Texas floods cause largest response mobilization in state history

| 07.11.2007 | 08:30:289311 |

July 11 '07: "Unprecedented" was the word used to describe the response in Texas after more than 45 days of flooding that left more than a dozen people dead and hundreds more stranded, NPR reported. Officials told the public radio network that the search and rescue operations were the largest the state had ever mobilized.

Jack Colley, the head of the Governor's Division of Emergency Management told NPR that the state had, "187 search and rescue boats, 28 aircraft ... 71 high profile vehicles, with evacuation teams and we have 16 swift water evacuation teams." Those resources had to contend with rains that dumped more than 18 inches of precipitation in some parts of the state in "just a few hours," NPR reported.

Colley said it was tragic that 13 people had to die from drowning in flood waters and that many more people were had been evacuated from their rooftops.

Such weather incidents are called rain bombs by officials when weather systems are stall and deluge their underlying areas. Part of the reason for the intensity of the storms was due to low pressure systems remaining over one area and continually spinning, weather officials told NPR.