2 dead, 1 missing after intense Texas rainfall, flash flooding

AUSTIN, Texas — At least two people were killed and another missing in Texas after being caught in high waters caused by a storm system that brought snow, ice and torrential rain to an area stretching from New Mexico to Illinois on Friday.

The system is expected to dump as much as 8 inches (20 cm) of rain through the weekend in parts of North Texas, coat the Lubbock area in ice and drop up to a foot (30 cms) of snow in northern parts of New Mexico, the National Weather Service said.

The agency has issued a flood watch for the region extending from the Dallas area into Oklahoma and Louisiana, and up through parts of southern Illinois.

It has also issued an ice storm watch for the Texas panhandle, parts of eastern New Mexico and western Oklahoma.

In Garland, outside of Dallas, one person was found dead in a car that had been submerged in flood waters, firefighters said on Friday.

In Johnson County, south of Fort Worth, authorities pulled a body out of a car that was swept away in raging waters overnight, the Dallas Morning News reported.

In Tarrant County, Texas, where Fort Worth is located, a woman believed to be in her seventies was swept away with her vehicle in high water, the sheriff's office said.

Tarrant County Deputy Krystal Salazar, 26, tried to save the woman but was also swept away, a spokesman for the sheriff's office said.

"She (Salazar) was found about two hours later clinging to a tree branch," said spokesman Terry Grisham.

The deputy has been treated and released from an area hospital.