A light-rail subway system beneath Las Vegas Boulevard is among the ambitious recommendations that have emerged from a transportation plan that has taken more than two years to complete.

Another big-ticket project is a double-deck tunnel under McCarran International Airport to connect Russell Road east and west of the airport and possibly provide a light-rail link to the Strip line.

The Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada unveiled a draft of its 15-point Transportation Investment Business Plan on Wednesday, opening the door to debate about how Southern Nevada can best prepare to address gridlock in the resort corridor.

“Without new investments, the roadways, pedestrian facilities and transit system will be overwhelmed, the quality of the visitor experience degraded and the core area’s economic growth impeded,” the draft plan states in its introduction.

The Transportation Commission funded consultants who were guided by a committee of stakeholders representing government entities and private businesses that depend on the tourism economy and moving visitors through the valley.

The recommendations emerged after nearly 2½ years of meetings by the committee appointed by Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority President and CEO Rossi Ralenkotter that included representatives of virtually every entity that has anything to do with transportation.

Among the committee representatives were officials from the Transportation Commission, Clark County and the city of Las Vegas, the Las Vegas Monorail Co., the Nevada Taxicab Authority, taxi and limousine industries, McCarran, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, the Nevada Resort Association, the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance and the Las Vegas Metro Chamber of Commerce.

Ralenkotter’s instruction to committee members was to check self-interests at the door and consider overall solutions instead of what individual entities wanted.

Several representatives of the committee met Wednesday with the Review-Journal and said Ralenkotter’s directive to work collaboratively was followed.

No cost estimates were provided in the initial report, but Tina Quigley, general manager of the Regional Transportation Commission, said the Strip light-rail project alone would cost billions of dollars.

But committee members noted that in cities with new transportation systems, there would be a significant return on investment in economic development as a result of the system.

For example, a light-rail system in metropolitan Phoenix that was built for about $1 billion was expected to generate $3 billion in economic development measured in construction, new jobs, retail sales and tax revenue. Instead, over five years Phoenix had seen an economic development return on investment of $7 billion.

The Regional Transportation Commission last year hired Charlotte, N.C.-based Michael Gallis Associates to guide it and the local committee through the process of delivering a series of projects and proposals that would move traffic more efficiently and improve the visitor experience in Las Vegas. Gallis brought the perspective of explaining transportation systems and technology that Las Vegas could consider from across the United States and around the world.

But what the committee found was that the Las Vegas system would have to be different from anything else in the world because of some of its unique qualities, such as having a high number of visitors squeezed into a small geographic area, having a mix of leisure and business travelers, and having an airport that serves a high percentage of arriving and departing passengers as opposed to connecting through McCarran.

Gallis collaborated with engineers at CH2MHill, economist Jeremy Aguero of Applied Analysis and business advisers with the JA Barrett Co., eventually turning the effort over to them.

The plan suggests projects and policy decisions grouped in three categories: near-term improvements that would take one to five years to effect; midterm improvements that would take five to 10 years; and long-term improvements that would take 10 to 20 years.

The proposal for a Strip subway and Russell Road connection are among the long-term proposals.

Quigley said those projects would require tunnel boring machines because Strip properties objected to any plan that would close streets and property entrances during construction.

No construction details have been planned, but any tunneling would occur below existing utility lines and pipes.

Development of a light-rail system for Las Vegas figures prominently in the plan.

Noticeably missing from the plan is any proposal to extend the Las Vegas Monorail from its southern terminus at the MGM Grand to McCarran. However, the extension of the monorail to the Mandalay Bay Convention Center and to a high-speed rail terminal on the west side of Interstate 15 near Mandalay Bay as well as building a new monorail station near the Sands Expo Center are listed.

Now that some details of the plan have been made public, CH2MHill, Aguero, Barrett and Greg Gilbert, outside general counsel for the Regional Transportation Commission, will compile a detailed summary of project proposals and list prospective funding sources for the projects.

Quigley said the group would look to federal, state, local and private financing sources for funding.

Some of the short-term solutions would be relatively inexpensive and might only require some policy changes or minor expenses to effect.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Find him on Twitter: @RickVelotta

By The Associated Press

11:15 p.m. CDT

The National Weather Service has declared a flash flood emergency for southwest Harris County in Texas as a severe storm brings heavy rain to the Houston area.

The weather service reported 5 to 7 inches had fallen there Monday night and an additional 2 to 4 inches were possible.

