The rising floodwaters in Texas scrambled transportation, further
swelled rivers already over their banks and sent more people to
evacuation shelters.
Texas floodwaters claim five soldiers' lives at Fort Hood(Street Insider)
A U.S. Army truck overturned in a swollen Fort Hood creek on Thursday, killing five soldiers and leaving four missing as storms dumped more rain on flood-hit parts of Texas.
The
rising floodwaters in Texas scrambled transportation, further swelled
rivers already over their banks and sent more people to evacuation
shelters.
The U.S. Army said the truck overturned
at Fort Hood's Owl Creek low-water crossing during a training exercise.
Three bodies were recovered downstream, the Army said. It is unclear
where the bodies of the additional two soldiers were found.
A search was being conducted for four soldiers from the 1st Cavalry Division, it said in a statement.
Three
soldiers were rescued from the water and were in stable condition at a
hospital, the statement said. Fort Hood, about 70 miles (110 km) north
of Austin, is the biggest active-duty armor post in the United States.
The
National Weather Service issued a flash flood warning for parts of east
Texas and Louisiana. It placed most of Texas on a flash flood watch
because of a slow-moving storm system expected to linger through the
weekend.
About 200 flights were canceled in
Houston and Dallas as of Thursday evening because of heavy rains,
according to tracking service FlightAware.com. Major highways have seen
delays caused by accidents linked to the storms, transport officials
said.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared a state
of disaster in 31 counties on Wednesday, mobilizing state resources to
help cope with the disaster.
Six people were killed in the past week in Texas due to severe weather.
Thousands
of people have evacuated their homes in low-lying areas, rivers have
swelled to levels not seen in more than 100 years, and emergency workers
have completed hundreds of high-water rescues.
Evacuations
were ordered for parts of two towns in Fort Bend County, about 30 miles
(50 km) southwest of Houston, where the Brazos River has risen to
levels not seen for more than a century.
The
pounding rains led to some dramatic rescues, including one in San
Antonio of a man described as a Polish immigrant with limited knowledge
of English who found himself and his car washed away by a wall of water.
Crews
putting up flood barricades heard the man scream and a helicopter was
sent to look for him, said James Keith, spokesman for the Bexar County
Sheriff's Department.
"We were able to locate this man standing on the top of a submerged car holding on to a tree," he said.
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