More than 40 rescued as floods inundate South Texas

Texas Parks and Wildlife Department said more than 40 people had been rescued from high water in South Texas as heavy, slow-moving storms flooded streets, low-lying neighborhoods and other flood-prone areas.

Texas Game Wardens said the rescues were concentrated mostly in the Uvalde County area, where crews pulled people from homes, submerged vehicles and vehicles swept off roadways. The storm system washed out roads quickly, turning some routes into dead ends before residents could get out and forcing local officials to push evacuations and warnings as water rose.

The National Weather Service issued flash flood watches and warnings across parts of Texas, underscoring how fast the threat could spread beyond one neighborhood. In places where runoff pools after hours of stalled rain, even shallow water can become life-threatening, especially on underpasses, rural roads and crossings that look passable until a vehicle reaches them. Residents in affected areas were urged to move to higher ground, avoid driving through flooded roadways and follow evacuation instructions from local authorities.

The flooding again exposed the pressure on evacuation systems and drainage infrastructure in fast-hit communities across South Texas, where one storm cell can overwhelm streets before emergency alerts and road closures fully catch up. The region has long faced repeated flood emergencies, and the Texas Hill Country has been described as Flash Flood Alley because of the speed with which water can rise in its creeks, tributaries and low-lying road network.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the state was continuing response and recovery efforts as the flooding spread, and later issued a disaster declaration for 59 counties amid severe weather. Abbott also amended and renewed flooding disaster proclamations in July 2025, part of a broader pattern of emergency management that has stretched across multiple flood events in the state.

That earlier flood period added to the urgency around the latest rescues. Abbott said at least 70 people had been killed and more than two dozen were missing in one round of catastrophic flooding, while other reporting on the July 2025 Texas Hill Country floods put the death toll above 100. Texas Game Wardens and Texas State Park Police were also responding to severe flooding in the Hill Country during the July 4 holiday weekend, reflecting how often the same state crews have been pulled into overlapping rescue operations.

As crews kept working in Uvalde County and nearby flood-prone areas, the immediate test remained whether roads, drainage systems and warning networks could hold long enough to keep the next surge from turning another round of heavy rain into a larger rescue operation.