WIMBERLEY, Texas -- The death toll from a barrage of storms and floods in Texas and Oklahoma climbed to 21 Wednesday, with 11 others missing.
More rain fell in the Houston area, a day after flooding triggered by nearly a foot of rain in a matter of hours swamped neighborhoods and highways, and stranded hundreds of motorists.
Heavy rain 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.
At 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, a tornado struck a gas drilling rig in the state's panhandle, injuring three workers.
Gadi Shaulsky spent Wednesday removing wet carpet and padding from his home in Houston's Meyerland section. 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. 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.
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 U.S. The death toll from the system climbed to 35 -- 14 in Mexico, 17 in Texas, four in Oklahoma. The Houston area had seven storm-related deaths.
This has been the wettest month on record for Texas. The state climatologist's office said Wednesday that Texas has gotten an average of 7.5 inches of rain this month, breaking the previous record of 6.7 inches, set in June 2004.
Texas has been hit with almost continuous storms for the past week to 10 days. The wettest area has been from Dallas-Fort Worth to the Red River, where some places have gotten more than 20 inches of rain.
Authorities, meanwhile, defended their telephone and in-person warnings to residents ahead of the stormy weather but acknowledged the difficulty in reaching tourists.
"Nobody was saying, 'Get out! Get out! Get out!'" said Brenda Morton of Wimberley.
Wimberley received some of the heaviest damage, including the loss of a two-story vacation home that was swept downstream and slammed into a bridge. Eight people, including three children, in the home were missing.
Authorities in surrounding Hays County said the warnings included multiple cellphone alerts and calls to landlines.
The first wave of warnings went to phones of registered users. But officials said that as the danger escalated, they used a commercial database that would have delivered a warning to virtually anyone whose cellphone was in range of local towers.
Sheriff's deputies also went along the riverbanks and told people to evacuate, but officials could not say whether police talked to those in the washed-away home.
In Houston, warnings from the National Weather Service were sent to mobile phones, but city officials said they haven't installed a system that would allow them to give residents targeted warnings without the need to register.
At least 2,500 vehicles were abandoned by drivers in Houston, and from 800 to 1,400 houses were damaged, officials said.
Thousands of homes also were damaged or destroyed in the central Texas corridor that includes Wimberley.
Information for this article was contributed by David Warren, Jamie Stengle, John L. Mone, Joshua Replogle and staff members of The Associated Press.
A Section on 05/28/2015