Authorities urged residents to avoid all travel.

CenterPoint Energy reported nearly 63,000 customers were without power in the Houston area.

An announcer at the Houston Rockets game against the Golden State Warriors asked fans not to leave because of severe weather in the area.

10:30 p.m. CDT

What a sheriff described as a “pretty destructive” tornado has destroyed four homes in Central Texas, killing a man.

Milam County Judge Dave Barkemeyer says the storm hit a subdivision just outside of the city of Cameron, which is about 60 miles northeast of Austin. County Sheriff David Greene says the twister damaged 10 to 15 homes in all.

Barkemeyer says the man died when his mobile home was destroyed about 4 p.m. Monday. Four other people were injured. No identities have been released.

That brings to four the number of people killed in Texas since Friday by the storms that damaged many parts of the state.

9:30 p.m. CDT

Teams have ended their search for survivors of a flash flood that scoured the Blanco River Valley in Texas, destroying hundreds of homes.

Trey Hatt, spokesman for the Hays County Emergency Operations Center, says teams halted their search for survivors at nightfall Monday. He said “the search component is over,” meaning that no more survivors are expected to be found in the flood debris.

Hatt says recovery operations will begin Tuesday.

One person has been found dead in Wimberley, about 35 miles southwest of Austin. Twelve people are missing from a house that washed down the Blanco and smashed into a bridge in the center of the community.

7 p.m. CDT

The death toll after recent heavy rains in Texas has reached three after a 14-year-old boy and his dog were found dead in a suburban Dallas storm drain.

DeSoto police report an officer assisted by a search dog found the bodies of Damien Blade and his dog Monday in a storm drain near Blade’s home. Investigators say both apparently had drowned but their investigation continues.

A police statement says Damien’s family had reported him missing about 10 p.m. Sunday after one of his two dogs showed up alone at the house, wet and extremely muddy.

The family said Damien was last seen with his two dogs about 4 p.m. that afternoon and that he enjoyed exploring the culverts and storm drains of his neighborhood.

Authorities have said at least one other person was killed in flooding on Sunday, and a high school senior died Saturday night after her car was caught in high water.

5:45 p.m. CDT

All that’s left of a Texas house swept up by the flooded Blanco River, leaving 12 occupants missing, is a set of stilts and part of its frame.

A TV antenna and a satellite dish dangled Monday from a tree above where the home once stood in Wimberley, a small town about 35 miles southwest of Austin.

The two-story house sat about 50 feet from the normal river bank and about 20 feet above it, closer than any of the houses further up a slope.

Carissa Smith owns property next to the home. She tells The Associated Press that her mother, who lives on the property, described the sound of “firecrackers” during the flooding but said she couldn’t see anything in the dark and torrential rain.

The raging Blanco River swept the house about a mile downstream and smashed it into the Ranch Road 12 bridge.

5:15 p.m. CDT

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto plans to travel to Ciudad Acuna on Monday evening to see the tornado damage and help with the city’s recovery.

Pena Nieto announced the plans during a state visit from the president of Finland. He was to make the trip with officials from pertinent government agencies.

The president instructed civil-protection officials to send resources to the state.

4 p.m. CDT

Authorities say the 12 people reported missing after flash-flooding in Central Texas were staying together in a home swept away by the rushing water in a small town popular with tourists.

Hays County Judge Bert Cobb says witnesses reported seeing the house pushed off its foundation by the swollen Blanco River and smash into a bridge.

Cobb says only pieces of the home have been found so far. He says main flooding activity happened around 4 a.m. Monday.

Cobb says one person rescued from the home told workers about the other people inside, saying the 12 were all connected to two families.

The house was in Wimberley Valley, an area known for its bed-and-breakfast inns and rental weekend cottages. Cobb says the owners of the destroyed house didn’t know who was staying there.

Authorities have confirmed one death from the flooding. Cobb says it’s unclear if the person who died was in the home swept away by the river.

3 p.m. CDT

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says the damage caused by flash-flooding in Central Texas is “absolutely devastating.”

The governor flew over parts of the rain-swollen Blanco River on Monday, a day after heavy rains pushed the river out of its banks and into surrounding homes in the small town of Wimberley.

At a news conference, Abbott says the damage he saw was “absolutely massive” from the storms’ “relentless tsunami-type power.”

He stressed that communities downstream need to monitor flood levels and take seriously the threat of the ongoing storms.

