The Blanco River water rose 40 feet, yes, FORTY FEET, so fast that people never had time to evacuate.  Homes wiped out, many feared dead, a dozen people missing. (Raw OMG Video Below of Aftermath)

(Via AP) “It looks pretty bad out there,” Hays County emergency management coordinator Kharley Smith said of Wimberley, where an estimated 350 to 400 homes were destroyed. “We do have whole streets with maybe one or two houses left on them and the rest are just slabs.”
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About 1,000 homes were damaged throughout Hays County, which includes Wimberley. Five San Marcos police cars were washed away, and the firehouse was flooded, said Kristi Wyatt, a spokeswoman for San Marcos.
Rivers swelled so quickly that whole communities awoke Sunday surrounded by water. The Blanco crested above 40 feet — more than triple its flood stage of 13 feet. The river swamped Interstate 35 and forced parts of the busy north-south highway to close. Rescuers used pontoon boats and a helicopter to pull people out.


After a surge of mud and water flooded their cottage in Wimberley, John and Valerie Nelson fled through waist-deep waters in darkness early Sunday with transformers sparking and trees crashing around them. The single-story house had been carefully rebuilt on stilts so that it would be able to withstand even the worst flooding.
“I’m absolutely dumbfounded,” said Valerie Nelson, who has owned the property for about 50 years. “I didn’t think the water would ever get that high.”
Hundreds of trees along the Blanco were uprooted or snapped, and they collected in piles of debris that soared 20 feet high.
“We’ve got trees in the rafters,” said Cherri Maley, the property manager of a house where the entire rear portion collapsed with the flooding, carrying away furniture.
“We had the refrigerator in a tree,” she said. “I think it’s a total loss.” (read more)
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Laura McComb and her children, Andrew, 6, and Leighton, 4, are among nine twelve people missing in Texas after severe flash floods ravaged the area and parts of Oklahoma over the weekend. Laura’s husband Jonathan was injured and is being treated at a hospital. (story link)

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