Rain, rain, go away!
Flash flood warnings continue this morning for most of south Central Texas, including Bexar County, as remnants of Tropical Storm Erin stubbornly churn over the western Hill Country.
At least seven people were killed Thursday as the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin swept inland, bringing torrential rains through much the state, closing major thoroughfares and stranding dozens in its floodwaters.
San Antonio officials are still searching this morning for a young woman who was swept away in high water just south of North Star Mall. Three other South Texans are still unaccounted for.
In Houston, two people died after the waterlogged roof of a storage unit outside a Houston grocery store collapsed, according to Houston fire and Harris County hospital officials. A truck driver drowned in Harris County when his 18-wheeler went into a flooded retention pond, according to county’s Office of Emergency Management.
A small tornado reportedly touched down in Kendall County Thursday evening, doing minor damage to a building near Cave Without a Name. Also in Kendall County, residents were evacuated from homes along the Cypress Creek in the Comfort area late Thursday.
Boerne Police Chief Gary Miller said the waterways there were receding after flirting with disastrous flooding. The city’s lake was six feet below the spillway on its dam, which has only been topped twice before, in 1997 and 2002.
The San Antonio River is rising at a pace that will have it hitting more than 53 feet at the City of Elmendorf later today. That would put it on an historic list of the top five river levels at that location. In 1998 it reached over 64 feet.
“I’ve been here 6 years and this is the highest I’ve ever seen it,” Cody Dailey, Elmendorf city administrator said Friday morning. “At this point we are not evacuating. There is one home with reported flood damage, but there is no reported injuries or widespread flooding to homes. It’s mostly field damage.”
A staffer at the Bandera County Emergency Management Center said damage assessments were underway along the Medina Lake shoreline, where about 50 homeowners evacuated along Lakeshore Drive South. No reports of water entering homes had been received as of early Friday.
The level of Medina Lake rose nearly four feet on Thursday, sending a river of water over the spillway, but officials said it was receding early Friday
That was welcome news in Castroville, where the rising Medina River had approached an RV park in the city’s regional park before it started to drop.
In Medina County, a feared repeat of the major flooding in D’Hanis last month didn’t materialize, the sheriff’s office said.
The Red Cross had set up shelters in Boerne and in Southwest San Antonio for flooding victims and stranded motorists. No one was staying in the one in Boerne but in Bexar County there were people staying at the shelter established on the south west side of the city at Christa McAuliffe Middle School.
Have I mentioned that I am sick of all the rain this summer???
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