The body of a 2-year-old girl was found in a tree Tuesday, raising the death toll from floods that swept part of North Texas to six, officials said.
The toddler's body was found after a weekend of storms submerged towns with nearly a foot of water. The other victims included the gir's 5-year-old sister and her grandmother, who were swept away after the family’s mobile home was carried off its foundation and lodged against a bridge in Gainesville. Rescuers were able to save the girls' mother.
Earlier in the day, forecasters said the complex weather pattern that helped spawn the storms that submerged towns may not be finished yet.
One expert with the National Weather Service said computer models suggest the soggy situation would continue for at least a few more weeks during what is usually the hottest and driest time of the year in Texas. The problem is a stubborn area of spinning low pressure that arrived from the Pacific Ocean last week.
Authorities said rescue workers in the Gainesville area are searching for at least four other people still missing.
In the Fort Worth suburb of Haltom City, a 4-year-old girl died after her family attempted to escaped the flooding in a boat that floated by; the boat flipped over and the girl was lost into the rushing water, KTVT-TV reported.
The girl’s mother, Natasha Collins, told KXAS-TV of Dallas that the last time she saw her daughter was “when the current took her out of my arms. We reached the boat, and the boat capsized.”
Rescue crews arrived later to help the Collins family. Alexanderia Collins’ body was found more than two hours later.
A woman died in Sherman, about 60 miles northwest of Dallas, after her car stalled in rising water and was swept away, Sherman police Sgt. Bruce Dawsey said. A 74-year-old man also died in Grayson County after driving into high water.
About 125 residents of a Sherman nursing home were evacuated, and an unknown number of people were rescued from an office building where the roof started caving in, Dawsey said.
In Gainesville, aerial video showed families awaiting rescue on their roofs, some having hacked their way to the outside from their attics. Some were joined by their dogs. Three mobile homes were washed out of the park.
Hundreds of homes flooded
About 500 homes were flooded in and around the city. At one point, about 450 displaced residents had sought refuge at two temporary shelters. That number dwindled throughout the day as many arranged to stay with friends and relatives.
About 100 mobile homes in Haltom City were inundated and many were washed off their foundations, emergency officials said.
“When I looked out the window, water was up to the bottom of the window and the current was so fast houses were washing away, said Haltom City resident Rachel Hawkes. “You could hear people screaming but we couldn’t get out to help.”
About 37,000 people live in Sherman and about 16,500 in Gainesville.
Amtrak’s daily round-trip service between Oklahoma City and Fort Worth was canceled because of flooding, and passengers were placed on buses, said Joe Kyle of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation. Fort Worth-based Burlington Northern Santa Fe, which owns the rail line, will decide when service can resume, Kyle said.
Authorities closed Interstate 35 from Gainesville to the Oklahoma state line for several hours because of flooding, the Department of Public Safety said.
Inch in 15 minutes
The National Weather Service said rain fell at a rate of an inch every 15 minutes in some places early Monday.
“We get heavy rains in North Texas, but the rate, the amount, the duration and the coverage of this are just amazing,” said Gary Woodall, the warning-coordination meteorologist for the weather service office in Fort Worth.
Torrential rains also flooded creeks and rivers across central and southern Oklahoma, sweeping a truck off a bridge near Ada and forcing the evacuation of some homes in Caddo. Rescue workers plucked several people from vehicles trapped by rising floodwaters. As much as 3 to 6 inches of rain fell in some areas, and the National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for seven counties on Monday.
