Authorities said they reclaimed four more bodies from Texas waters, adding to the growing death toll inflicted by record-setting storms that continue to submerge highways and flood homes.
At least 28 people have been killed nationwide in the storms, 24 in Texas. At least 12 are missing in Texas.
More than 7 inches fell overnight from a line of thunderstorms that stalled over Dallas, which is in its wettest month ever recorded at 16.07 inches.
The National Weather Service reports rainfall records have been crushed across the Lone Star state from Corpus Christi along the Gulf of Mexico to Gainesville near the Oklahoma border. Even Amarillo in the dusty Texas Panhandle is in its second wettest month on record, said Meteorologist Dennis Cain from Fort Worth.
The downpour has inundated a state that until recently was suffering a severe drought. Swelled rivers and lakes may not recede to normal levels until July.
"In a lot of places we've exceeded the wettest year ever," Cain said. "You're talking maybe a 150 or 200 year event. It is quite astounding."
The greater Dallas area was one of the hardest hit on Friday. Firefighters in the suburb of Mesquite recovered the body of a man who drowned in his truck after it was swept into a culvert. Houston-area authorities found the bodies of two men who had been reported missing.
The body of 87-year-old Jack Alter, who was swept away when a boat attempting to rescue him from a bayou overturned, was found in the Houston Ship Channel. The search for a missing 51-year-old man was called off Friday after the US Fish and Wildlife Service found a body on a southeast Texas beach that matched his description.
The unidentified man and two others, who later escaped, had been fishing in the Brazos River Thursday when they were caught in the currents.
First responders said the body of an unidentified person was pulled near the banks of the Blanco River late Thursday. A storm system last weekend that prompted the initial flooding also killed 14 people in the northern Mexico when a twister hit the border town of Ciudad Acuna.
The rain also seeped into homes Friday and stranded hundreds of drivers, many of whom lingered along highways that were nearly gridlocked from the high water and abandoned vehicles.
