HOUSTON, TX – Storms continued to pour more rain onto already waterlogged Houston on Sunday, leading to the rescue of hundreds of people from flooded homes and roads. Meanwhile, a child tragically lost his life in the Fort Worth area when the vehicle he occupied was swept away by the flooding.
The area surrounding Lake Livingston to the northeast of Houston has been doused with over 23 inches of rain in the past week, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Jimmy Fowler. In the same period, northeastern Harris County, which encompasses Houston and is the country’s third-largest county, saw 6 to 17 inches of rain.
Sunday’s scattered showers in Houston resulted in light to moderate rainfall. Fowler noted that the overnight and morning rain had exacerbated the ongoing river flooding.
However, Fowler expected the rain to lighten up by Sunday evening, with no significant rain events predicted for the following week or so.
In a tragic incident south of Fort Worth in Johnson County, a 4-year-old boy was swept away when the vehicle he was traveling in got stuck in fast-moving water near Lillian early on Sunday morning. Jamie Moore, the Johnson County Emergency Management director, reported on Facebook that the child and two adults were attempting to reach dry land when they were swept away.
The two adults were rescued around 5 a.m. and taken to a hospital while the boy was found dead in the water at about 7:20 a.m., Moore said.
Matt Stalley, another meteorologist with the National Weather Service, reported that storms dumped up to 9 inches of rain in certain areas from central Texas to the Dallas-Fort Worth area overnight within a span of six to eight hours. These rains caused road washouts west of Waco.
Over the past few days, storm-triggered high-water rescue operations have saved numerous people in the Houston area, including some from the roofs of flooded homes.