KUT Austin

At least two people have died in dangerous overnight flooding that prompted evacuations and damaged homes, schools and roads in the Hill Country. This week’s floods came almost exactly a year after some of the worst flooding in state history struck the Kerrville area.

Gov. Greg Abbott said in a 5 p.m. Thursday news conference that a man died after he was swept away in an RV in Comfort, a city located southeast of Kerrville. The Uvalde Police Department said a man also died about four miles north of the city Thursday morning after his vehicle was swept away by floodwaters.

Multiple rounds of storms have hit Texas this week, resulting in “catastrophic flooding,” according to the National Weather Service. The agency’s preliminary data shows that Uvalde received more than 21 inches of rainfall from Monday to Thursday, while Kerrville received more than 19.

A tornado also touched down in San Antonio on Wednesday, damaging homes and businesses.

The continued flooding has triggered multiple flash flood emergencies, on top of numerous flash flood warnings, in the Hill Country on Thursday, including for parts of the Guadalupe River, Pedernales River, Uvalde County and Kerr County.

A flash flood emergency is issued in “exceedingly rare” situations in which catastrophic damage is expected and lives are threatened, according to the National Weather Service.

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Severe flash flooding has hit parts of the Hill Country along the Guadalupe and Pedernales rivers, prompting the National Weather Service to issue multiple flash flood emergencies.

The NWS reserves this type of warning for “exceedingly rare,” life-threatening flood situations.

The flooding comes just a little over a year after the July 4 weekend floods that killed more than 130 people across the Hill Country.

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About 200 people packed a sweltering South Austin church Saturday evening to mourn Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Houston homebuilder fatally shot by a federal immigration officer.

They heard local immigrants describe how detention and deportation have shaped their families.

Some carried white flowers into Wildflower Unitarian Universalist Church () on East Oltorf Street. People used bilingual programs as fans while late arrivals stood along the walls.

After an opening prayer in English and Spanish, Sulma Franco, an immigrant from Guatemala, said families across Central Texas were living with the fear of arrest and separation.

“It’s impossible to say that we feel safe here in Texas, because they have the cruelest laws against immigrants,” Franco said through an interpreter.

Kayla Estevez said she fled her home country seeking safety for herself and her children. She said her daughter is buried in the U.S. and wondered whether immigration enforcement could keep her from visiting the grave.

“Will I still be able to take flowers to her?” Estevez asked through an interpreter. “Will I still be able to go to work and come back and hug my kids?”

Speakers at the vigil connected their experiences to the death of Salgado Araujo, a 52-year-old father of three who had lived in the U.S. for about 35 years. Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national, was driving his brother and two other workers to a construction job Tuesday when an ICE officer shot him during a vehicle stop in Houston’s Magnolia Park neighborhood.

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