Abbott didn’t offer updates on the dead or missing following the powerful storms sweeping through parts of Texas and northern Mexico. In Texas, at least one person has died and 12 are missing; in Mexico, a tornado Monday killed more than a dozen people.

But the governor did add 24 counties to his state disaster declaration, bringing the total to 37 counties in mostly the eastern half of the state. That allows for further mobilization of state resources to assist disaster-struck communities.

1:30 p.m. CDT

The death toll from the tornado in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Acuna has risen to 13.

Coahuila state spokeswoman Rosario Cano says the number of dead rose with the discovery of more bodies.

The head of Mexico’s national civil defense agency, Luis Felipe Puente, told local media that 230 people had been injured and that shelters are being set up.

The twister hit shortly after daybreak on Monday. It destroyed homes, upended cars and ripped an infant in a baby carrier from its mother’s arms. The child is missing.

Ciudad Acuna is a city of about 100,000 across the border from Del Rio, Texas.

12:30 p.m. CDT

Cars and trucks are lined up for a quarter-mile waiting to get back into a small Central Texas town that was heavily damaged by flash flooding.

Residents were waiting Monday for police to open a bridge over the rain-swollen Blanco River into Wimberley, about 35 miles southwest of Austin.

Residents have been waiting to inspect their homes since heavy rains pushed the river out of its banks Sunday and destroyed or damaged hundreds of homes.

Dana Campbell lives on a bluff above the river. The 69-year-old retired engineer said Monday that the damage left behind by the floodwaters looks the swath of a tornado, with damage “as far as the eye can see.”

10:45 a.m. CDT

Authorities say a dozen people are missing after flash flooding along the Blanco River in Central Texas that damaged hundreds of homes.

Kristi Wyatt, a spokeswoman for the city of San Marcos, said Monday that 12 people are now missing after the flooding Sunday, when three people were reported missing. Wyatt says she didn’t immediately have more information.

Former Nueces County Commissioner Joe McComb says his son’s wife and their two children are among the missing.

McComb tells the Corpus Christi Caller-Times that his 36-year-old son, Jonathan, is hospitalized in San Antonio with multiple injuries after a house he was staying at was knocked off its foundation and carried down the raging river Sunday. It struck a bridge and then began breaking up.

The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd says five members of two families from the Corpus Christi church also were in the house and are missing.

10 a.m. CDT

A tornado raged through the northern Mexico border city of Ciudad Acuna early Monday, killing at least 10 people, destroying homes and upending cars and other vehicles.

Rosario Cano, spokeswoman for the interior department of the northern state of Coahuila said 10 people had been confirmed killed so far in the twister, which struck around 6:40 a.m. Central time.

Photos from the scene showed cars with their hoods ripped off, resting upended against the facades of one-story houses.

One car’s frame was literally bent around the gate of a house. A bus was seen flipped and crumpled on a roadway.

Ciudad Acuna is a city of about 100,000 across the border from Del Rio, Texas.

Cano said top state officials had set out to review the damage and coordinate response to the disaster.

7:30 a.m. CDT

An evacuation order has been lifted for people living near a reservoir north of Houston after weather improved and work crews made progress shoring up threatened areas along a levee weakened by recent heavy rains.

Montgomery County authorities allowed residents back into their homes in neighborhoods near the Lewis Creek Reservoir late Sunday evening.

County Judge Craig Doyal said he regrets the inconvenience that several hundred residents may have experienced, but he says the decision to order evacuations early Sunday was made based on weather forecasts at the time and in the interest of public safety.

The reservoir serves an Entergy power plant about 50 miles north of Houston. Officials have reported no breaches.

1 a.m. CDT

A line of storms stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes dumped record rainfall on parts of Texas, Oklahoma and other Plains and Midwest states.

The weekend storms spawned a tornado that damaged a Houston apartment complex and caused major flooding that forced at least 2,000 Texans from their homes.

Authorities are blaming three deaths on the storms. Two were in Oklahoma and the last was in Texas, where a man’s body was found along the swollen Blanco River.

Among the worst-affected communities are Wimberley and nearby San Marcos in the Central Texas corridor between San Antonio and Austin. Many homes in those communities were damaged or destroyed.

More rain is in the forecast for Monday for a large swath of the nation’s midsection.

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

By The Associated Press

11:15 p.m. CDT

The National Weather Service has declared a flash flood emergency for southwest Harris County in Texas as a severe storm brings heavy rain to the Houston area.

