Hermine inundates north Texas with rain

ARLINGTON, Texas | The remnants of Tropical Storm Hermine caused massive flooding in northern Texas on Wednesday, killing at least one person and submerging much of the city of Arlington under water.

Television footage showed firefighters using ladders to reach residents stranded in the upper floors of their homes in a subdivision. Coffee-colored floodwaters rushed past roller-coaster tracks at a Six Flags amusement park. Bewildered residents waded through waist-deep water in the streets.

Two mobile homes and a house were swept away north of Austin, and dozens of people sought emergency shelter after state and local authorities performed numerous high-water rescues from Austin to Dallas. Remnants of the storm, downgraded to a tropical depression Tuesday night, appeared to be moving into southern Oklahoma in satellite images and were forecast to move as far north as Kansas in the coming days.

The National Weather Service issued flash-flood warnings for many parts of Oklahoma, and the entire state was under a flash-flood watch.

The emergency response came as the remnants of Hermine dumped several inches of rain across central and north Texas overnight, snarling the morning commute in the Dallas area. Flood warnings were posted throughout both regions.

The storm brought winds gusting to about 70 mph and downpours to Texas, but left only minor scrapes in the storm-weary Rio Grande Valley, which is proving resilient this hurricane season after taking a third tropical system on the chin.

The storm struck the flood-prone valley just after the cleanup finished from Hurricane Alex at the start of the summer and an unnamed tropical depression in July. Only last week had Hidalgo County, located on the U.S.-Mexico border, stowed its last water pump.

But Hermine’s remnants were expected to cover more of the U.S. than Alex, which swiped Texas in June as a Category 1 storm before plunging southwest and breaking up over Mexico.

“This is going to be much more of a memorable storm than Alex,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Joseph Tomaselli.

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