A deadly storm that has caused flooding and coated parts of the southern Plains in ice in recent days is dumping more rain on North Texas and some dangerously swollen waterways.
Advertisement
Another three deaths are blamed on flash flooding in Texas, where one person is missing. Authorities say they are planning to send in divers to search for her.
In central and southwestern Oklahoma, broken ice-covered tree limbs downed power lines and cut electricity to more than 60,000 customers.
Tarrant County sheriff’s office spokesman Terry Grisham says a 26-year-old deputy was also swept away during an attempt to rescue the motorist in Fort Worth early Friday. The motorist remains missing. Two people were rescued, but the third person’s body was later recovered near Mansfield, about 18 miles southeast of Fort Worth, sheriff’s spokesman Tim Jones said.
On Saturday in North Texas, teams were still unable to reach a auto that was washed into a creek on Thanksgiving Day with a woman in her 70s trapped inside, said Fort Worth firefighter Kyle Clay.
Emergency crews in Texas were on standby Saturday in case the rain led to more flooding.
Deputy Krystal Salazar was rescued about 3 a.m.by Fort Worth firefighters using a watercraft to navigate the raging waters in Deek Creek.
Already, a total 55.23 inches of rain has been recorded at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport this year, topping the annual rainfall record of 53.54 inches set in 1991. About 100 crashes were reported in the Texas panhandle and south Plains through late Friday.
The rain was steady overnight in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and pushed 2015 to the No. 1 spot as the wettest year on record.
“For about two hours, we assumed the absolute worst”, said Grisham said.
The rains affecting Dallas were part of a system that was leaving dangerously icy travel conditions to west and north Saturday, from western Texas through Oklahoma and Kansas.
An ice-storm warning and a winter weather advisory were in effect for parts of Oklahoma until noon on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.
About 2.5 million people were under an ice storm warning Saturday morning, including residents in the Oklahoma City area.
Advertisement
Rains in Texas will also continue into the night, and a second band of wet weather will move through the rain-drenched state Sunday, bringing an additional half-inch to an inch-and-a-quarter of rainfall, said Paul Walker, a senior meteorologist with Accuweather.
