Severe storms threaten 14 million across South, Texas faces deadly flooding risk

Severe weather is pressing across the South at once, with 14 million Americans under threat from New Mexico to Louisiana and Texas facing the hardest edge of the system. Parts of the state have already seen deadly flooding, torrential rain and hurricane-force winds, a combination that raises the risk of rapid runoff, washed-out roads and emergency calls that can stack up faster than crews can respond.

In southeast Texas, the National Weather Service office in Houston and Galveston said a Flood Watch would run from 3 a.m. Friday to 4 a.m. Saturday. Most places were expected to see 2 to 4 inches of rain, with isolated totals of 6 inches or more, enough to push water into low-lying areas, creeks, rivers and roadways. West-central Texas was already dealing with heavy to excessive rainfall, and the threat was forecast to shift into central Texas and the central Gulf Coast before heavier rain reaches the Southeast on Saturday.

Northwestern Louisiana faced a slower but still dangerous buildup. The Shreveport forecast office said rain totals would continue climbing over the next 48 hours, especially south of the I-20 corridor, where 1 to 2 inches were expected with isolated amounts near 3 inches. Forecasters warned that rainfall could become excessive and flood poor-drainage areas, a familiar problem in places where pavement, culverts and bayous can be overwhelmed in a single burst.

Wind is part of the same threat. The National Weather Service says hurricane-force wind warnings are issued when sustained winds or frequent gusts reach 74 mph or higher. That threshold matters even outside a tropical cyclone, because it signals destructive wind capable of bringing down limbs, snapping power lines and turning already saturated ground into a liability for trees and utility crews.

Texas has lived through this pattern before. National Weather Service storm history pages list Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Tropical Storm Hanna in 2020, Hurricane Nicholas in 2021 and Beryl in 2024, which made landfall near Matagorda Beach and sent flooding rains and damaging winds into East Texas. The broader warning is even starker in the Texas Hill Country, where the Associated Press documented a flood that drove a river 26 feet higher in 45 minutes and killed more than 100 people, including many summer campers. The latest storm threat is a reminder that in Texas and across the Gulf South, the danger often comes not as one disaster but as several, arriving close together and straining the same communities, roads and warning systems.