Floodwaters in the Houston area are beginning to recede as recovery begins following rescues and evacuations

HOUSTON (AP) — Floodwaters in the Houston area began to recede Monday, allowing residents to return to their homes and assess damage after days of heavy rains that lashed the area and led to hundreds of rescues — including people on rooftops stranded. .

Officials in Harris County, where Houston is located, reported no deaths or serious injuries from the flooding. But in North Texas, a 4-year-old boy died after riding in a car that was swept into swift water, authorities said.

After days of heavy rain in the Houston area and other parts of Southeast Texas, forecasts on Monday predicted mostly sunny skies with a slight chance of showers.

“We can absolutely see the light at the end of the tunnel and we have weathered the worst of the weather,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the county’s top elected official, told reporters on Monday.

Areas near Lake Livingston, located northeast of Houston, received more than 20 inches of rain in the past week, National Weather Service meteorologist Jimmy Fowler said. Areas in northeastern Harris County, the nation’s third-largest county, received between 6 inches and nearly 17 inches of rain during the same period.

Hidalgo said 233 people and 186 pets have been rescued in Harris County in recent days. Active rescue efforts stopped Monday and officials moved from a response phase to a recovery mode and cleanup efforts, she said.

While many of the affected neighborhoods and subdivisions along the San Jacinto River in Harris County were accessible Monday, others remained closed by flooded roads.

Officials were still assessing how many homes were damaged.

“We are a resilient community. I know we will continue to recover from this,” said Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez.

At least five school districts in the Houston area were closed Monday because of the flooding.

Houston is one of the most flood-prone metro areas in the country. Hurricane Harvey dumped historic rainfall in 2017 that flooded thousands of homes and resulted in more than 60,000 rescues.

Most of the city of Houston was not badly affected by last week’s rainfall, except for the Kingwood neighborhood, where some homes and roads were flooded.

Several counties and communities north and east of the Houston region also continued to recover Monday.

“These people have suffered a lot, folks,” Trinity County Sheriff Woody Wallace said Sunday during a Facebook livestream as he rode a boat through a flooded rural neighborhood. Around him were partially submerged cars and street signs.

In Johnson County, south of Fort Worth, a 4-year-old boy died when he was swept away after the vehicle he was riding in became stuck in fast-moving water near the community of Lillian just before 2 a.m., an official said Sunday. . The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office said the cause of death for the child, who would have turned 5 later this month, was drowning.

Storms brought 9 inches of rain in a span of six to eight hours in some areas from central Texas to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, National Weather Service meteorologist Matt Stalley said.

Greg Moss, 68, remained in his recreational vehicle Sunday after leaving his home in the community of Channelview in eastern Harris County, near the San Jacinto River. A day earlier, he had packed up many of his belongings and left before the road to his home was flooded.

“I would be stuck for four days,” Moss said. “So at least now I can get something to eat.”

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Associated Press reporter Jamie Stengle in Dallas and videojournalist Lekan Oyekanmi in Houston contributed to this report.

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Juan A. Lozano, The Associated Press