After Hurricane Patricia Downgraded, Texas, Louisiana Flooding, Power Outages Come With Heavy Rains

The news that Hurricane Patricia was downgraded Saturday to a tropical storm is good news for Mexico, but now the lingering effects from the strongest ever Pacific storm on record have spread north to Texas and Louisiana, where there was already life-threatening flooding. Areas in southeast Texas have been reporting extreme rain, with cars being swept away as high waters cause heavy flooding.

A railway in Navarro County, Texas, fell victim to the flooding when a Union Pacific freight train derailed, prompting a water rescue team to respond and recover two train employees, Weather.com reported. A resident also reported to the San Antonio Fire Department that flooding swept away someone who was walking a dog.

Power outages have been reported throughout the Waco area, where people were reportedly trapped inside their cars while stuck in areas with high flooding. Some 14,000 people in east and central Texas were reported to be without electricity Saturday morning, according to Accuweather. In West Austin, a driver inside a car was nearly swept away as a result of Saturday morning flooding, but the motorist escaped the vehicle before it was carried away, the Statesman reported.

“As Patricia moves across Mexico, remnant moisture will stream north into Texas,” Quincy Vagell, Weather.com meteorologist said. “The ex-hurricane will then develop into a non-tropical low when it reaches Texas in the coming days, producing additional heavy rain and coastal flooding.”

Meteorologists have said Texas and Louisiana residents should be alert all weekend for heavy flooding, according to Accuweather.com. Some areas could receive as little as 4 inches of rain, while there will be up to a foot in other areas.

Patricia became the most powerful hurricane ever in the Western Hemisphere, according to Weather.com. At one point, sustained winds inside the storm were measured at 200 miles per hour. By early Saturday morning, those winds had decreased to about 50 mph in Mexico.