New flood warning for Texas, where storms have killed 16

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The National Weather Service issued a new flash flood watch on Thursday for large parts of Texas, where severe weather this week has left at least 16 people dead, damaged thousands of structures and flooded cities such as Houston and Austin.

The warning stretches from south of San Antonio to Dallas, through Oklahoma, where severe weather this week killed an additional six people, and into Kansas. Thunderstorms pelted large parts of the affected region on Thursday morning.

In Texas, the latest victim of the deadly storms that brought flooding on Monday was a boy whose body was recovered near the central city of San Marcos, Hays County officials said.

The boy, who has not been identified, was thought to have been swept away in Blanco River floods that ripped houses off their foundations, county officials said. There were nine people missing in the county after the flooding.

At least six people were killed by the severe weather in Houston, where flooding turned streets into rivers in the fourth largest U.S. city and left more than a thousand vehicles submerged at one point in rushing waters.

There was no damage estimate available for Texas, which has a $1.4 trillion-a-year economy and is the country's main domestic source of energy as a well as an agricultural and manufacturing power.

(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

WhatsAppFacebookTwitterLinkedinBeloudBluesky