Disasters Texas

More than 300 homes have been damaged and four people have died in flooding spurred by weekend rains that turned quiet streams and rivers into raging rapids along a 100-mile stretch from just west of San Antonio to just west of Austin. At least 200 homes around Lake Travis have been damaged. In Marble Falls, 60 miles northwest of Austin, at least 100 homes were damaged or destroyed. In Llano, a bedroom community roughly 100 miles northwest of Austin, at least 30 homes were damaged.

Authorities ended the search Thursday for 23 people who had been unaccounted for after a devastating tornado, concluding that those considered missing had turned up alive or were among the unidentified bodies. Residents of this central Texas town returned to what's left of their homes, still grieving over the deaths of 27 neighbors but thankful that the toll wasn't higher.

There is nothing left of Double Creek Estates. There are no homes. There are no people. There are no trees. In some spots, there are no streets. Everything, even the asphalt, has been sucked from the ground. "Twisters do crazy things," said Gerald Gower, his eyes swollen and voice cracking. He can only imagine what has become of his 11-year-old son, Brian, a baseball player and model car collector who lived with Gower's ex-wife in what is now a barren field.

At least 32 people were killed Tuesday when a fierce line of twisters ripped across the central Texas hills, flipping cars, stripping roofs and bursting windows in the deadliest tornadoes to strike the state in a decade. The damage stretched from Austin to Waco, but nearly all the fatalities were concentrated in the tiny Williamson County town of Jarrell, a community of just 1,000 that was devastated by a 1989 tornado.

Texas' top insurance official Wednesday put preliminary damages at $700 million in last week's flood, which resulted in 19 deaths and drove 12,000 people from their homes. Texas Insurance Commissioner J. Robert Hunter estimated preliminary claims would amount to $400 million for private insurance companies and $300 million to the federal national insurance program.

In just three hours of pounding rain, water flooded Becky Wilford's house, leaving her groping at 2 a.m. for a way out. Four feet of water had surrounded her home by the time a rescue boat appeared. "Tie the boat to the pier," a voice called out. "That's not a pier, that's the deck to our house," Wilford shouted as she clambered onto the boat with her husband and child.

Rivers and creeks raged with floodwater Monday in southeastern Texas, killing at least six people and chasing thousands from their homes. The torrential storms began Sunday, pounding some areas with up to 20 inches of rain by Monday evening. About 3,000 residents downstream from a dam 60 miles northeast of Houston were told to evacuate because of the rising Trinity River, and 5,000 residents to the south fled their low-lying homes.

A business district dating to the years just after the Civil War was left in ruins Tuesday after a tornado smashed through town, killing three people and destroying up to 200 homes, authorities said. "I think there's a lot of hard days ahead, a lot of them," Police Chief Mac McGuire said. A building that once housed a bank robbed by Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker lost all of its second floor except for a corner facade.

Ranchers worried Friday that flooding could make their grazing land useless for months to come, as flood crests spread out for miles across the flat land of southern Texas on the way to the Gulf of Mexico. The Brazos River peaked upriver at Richmond, southwest of Houston, but it still was on the rise west of Rosharon, a town of 435. Water spread out across Brazoria County roads as much as six miles past the river's normal banks, reaching to the tops of fence posts.

Floodwaters began receding along parts of the Brazos River and the National Weather Service canceled a flash flood watch for southeastern Texas as sunshine broke through clouds after early morning rain. In Ft. Bend County, ranchers used boats to ferry bales of hay to hungry cattle isolated by the high water. The Brazos River and two nearby lakes began receding in the area just southwest of Houston. The Brazos dropped from 49.7 feet to 49.5 downstream at Richmond, where flood stage is 48 feet.