“Turn around, don’t drown.”
That admonition is heard so often when roads flood that it rings in the ears of many American motorists.
Still, when torrential rains come, many drivers get stuck in water rushing up to their windows — as in Texas on I-45 overnight Friday.
And rescue crews must risk their own safety to retrieve them.
“At least four water rescues are taking place on the interstate,” said Judge H.M. Davenport of Navarro County, southeast of Dallas. State transportation officials closed the highway as even more rains swept in, driving rainfall totals to nearly 17 inches, according to county emergency management figures.
The National Weather Service issued a Flash Flood Emergency for Navarro early Saturday and forecast an additional 3 to 6 inches by sunrise.
Roads turned to creeks
It only takes a foot of rushing water to carry away a small car, and only two feet to whisk away almost any car or truck, the weather service warned.
Rain has already turned some roads into creeks of at least that depth — right in the paths of motorists.
The town of Corsicana is just off the shut down section of I-45. Flooding there left vehicles submerged, storm chaser Reed Timmer said on Twitter, with an accompanying video.
Elsewhere, social media lit up with photos of deluged Texas streets.
The Texas Task Force has prepared, deploying 11 rescue swimmers with helicopter search-and-rescue teams. and it has seven water rescue boat squads positioned along another interstate, the I-35 corridor, a news release said.
Warnings and watches
Parts of north Texas, including the Dallas-Fort Worth area, were on alert as the National Weather Service placed several counties on flash flood warning.
Swathes of the central and eastern part of the state, as well as areas of Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana bordering the Lone Star state were also on flash flood watch as the first trailing ends of Hurricane Patricia, which was lashing southwest Mexico, reached the southern U.S. border.
In the Houston area, CNN affiliate KTRK forecast 16 to 20 inches of rain, most of it falling Saturday evening to Sunday morning.
The main areas of heavy rain will shift from central and northeastern Texas eastward over the weekend, toward the Gulf Coast, the weather service said. Further showers and storms were due to develop and continue overnight into Saturday.
The deluge follows months of drought, which has increased the dangers of flash flooding in Texas and the surrounding states.
Already soaked
The National Weather Service said an upper disturbance interacting with Hurricane Patricia in the Pacific had poured as much as 6.7 inches of rain across southeastern Oklahoma and parts of Texas from Thursday to early Saturday.
Flash-flood warnings were in effect for parts of Texas and Oklahoma into the weekend.
Along with the rain still to come, there is a threat of isolated tornadoes Saturday when a low-pressure system will move across the Rio Grande plains, the weather service said.
In Louisiana, the weather service said the greatest threat was street flooding during periods of heavy rain and coastal flooding.
The threat of worsening floods may sound like a deadly replay for Texans.
In May, heavy rains caused floods that killed at least 15, plus at least six in Oklahoma.
This year, much of east Texas — and all of northern Louisiana, southern Arkansas and west-central Mississippi — have suffered through extreme or exceptional drought, the two highest classifications, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.