A woman lost nearly all of her belongings after a catastrophic flood struck Texas on Monday.

Brittany Taylor woke up on August 22 to find her loft apartment in downtown Dallas swamped in water following record rains, which meteorologists have described as a 'one-in-a-thousand-years' calamity.

Boxes of her belongings - including expensive gadgets, family pictures, and clothes - drifted on the muddy flood while her car was swept from the parking lot by raging currents flowing through the neighbourhood just two days after she had moved in.

Brittany said: 'I hadn't finished unpacking my boxes. The cardboard was melting in the water and everything was falling in.'

Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Tuesday signed a disaster declaration for 23 Texan counties, allowing state authorities to wield emergency powers expediting disaster response.

Dallas Water Utilities said parts of Dallas saw more than 13 inches of rain during the storm, breaking the previous record of 12.05 inches of precipitation tallied at Joe Pool Lake back in 2004.