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The National Weather Service in San Antonio said a "large and deadly flood wave" was barreling down the same river wrecked by floods last summer when two dozen children and counselors were killed at Camp Mystic.
Forecasters urgently warned "Move to higher ground now!" as rivers rose hour by hour, turning them into fast-moving seas of white water.
Gov. Greg Abbott said Thursday morning that one person had died connected to the weather. Several tornado warnings were also issued. The Texas Hill Country floods over the July Fourth holiday last year killed more than 100 people.
"It's crazy happening two times in one year," said Josiah Rodriguez, who woke to the sound of heavy rain around 2 a.m. Thursday in Kerrville. He navigated flooded roads to help evacuate relatives.
"Last year there was no warning of it," he said. "It just kind of happened overnight and it took everyone by surprise. This year, a lot more alerts have gone into place, a lot more safety measures."
The storms and flooding threatened multiple counties close to the border with Mexico and in the Texas Hill Country near San Antonio. City officials in Kerrville urged people to shelter at the highest levels of their homes.
Images along a creek in Kerr County showed propane tanks that had been pushed onto a bridge and a mess of tangled trees.
The Uvalde County Office of Emergency Management issued its own shelter-in-place message. "All major highways and many city streets are closed due to flooding and water over the roadway," it said.
Texas Game Wardens have participated in rescues of more than 40 people so far from the flooding, mostly in the Uvalde County area, according to a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department spokesperson.
Another test for the Texas Hill Country after the Camp Mystic disaster
The weather service said 10 to 20 inches of rain had fallen in the past two days, with 8 inches in just two hours early Thursday.
One gauge less than 10 miles from Kerrville showed the river had risen 32 feet in four hours. It was expected to reach a crest similar to the July 4, 2025, catastrophic river flood, the weather service said.
Forecasters had warned that already dangerous conditions were likely to worsen in some hard-hit communities. The deluge dumped nearly a foot of rain in some counties and put people in multiple counties under flood watches. That included parts of the Texas Hill Country where last summer's devastating floods killed more than 100 people.
Some of the flood watches were expected to remain in effect through Friday evening.
Families rush to get to higher ground
By Wednesday, Uvalde police had ordered mandatory evacuations for some parts, with first responders notifying people affected directly, the department said on Facebook. Others were asked to stay vigilant in case more evacuations are needed.
Some people walked out of their homes into the street to see the water growing closer every hour, their faces worried. People living along the Leona River scrambled to pack up their cars and head out, although many did not yet know where they should go. One man threw two kayaks into his truck bed, just in case.
Lightning flashed as clouds darkened the landscape, and brown water created large rapids in the typically calm river, which was pushing up against the town's high bridge and into neighborhoods by Wednesday afternoon.
The Texas flood watches affect 6 million people
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has issued disaster declarations for dozens of counties.
As of Wednesday evening, just over six million Texas residents in 57 counties were under a National Weather Service flood watch that was scheduled to continue through early Thursday night. Watches for 34 of those counties were scheduled to expire Friday evening.
Some of the highest rainfall totals so far have been in Uvalde County, where officials conducted dozens of rescues and said more people needed help as river levels rose. Highways and roads were closed across the region because of high water.
The county normally gets about 23 inches of rain a year, according to the Uvalde County Extension Office.
