Texas floods trigger mass rescues and evacuations

Texas flash floods force rescues and evacuations, rivers surge across Hill Country after intense rainfall, one death reported as warnings spread county by county

Torrential rain has pushed rivers and streams over their banks in central and southern Texas, triggering rescues, evacuations and repeated flash-flood warnings, according to El País. Texas governor Greg Abbott said one person had died in connection with the flooding, while emergency crews worked from early Thursday morning to reach people trapped by rapidly rising water.

The National Weather Service issued several flash flood emergencies for communities including Kerrville, Hunt, Uvalde and Knippa, warning of a “large and deadly flood wave” moving down the Guadalupe River. Officials urged residents to move to higher ground as the floodwater moved downstream from Kerrville toward towns including Center Point and Comfort. Roads were closed in Fredericksburg, and a section of U.S. Highway 90 between Uvalde and Del Rio was shut after water covered parts of the route.

The scale of the rainfall described by El País points to why response becomes a logistics problem rather than a simple warning problem. Some parts of Uvalde recorded between 10 and 20 inches of rain over 48 hours, with up to eight inches falling in just two hours. Meteorologists warned that rain could continue at rates of two to four inches per hour, while saturated ground reduced the margin for error: once the soil stops absorbing water, every additional downpour becomes runoff that arrives in towns as a surge.

River gauges captured the speed of the change. The Guadalupe at Center Point rose about 32 feet in four hours, while the river at Hunt rose from roughly nine to 19 feet in one hour, El País reports. The National Weather Service warned that levels could peak in a range comparable to a catastrophic flood on July 4, 2025—an implicit reminder that communities now plan against recent disasters, not historical ones.

Rescue work ran through the night. Texas Parks and Wildlife agents rescued more than 40 people, mostly in Uvalde County, while boats were deployed in Kerr County and helicopters were prepared for dawn operations. El País reported that several motorists were trapped, at least two bridges were swept away, and crews struggled to reach some communities because roads became impassable.

Shelters opened in Comfort, Bandera, Kerrville and Ingram, and local authorities issued evacuation orders for residents near the Guadalupe River and other waterways. In one operation, ten people who had taken refuge on the roof of a barn were rescued.

By Thursday, the flood map was being redrawn in real time—one bridge at a time.