There was more flooding in downtown Houston Saturday as storms moved through, but forecasters said the rain was expected to be the last in a series of severe storms that have left at least 31 people dead Texas and Oklahoma.
A break in the weather over the next seven days is forecast for the hardest-hit parts of the two states, which saw flooding and tornadoes since Memorial Day weekend, according to The Weather Channel.
"The last gasp of significant rain is this evening," said Weather Channel meteorologist Michael Palmer, adding that the Southern Plains would stay dry for most of the week.
"They'll get several days to dry out," he said. "They definitely need it."
The respite is expected to give searchers a chance to focus their efforts on finding 10 people that are still missing in Texas in the aftermath of the floods, which were so severe in Wimberley last weekend that a vacation home with nine people inside was swept into the Blanco River and broke apart after striking a bridge.
Only one of those people, Jonathan McComb, was found alive. The bodies of McComb’s 6-year-old son and two other adults have been found. Five other people, including two children, are still missing.
Ankle-deep flooding was reported in downtown Houston Saturday, the National Weather Service said. Six people in Houston died as a result of this week's weather. A seventh died of a heart attack while assisting a stranded motorist, officials 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 Astros played a baseball game against the Chicago White Sox, which was caused by a roof leak, Harris County Office of Emergency Management Rosio Torres said. Overloaded storm drains near the stadium also backed up, Torres said, and fans were kept in the ball park until 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).
The National Weather Service issued a flood watch for portions of Central and South Texas. Dallas got about six inches on Saturday morning before the rain eased off as a cold front moved into the state, NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reported. Francisco Sanchez, the spokesman for the Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, warned the city's residents to stay home.
In the city of Wharton, southwest of Houston, flooding along the Colorado River was not as bad as feared, with what was described as minor street flooding on the west side of the city. A mandatory evacuation order imposed Friday was lifted at 7:35 p.m. local time Saturday, the city said.
In Hays County near Austin, one of the hardest-hit parts of the state, officials on Saturday estimated the damage to infrastructure and the cost of debris removal to be over $32.7 million. More than 1,200 homes were damaged and at least 209 of those are considered destroyed, and those numbers are expected to increase.
Three more bodies were found in Hays County Saturday, bringing the death toll in that county to eight, officials said.