The weather service reported 5 to 7 inches had fallen there Monday night and an additional 2 to 4 inches were possible.

Authorities urged residents to avoid all travel.

CenterPoint Energy reported nearly 63,000 customers were without power in the Houston area.

An announcer at the Houston Rockets game against the Golden State Warriors asked fans not to leave because of severe weather in the area.

10:30 p.m. CDT

What a sheriff described as a “pretty destructive” tornado has destroyed four homes in Central Texas, killing a man.

Milam County Judge Dave Barkemeyer says the storm hit a subdivision just outside of the city of Cameron, which is about 60 miles northeast of Austin. County Sheriff David Greene says the twister damaged 10 to 15 homes in all.

Barkemeyer says the man died when his mobile home was destroyed about 4 p.m. Monday. Four other people were injured. No identities have been released.

That brings to four the number of people killed in Texas since Friday by the storms that damaged many parts of the state.

9:30 p.m. CDT

Teams have ended their search for survivors of a flash flood that scoured the Blanco River Valley in Texas, destroying hundreds of homes.

Trey Hatt, spokesman for the Hays County Emergency Operations Center, says teams halted their search for survivors at nightfall Monday. He said “the search component is over,” meaning that no more survivors are expected to be found in the flood debris.

Hatt says recovery operations will begin Tuesday.

One person has been found dead in Wimberley, about 35 miles southwest of Austin. Twelve people are missing from a house that washed down the Blanco and smashed into a bridge in the center of the community.

7 p.m. CDT

The death toll after recent heavy rains in Texas has reached three after a 14-year-old boy and his dog were found dead in a suburban Dallas storm drain.

DeSoto police report an officer assisted by a search dog found the bodies of Damien Blade and his dog Monday in a storm drain near Blade’s home. Investigators say both apparently had drowned but their investigation continues.

A police statement says Damien’s family had reported him missing about 10 p.m. Sunday after one of his two dogs showed up alone at the house, wet and extremely muddy.

The family said Damien was last seen with his two dogs about 4 p.m. that afternoon and that he enjoyed exploring the culverts and storm drains of his neighborhood.

Authorities have said at least one other person was killed in flooding on Sunday, and a high school senior died Saturday night after her car was caught in high water.

5:45 p.m. CDT

All that’s left of a Texas house swept up by the flooded Blanco River, leaving 12 occupants missing, is a set of stilts and part of its frame.

A TV antenna and a satellite dish dangled Monday from a tree above where the home once stood in Wimberley, a small town about 35 miles southwest of Austin.

The two-story house sat about 50 feet from the normal river bank and about 20 feet above it, closer than any of the houses further up a slope.

Carissa Smith owns property next to the home. She tells The Associated Press that her mother, who lives on the property, described the sound of “firecrackers” during the flooding but said she couldn’t see anything in the dark and torrential rain.

The raging Blanco River swept the house about a mile downstream and smashed it into the Ranch Road 12 bridge.

5:15 p.m. CDT

Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto plans to travel to Ciudad Acuna on Monday evening to see the tornado damage and help with the city’s recovery.

Pena Nieto announced the plans during a state visit from the president of Finland. He was to make the trip with officials from pertinent government agencies.

The president instructed civil-protection officials to send resources to the state.

4 p.m. CDT

Authorities say the 12 people reported missing after flash-flooding in Central Texas were staying together in a home swept away by the rushing water in a small town popular with tourists.

Hays County Judge Bert Cobb says witnesses reported seeing the house pushed off its foundation by the swollen Blanco River and smash into a bridge.

Cobb says only pieces of the home have been found so far. He says main flooding activity happened around 4 a.m. Monday.

Cobb says one person rescued from the home told workers about the other people inside, saying the 12 were all connected to two families.

The house was in Wimberley Valley, an area known for its bed-and-breakfast inns and rental weekend cottages. Cobb says the owners of the destroyed house didn’t know who was staying there.

Authorities have confirmed one death from the flooding. Cobb says it’s unclear if the person who died was in the home swept away by the river.

3 p.m. CDT

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott says the damage caused by flash-flooding in Central Texas is “absolutely devastating.”

The governor flew over parts of the rain-swollen Blanco River on Monday, a day after heavy rains pushed the river out of its banks and into surrounding homes in the small town of Wimberley.

