred after a round of slow-moving showers and thunderstorms in the San Antonio area during the early morning hours Thursday, said Eric Platt, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Over 7 inches (17 centimeters) of rain fell in parts of the San Antonio area, according to the weather service.
By midmorning, flooding was receding, though Platt noted that rain was still falling in some areas. He didn’t expect additional rain to be as heavy as overnight but said anything that falls on saturated ground can lead to flooding.
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Stengle reported from Dallas.
