At Horseshoe Bend in Parker County, residents hope luck isn't running out. The community of several hundred trailers and RVs sits on the banks of the swollen Brazos River.
County Judge Mark Riley ordered Horseshoe Bend be evacuated by 8 p.m. CT Wednesday, along with other low-lying neighborhoods. Officials cannot force residents to leave, but Riley said the river could rise another nine feet by the time it crests.
"Water could be up to the top of the carport," said David Cantu, as he hitched up his RV to haul it to higher ground. "All these structures could be gone."'
The storms that produced the flooding were part of a system that stretched from Mexico into the central USA. The death toll from the system climbed to 35 — 14 in Mexico, 17 in Texas and four in Oklahoma. The Houston area alone had seven storm-related deaths.
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.
Down in south Texas, Wharton Mayor Domingo Montalvo issued a call at 5 p.m. Wednesday for a voluntary evacuation of the west side of the city of 8,800 because of the predicted rise of the Colorado River, which has seen flash flooding in the Austin and Texas Hill Country sections of its watershed upstream.
The National Weather Service reported the river level at Wharton was almost 36 feet at 2 p.m. Wednesday. Flood stage is 39 feet. The river was expected to top that level Wednesday night and not crest until it reaches almost 46 feet Friday evening. That would flood many homes in the area with up to 2-3 feet of water and isolate and flood a school.
More rain fell on the hard-hit Houston area, temporarily complicating the cleanup a day after a downpour of nearly a foot triggered the worst flooding the nation's fourth-largest city has seen in years. Hundreds of homes were damaged.
Houston Mayor Annise Parker said two people whose boat capsized during a rescue were missing. Another person was missing in suburban Houston.
The body of Alice Tovar, 73, of Rosenberg, who was swept away by floodwaters Tuesday, was found by her brother-in-law along a creekside fence late Wednesday afternoon.
"I'm just in shock to see her like that," said Ricky Aguilar. "We went all through the woods all day looking for her when she was right there all along."
Tovar was reported missing Tuesday when her family learned she didn't show up for work at a nearby gas station. Her car was later found by her daughter, but Tovar had been swept away.
And in Central Texas, crews resumed the search for eight 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.
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