Another round of heavy rain drenched parts of eastern Texas early Friday, flooding roads and stranding a driver on top of his truck, authorities said. Emergency officials braced for more of the flooding that has damaged or destroyed 1,000 homes and killed 13 people in the past 2½ weeks, REPORTED AP. Fire Department volunteers were working to rescue the man after his pickup stalled on a flooded road in Cherokee County, dispatcher Mike Carter said. The overnight deluge also forced road closures in five other counties, officials said. State emergency management chief Jack Colley said all of Texas' major river basins are at flood stage, the first time that has happened since 1957. Major flooding was forecast on the Guadalupe River in Victoria and Calhoun counties, where it was expected to crest near Bloomington at just over 27 feet (8 meters) early Saturday. Flood stage is 20 feet (6.1 meters). «Mostly this time of year we're fighting wildfires ... The problem with this is, the water won't go away,» he said Thursday. The affected area covers 49 counties and 48,000 square miles (124,320 square kilometers) from northern Texas to the Rio Grande Valley, a section roughly the size of Greece. Floodwaters slowly subsided Thursday in parts of Oklahoma and Kansas. Concerns eased that a full Lake Texoma along the Oklahoma-Texas line would send floodwaters into the Red River. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said water could spill over the Denison Dam on Friday, flooding areas to the south. Those living in farm areas near the river were told to move their belongings to higher ground and have an evacuation plan. Michael Gittinger, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said a series of low-pressure systems that have hovered over Texas for three weeks, combined with moist bands of air from the Gulf of Mexico, have fueled the near-record rainfall. The system is forecast to move northward through Arkansas and toward the East Coast. The latest death occurred early Thursday, when a car driven by a 37-year-old woman hydroplaned, collided with a curb and plunged into a creek, authorities said. Four people have been reported missing, including a 6-year-old boy swept into the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday as strong currents ripped him from his father's arms at the mouth of the Brazos River in Freeport. In Missouri, the body of a 16-year-old girl was found Wednesday night in a submerged sports utility vehicle after she apparently tried to cross a flooded creek. So far, the heaviest flood damage has been in Miami, Oklahoma, where the Neosho River crested at about 29 feet (8.8 meters), its highest stage since 1951. The river was not expected to be back within its banks until late Sunday. About 600 homes and businesses were believed damaged, City Manager Mike Spurgeon said. More than 30 area roads were still closed Thursday. U.S. President George W. Bush has issued federal disaster declarations for numerous counties in Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma, clearing the way for housing assistance and low-interest loans, and more declarations are expected.
