Homeowners clean up in Texas; death toll climbs to 21

Houston: Homeowners dragged soggy carpet to the curb and mopped up coffee-colored muck after a barrage of storms and floods in Texas and Oklahoma left at least 21 people dead and 11 others missing.

More rain fell on the hard-hit Houston area, temporarily complicating the cleanup a day after a downpour of nearly a foot triggered the worst flooding the nation's fourth-largest city has seen in years. Hundreds of homes were damaged.

Severe weather continued in other parts of Texas, with hundreds of people west of Fort Worth told to evacuate along the rising Brazos River and flash flood warnings posted in many areas.

Gadi Shaulsky spent the day cutting wet carpet and padding from his home in Houston's Meyerland section and taking it to the curb. His neighbors were doing the same. A water mark showed that up to 6 inches of water had seeped into the home.

"That was just really frightening. It was just flowing in," said Shaulsky's wife, Jodi. With tears in her eyes, she added: "It's hard to wrap your head around all that needs to be done."

Houston Mayor Annise Parker said two people whose boat capsized during a rescue were missing. Another person was missing in suburban Houston.

And in Central Texas, crews resumed the search for nine people feared dead after the swollen Blanco River smashed through Wimberley, a small tourist town between San Antonio and Austin, over the Memorial Day weekend.

The storms that produced the flooding were part of a system that stretched from Mexico into the central US The death toll from the system climbed to 35 14 in Mexico, 17 in Texas and four in Oklahoma. The Houston area alone had seven storm-related deaths.

Matt Meeks and his wife, Natalie, worked to clean up the resort on the banks of the Blanco that has been in his family for five generations, since the 1920s.

Of the 14 rock cabins at Rio Bonito Resort, probably only five will be salvageable, they said. Two were destroyed and seven appeared structurally unsound.

Meeks' parents own the resort, but he took charge of removing the debris and salvaging the furniture because "they're too emotionally tied to the place to decide what gets junked and what stays."

On the night of the flood, they got all 100 guests out safely after the fire chief called to warn that the river was rising. The river had never gotten so close to the cabins before, Meeks said.