Relief is on the way for rain-battered Texas and Oklahoma, forecasters said Sunday, with a week-long period of clear weather due that is expected to help recovery efforts.
Severe weather has claimed 31 lives since Memorial Day, and the respite was expected to help searchers in their efforts to find 10 people still missing in the Texas floods.
There was more rain and flooding in downtown Houston on Saturday, but The Weather Channel’s Michael Palmer said the concentrated flood rains were over.
The worst hit areas of Texas and Oklahoma will dry out, Palmer said, with only isolated storms forecast for the next seven days.
“The last of the concentrated heavy rain was yesterday and it looks like the drier weather pattern will exist for a week,” Palmer said Sunday.
Rivers and waterways in low-lying areas would remain at flood levels until Tuesday and Wednesday, Palmer said.
More than an inch of rain in 15 minutes was recorded in the southeastern part of the Houston Saturday afternoon, the National Weather Service said.
There was minor flooding inside Minute Maid Park as the Houston Astros played the Chicago White Sox, with baseball fans kept inside the stadium until the storms passed.
CenterPoint Energy reported that more than 30,000 people in the surrounding Harris County lost power by 6:30 p.m. local time (7:30 p.m. ET).
Meanwhile, a 7-year-old girl was killed in Dallas when a car she and five others were travelling in crashed and landed in floodwaters Saturday, NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reported.
The car crossed two lanes of traffic, hit an embankment, and flipped over before landing in floodwater next to the highway, Raul Reyna, public information officer for the Dallas County Sheriff, told NBC DFW.
A man and a woman, along with four children aged five, six, seven, and nine were in the vehicle, Reyna said. He said the seven and nine-year-old were thrown from the vehicle.
Rescuers pulled the nine-year-old from the water, but the seven-year-old was carried away. Her body was later recovered, Reyna said, and the other crash victims were taken to a hospital.