Rescues continue after Imelda's historic flash floods

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - Community leaders continue to monitor swollen bayous and flooded roadways following a flash flood emergency in several Houston-area counties.

On Thursday, neighborhoods and major roadways flooded as the remanents of Imelda dumped more than a foot of rain in some areas. Hundreds of people asked to be rescued from their homes. Texas Governor Greg Abbot declared a state of disaster in 13 counties.

High water rescues continue on Friday in New Caney, where the Caney Creek and the Peach Creek remain swollen. Part of FM 1485 is under water. Fire departments and volunteers are helping get residents to dry land.

Deputies with the Harris County Sheriff's Office's Marine Unit are working with partner agencies to rescue residents still stranded in the homes in Huffman.

The water for a nearby bayou began rising overnight. Deputies say some areas are 16-feet under water.

In other areas of Harris County, some flood waters are receding, and some roadways are back open.

"We're certainly looking better, but as we talked about yesterday afternoon and evening, it's going to take awhile for the water to go down and get out of here," says meteorologist Jeff Lindner with the Harris County Flood Control District. "We still have a lot of water especially in the eastern and northeastern parts of Harris County. Still a lot of roadways that are impacted. We do still have some bayou's over their banks."

Houston TranStar reported more than 40 high water locations still on Houston-area roadways Friday morning.

"It's really up along the I-45 corridor, I-45 North, and US 59 North still continue to see flooding. We are seeing improvements on the feeder roads, but back in some of the subdivisions, we still have roads impacted," Lindner says. "That will continue today, but it will be getting better. But for the morning commute, there will be flooding out there so people need to remember to exercise that caution and don't get involved in flood waters."

RELATED: List of high-water locations to avoid

Vehicles were left abandoned in roadways Thursday as drivers got stuck in high water. Lindner says crews rescued more people overnight.

"We have had a couple situations overnight where some people did get involved in high water and cars were swept away, and we had to do some rescues," he says. "So even though it hasn't rained in the last 12 hours or so and the water's going down, it's still potentially dangerous out there in northeast Harris County."

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Many of the creeks and bayous impacted by the rainfall yesterday have crested and are falling. Lindner says two other locations of concern are expected to crest later today.

"Today we're going to see some scattered showers and thunderstorms, like a typical summer day around here. We might get an inch or an inch and a half of rain. That should not impact our watersheds. They should continue to drain slowly," Lindner says. "The only two locations that we are concerned about this morning are the San Jacinto River below Lake Houston, so the Rio Villa area, that it going to rise about another foot down there, and then Cedar Bayou over in Baytown is probably going to rise about another half a foot. Everything else is crested and falling. Those two areas will crest and fall later today. So we're looking a lot better, but there are still a few areas where the water is still rising."

Lindner says some flooding in creeks and bayous is expected when the area gets as much rain as it did.

"For the most part, for the most of the county, the creeks and bayous did well. We did have overbank flooding on some of them in the Aldine and Greenspoint areas and then of course out in the Humble and Huffman, Crosby, San Jacinto river areas. But of course we also had 15 to 20 inches or rain out in those area, and so that's a lot of water we had to deal with in a short period of time. When we get those types or rains, we're going to have flooding on our channels."

You can check the levels of creeks and bayous with the Harris County Flood Warning System's interactive map at https://www.harriscountyfws.org/.