A house has been swept away and at least three people are missing as a flood emergency hits a second US state.
Emergency crews made at least 85 swift water rescues in the Ruidoso area of New Mexico on Tuesday, after monsoon rains triggered intense flash floods.
Danielle Silva of the New Mexico Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management said the rescues included people who had been trapped in homes and cars.
Ruidoso public information officer Kerry Gladden said no deaths had been immediately reported. But three people had been taken to hospital.
Rescuers were scouring the town late on Tuesday, after the floods receded. Public works crews were clearing debris from roads.
Local artist Kaitlyn Carpenter sheltered at the Downshift Brewing Company with about 50 other people as the floods hit. She was filming debris rushing down the Rio Ruidoso when she spotted a house float by with a familiar turquoise door – it belonged to the family of one of her best friends.
Carpenter said later that her friend’s family was not in the house and were safe.
“I’ve been in that house and have memories in that house, so seeing it come down the river was just pretty heartbreaking,” she said.
“I just couldn’t believe it.”
The New Mexico incident came as the toll from the flash flood that ravaged central Texas rose to 111, many of them children.
Texas Governor Gregg Abbott said late on Tuesday that authorities were searching for more than 180 people who remained unaccounted for, four days after one of the deadliest US flood events in decades.
Texas toll rises further
Across the border in Texas, the bulk of fatalities and the search for additional victims are concentrated in Kerr County and the county seat of Kerrville.
The town of 25,000 residents was transformed into a disaster zone when torrential rains struck the region last Friday, flooding the Guadalupe River basin.
Law enforcement agencies had compiled a list of 161 people “known to be missing” in Kerr County alone, Abbott said.
It had been checked against those who might be out of touch with loved ones or neighbours because they were away on holiday or out of town.
“There very likely could be more added to that list,” Abbott said.
He said authorities had worked to identify “those who may have been down here who no one really had any accounting of” to expand the list of missing people, including those staying at camps or hotels for the July 4 long weekend.
Abbott said another 12 people were missing elsewhere across the flood zone as a whole, a sprawling area north-west of San Antonio.
More than 300 millimetres of rain fell in the region in less than an hour before dawn last Friday, sending a wall of water cascading down the Guadalupe River that killed dozens of people and left mangled piles of debris, uprooted trees and overturned vehicles.
State emergency management officials had warned on Thursday, on the eve of the disaster, that parts of central Texas faced the possibility of flash floods based on National Weather Service forecasts.
But city manager Dalton Rice said twice as much rain as predicted ended up falling on the Guadalupe River, sending water racing towards Kerrville.
Rice has said the unforeseen outcome unfolded in just two hours, leaving too little time to conduct a precautionary mass evacuation without the risk of putting more people in harm’s way.
On Tuesday, Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd declined to say why evacuation orders weren’t issued.
“I can’t answer the whys, I’m not going to answer the whys,” Kidd said.
“We started having calls and messages on Wednesday,” he said.
The area where the rain fell comprised a “large chunk of Texas”, he said.
“It picked this spot right here,” Kidd said.
It is the deadliest flooding in Texas in a century.
Scientists say extreme flood events are becoming more common as climate change creates warmer, wetter weather patterns in Texas and other parts of the US.
US President Donald Trump is expected to visit the area later this week.
-with AAP
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