DALLAS: U.S. authorities reclaimed four more bodies from Texas waters, adding to the growing death toll inflicted by record-setting storms are submerging highways and flooding homes.
At least 28 people have been killed nationwide in the storms, 24 of them in Texas — and at least 11 are still missing in that southern state.
More than 7 inches (17.8 centimeters) of rain fell overnight from thunderstorms that stalled over Dallas, which is in its wettest month ever recorded, at 16.07 inches (40.8 centimeters).
The National Weather Service reports rainfall records have been smashed across Texas — from Corpus Christi along the Gulf of Mexico to Gainesville near the Oklahoma border. Even Amarillo in the dusty Texas Panhandle is in its second wettest month on record, said meteorologist Dennis Cain.
The downpour has inundated a state that until recently was suffering a severe drought. Swelled rivers and lakes may not recede to normal levels until July.
"In a lot of places, we've exceeded the wettest year ever," Cain said. "You're talking maybe a 150- or 200-year event. It is quite astounding."
A handful of volunteers, meanwhile, trudged along the muddy banks of the Blanco River in central Texas, searching for the missing. A soggy teddy bear caught in a tree provided a stark reminder that children were among them. The volunteers, led by Toby Baker, marked where the bear was found and talked about the pajamas the children were wearing the night the river crested.
Baker had come as a childhood friend of one of the missing.
"I've got a young family," he said. "I'd like to think someone would come out and do the same for us."
The greater Dallas area was one of the hardest hit on Friday. Firefighters in the suburb of Mesquite recovered the body of a man who drowned in his truck after it was swept into a culvert. Houston-area authorities found the bodies of two other men.
The body of 87-year-old Jack Alter, who was swept away when a boat attempting to rescue him from a bayou overturned, was found in the Houston Ship Channel. The search for a missing 51-year-old man was called off Friday after a body on a southeast Texas beach matched his description.
A storm system last weekend that prompted the initial flooding also killed 14 people in northern Mexico when a twister hit the border town of Ciudad Acuna.
The rain seeped into homes Friday and stranded hundreds of drivers on highways that were nearly gridlocked from the high water and abandoned vehicles. Fire rescue crews responded to hundreds of calls.
The Colorado River in Wharton and the Brazos and San Jacinto rivers near Houston were the main focus of concern as floodwaters moved downstream toward the Gulf of Mexico.
The mayor of Wharton, a city 60 miles (100 kilometers) southwest of Houston, ordered the evacuation of homes along the Colorado River, which is expected to crest Saturday morning.
Floodwaters were already creeping into neighborhoods in the suburban Houston city of Kingwood near the swollen San Jacinto River.
"Everybody's worried about it," resident James Simms said from his second-story balcony, looking down at a flood that had reached his garage.
Teams with dogs continued to search through tightly compacted debris piles of Cypress trees, cars and bits of homes.
"It's like the front end of a bulldozer just scoured the river basin and just wiped out everything in its path," Welch said.