Remnants of Hurricane Patricia head East after soaking Texas

October 2015 – TEXAS – Two days of drenching rains in Texas waned Sunday, allowing closed highways to reopen as the remnants of once-Category 5 Hurricane Patricia moved east and threatened to soak other states. “There’s some very intense rainfall still to come across Louisiana and Mississippi,” said Danielle Banks, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel. More than a foot of rain had fallen in the Fort Worth suburb of Burleson since Friday, while areas around Houston saw 9 inches, according to the National Weather Service. To the south, Austin and surrounding areas picked up about 5 inches of rain, allowing firefighters to contain the last of the Hidden Pines fire, which had burned more than 4,500 acres, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service.

In Dallas, a freight train derailed on waterlogged tracks Saturday, but no one was injured. And a driver slipped into a ditch filled with water, but survived. Paul Nelson told NBC Dallas-Fort Worth that his SUV “just wouldn’t move.” There was a lot of water, Nelson said. Another man was swept into a drainage ditch by floodwaters in San Antonio on Friday, NBC station WOAI reported. The search was called off because of high water and but it would resume, fire officials told the station. The rain in Texas began to lighten Sunday morning, and the National Weather Service listed most of the state’s flood warnings and watches. But the Texas Department of Transportation warned that the 35 roadways that had taken on water could remain dangerous, even as many of the roads reopened. –NBC