Parts of Texas have experienced around 30 inches of rain in the past 24 hours as the remnants of Tropical Storm Edouard led to flash-flood emergencies, water rescues and widespread power outages.
Rainfall was falling at a rate of five inches an hour Wednesday in areas northeast of Houston, ABC News reported.
The rapid, catastrophic downpours flooded streets and trapped people in their homes. A woman and her four children were rescued from their Livingston mobile home after a creek overflowed, according to Click 2 Houston.
People in the area also had to be pulled from their cars after becoming stranded on flooded roads, KTRE said.
A flash flood emergency was declared in Hardin and Tyler Counties with rain expected to continue through Tuesday into Wednesday. Local forecasters initially said Edouard was expected to dissipate by Wednesday night, but the National Hurricane Center said later that rain could continue through Thursday morning.
Village Creek in the area of Kountze, Texas, about an hour from Livingston, was forecast to reach major flood stage of 23.3 feet by midnight, according to storm chaser Reed Timmer.
“Widespread damaging and potentially catastrophic flooding is possible with a HIGH risk of flooding in effect,” the National Weather Service warned residents of southeastern Texas.
More than 1,100 state responders and 20 state agencies were working to protect Texans, the office of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said on Facebook.
Social media videos showed cows moving their way through flooding and cars and trucks navigating water-covered highways.
The strengthening super El Niño climate pattern is tied to the “huge amounts” of rain in eastern Texas, meteorologist Ben Noll wrote on X. An El Niño typically brings warmer and wetter conditions to the Southeast.
But rain isn’t the only threat from Edouard. Trees fell into roadways and winds gusting up to 30mph in Livington’s Polk County have led to widespread power outages. The county’s emergency managers told residents to avoid travel Tuesday.
Elsewhere, speeds could reach up to 40mph, the National Hurricane Center said.
The storm had knocked out power for more than 72,000 customers by late Wednesday morning, according to tracker PowerOutage.US.
Some schools and government offices around Houston and the hardest-hit areas were closed, with plans to reopen on Wednesday, 12 News reported.
Edouard made landfall near the Texas-Louisiana border Tuesday afternoon with maximum sustained winds of 60mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.
One weather station in Port Arthur, Texas, recorded a 90mph wind gust from the storm.
Edouard is the fifth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which has been less active than normal due to the El Niño.
Its path was similar to Hurricane Harvey, which brought devastating flooding to the Houston metro area and claimed the lives of 107 people in August 2017.
Record-warm water in the Gulf has been supercharging storms due to human-caused climate change.
It’s also been fueling more rain-heavy storms, including July 2025 flooding that took the lives of 28 people at the Camp Mystic Christian girls’ summer camp.
With reporting from The Associated Press
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