Texas floods: One dead after state of emergency declared over near-record downpour

Texas faces the threat of further flooding after days of heavy rain - with at least one person having died thanks to the downpour.

A state of emergency has already been declared in 18 counties with the flooding having led to the collapse of a bridge.

Within a span of 24 hours, the Llano River, northwest of Austin, Texas, rose from 10 feet to nearly 40 feet, just shy of an all-time record. Now, it’s back down to 15 feet. Texas governor Greg Abbott had ordered evacuations in the regions near the river, and crews recovered one unidentified body from a flooded lake.

The rain is expected to continue into Thursday and Friday.

Earlier this month, four people in west Texas also died after the flooding of the Llano River. Three of those bodies have been recovered. On Tuesday, emergency crews reported 62 vehicle collisions that resulted in injuries over the course of only four hours.

The raging waters on the Llano river crashed into the FM 2900 bridge near Kingsland, Texas, causing it to collapse. There are no reported injuries or deaths from the incident.

In response to the flooding, emergency personnel blocked access to 150 low-water crossings, several school districts closed, and emergency workers had to rescue citizens whose homes had flooded. Some evacuees had to take up shelter at a nearby middle school, Click2Houston reports.

September 2018 was among the wettest that the state of Texas has experienced in more than 100 years, according to records kept since 1895. This year, San Antonio and Dallas experienced their wettest September ever recorded. Sixteen US cities had their wettest Septembers ever in 2018. Many more had their hottest September ever.

Meteorologists predict that the heavy rains will let up this weekend. However, they also predict more rain in the coming months, and the Farmer’s Almanac suggests that Texas will have “stinging cold, average precipitation” this coming winter