Flooding Worries Ease In South Texas

The flood threat eased in South Texas on Monday as runoff moved downstream following weekend downpours that destroyed some houses and led to numerous high-water rescues.

As much as 17 inches of rain fell early in the weekend, with the heaviest rain falling about 50 miles west of San Antonio, said Pat McDonald, a National Weather Service forecaster in San Antonio.

"It's hard to look at, when you walk in that kitchen and where I cook and you see everything upside down and all that mud," D'Hanis restaurant owner Bill Keich told CBS News correspondent Hari Sreenavasan. D'Hanis is about an hour west of San Antonio.

The hardwood floor of his restaurant has been turned soft by four feet of water, and the kitchen will have to be thoroughly disinfected before he can reopen.

By Monday, high water posed little threat to homes but was a problem for some recreational areas and ranches.

"We were concerned about the Medina River, but that crested last night without flooding," Medina County Sheriff Randy Brown said Monday.

Only isolated showers are forecast through Tuesday, but several Central Texas rivers were either at flood stage or expected to reach that level Monday through Thursday, the weather service said. Some major flooding was possible in the Nueces and Guadalupe river basins later this week, according to forecasts.

Medina County saw the heaviest rain and worst flooding Saturday, especially along Sego Creek, which flows through D'Hanis.

There were no estimates of the number of homes destroyed by the flood, but Brown said he believed it was more than a dozen. No injuries were reported, but as many as 90 people sought emergency shelter, he said.

Dozens of people were rescued, some by helicopter, but no serious injuries were reported in the state's latest round of flooding.

"I just quickly got the kids and put 'em on the roof because I wasn't going to risk it," resident Joann Still told CBS News.

A Boy Scout troop had to flee a campsite along the rapidly rising Guadalupe River on Saturday, and an Amtrak train was halted by water on the tracks about 75 miles west of San Antonio.

"We came back down later to see whatever gear we could retrieve and we retrieved it, but lost five vehicles and two trailers," said Boy Scout leader Randy Forrester.

An Amtrak train was halted Saturday morning in Knippa, a town about 75 miles west of San Antonio, and 176 passengers had to be offloaded from the train when high waters closed more than 35 miles of track, reports Sreenavasan.

Buses drove most passengers Saturday evening to El Paso, where they boarded another train and were under way by 10 p.m., Amtrak spokeswoman Vernae Graham said Sunday. A few passengers caught trains at other stops between San Antonio and El Paso, Graham said.

Knippa, where the train halted, has no motels, reports the San Antonio Express-News.

A woman who authorities say drove a minivan around road barricades south of Austin and became stuck in floodwaters with two children was charged with child endangerment.

Laura Delarosa, 30, of Dripping Springs, was arrested Saturday after rescue workers got her and the children — a 9-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy — to safety.

In the first three weeks of this month, 15 inches of rain has fallen in Corpus Christi, reports CBS News meteorologist George Cullen. "Normally, from Jan. 1 to the end of July, the area gets about 16 inches total and that's for seven months!" Cullen said, "so this has been one of their wettest months ever recorded."