Tornado Strikes San Antonio as Texas Flooding Forces Evacuations and Dozens of Water Rescues

A tornado tore across a busy stretch of San Antonio on Wednesday and floodwaters swallowed roads across South and Central Texas, as slow-moving storms unleashed a foot of rain in places, spurred dozens of high-water rescues and forced mandatory evacuations.

The National Weather Service said the tornado touched down in the northwestern part of San Antonio near Interstate 10, close to the University of Texas at San Antonio campus. The twister caused significant damage to an apartment complex, displacing an estimated 10 to 12 students. Despite the destruction, officials reported no deaths or injuries from either the tornado or the widespread flooding.

The heaviest toll came from the water. Texas Game Wardens took part in the rescue of more than 40 people, most of them in the Uvalde County area, where rising rivers and flash flooding trapped residents and swept away vehicles. Some Uvalde residents were placed under mandatory evacuation orders and notified door-to-door by first responders, with officials warning that additional evacuations could follow as the storms lingered.

The deluge dumped nearly a foot of rain in some counties and put dozens of others under flood watches, including parts of the Texas Hill Country — a region still scarred by catastrophic flooding a year earlier. Forecasters cautioned that as much as 10 to 20 inches of rain was possible in isolated spots before the system finally pushed out of the state.

Gov. Greg Abbott had issued a disaster declaration for 59 counties as the severe storms and flash flooding bore down, freeing up state resources and emergency crews ahead of the worst of the rain. State swift-water rescue teams, game wardens and local first responders fanned out across the flood zone, pulling stranded drivers from submerged cars and residents from inundated homes.

The severe-weather threat was not expected to ease immediately, with additional rounds of storms forecast to roll across San Antonio and South Central Texas overnight. Authorities urged residents to avoid flooded roadways, repeating the grim refrain that has become a hallmark of the region's flash-flood emergencies: turn around, don't drown. The saturated ground and swollen rivers left little margin for the additional rain still to come.