At a news conference, Abbott says the damage he saw was “absolutely massive” from the storms’ “relentless tsunami-type power.”

He stressed that communities downstream need to monitor flood levels and take seriously the threat of the ongoing storms.

Abbott didn’t offer updates on the dead or missing following the powerful storms sweeping through parts of Texas and northern Mexico. In Texas, at least one person has died and 12 are missing; in Mexico, a tornado Monday killed more than a dozen people.

But the governor did add 24 counties to his state disaster declaration, bringing the total to 37 counties in mostly the eastern half of the state. That allows for further mobilization of state resources to assist disaster-struck communities.

1:30 p.m. CDT

The death toll from the tornado in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Acuna has risen to 13.

Coahuila state spokeswoman Rosario Cano says the number of dead rose with the discovery of more bodies.

The head of Mexico’s national civil defense agency, Luis Felipe Puente, told local media that 230 people had been injured and that shelters are being set up.

The twister hit shortly after daybreak on Monday. It destroyed homes, upended cars and ripped an infant in a baby carrier from its mother’s arms. The child is missing.

Ciudad Acuna is a city of about 100,000 across the border from Del Rio, Texas.

12:30 p.m. CDT

Cars and trucks are lined up for a quarter-mile waiting to get back into a small Central Texas town that was heavily damaged by flash flooding.

Residents were waiting Monday for police to open a bridge over the rain-swollen Blanco River into Wimberley, about 35 miles southwest of Austin.

Residents have been waiting to inspect their homes since heavy rains pushed the river out of its banks Sunday and destroyed or damaged hundreds of homes.

Dana Campbell lives on a bluff above the river. The 69-year-old retired engineer said Monday that the damage left behind by the floodwaters looks the swath of a tornado, with damage “as far as the eye can see.”

10:45 a.m. CDT

Authorities say a dozen people are missing after flash flooding along the Blanco River in Central Texas that damaged hundreds of homes.

Kristi Wyatt, a spokeswoman for the city of San Marcos, said Monday that 12 people are now missing after the flooding Sunday, when three people were reported missing. Wyatt says she didn’t immediately have more information.

Former Nueces County Commissioner Joe McComb says his son’s wife and their two children are among the missing.

McComb tells the Corpus Christi Caller-Times that his 36-year-old son, Jonathan, is hospitalized in San Antonio with multiple injuries after a house he was staying at was knocked off its foundation and carried down the raging river Sunday. It struck a bridge and then began breaking up.

The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd says five members of two families from the Corpus Christi church also were in the house and are missing.

10 a.m. CDT

A tornado raged through the northern Mexico border city of Ciudad Acuna early Monday, killing at least 10 people, destroying homes and upending cars and other vehicles.

Rosario Cano, spokeswoman for the interior department of the northern state of Coahuila said 10 people had been confirmed killed so far in the twister, which struck around 6:40 a.m. Central time.

Photos from the scene showed cars with their hoods ripped off, resting upended against the facades of one-story houses.

One car’s frame was literally bent around the gate of a house. A bus was seen flipped and crumpled on a roadway.

Ciudad Acuna is a city of about 100,000 across the border from Del Rio, Texas.

Cano said top state officials had set out to review the damage and coordinate response to the disaster.

7:30 a.m. CDT

An evacuation order has been lifted for people living near a reservoir north of Houston after weather improved and work crews made progress shoring up threatened areas along a levee weakened by recent heavy rains.

Montgomery County authorities allowed residents back into their homes in neighborhoods near the Lewis Creek Reservoir late Sunday evening.

County Judge Craig Doyal said he regrets the inconvenience that several hundred residents may have experienced, but he says the decision to order evacuations early Sunday was made based on weather forecasts at the time and in the interest of public safety.

The reservoir serves an Entergy power plant about 50 miles north of Houston. Officials have reported no breaches.

1 a.m. CDT

A line of storms stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes dumped record rainfall on parts of Texas, Oklahoma and other Plains and Midwest states.

The weekend storms spawned a tornado that damaged a Houston apartment complex and caused major flooding that forced at least 2,000 Texans from their homes.

Authorities are blaming three deaths on the storms. Two were in Oklahoma and the last was in Texas, where a man’s body was found along the swollen Blanco River.

Among the worst-affected communities are Wimberley and nearby San Marcos in the Central Texas corridor between San Antonio and Austin. Many homes in those communities were damaged or destroyed.

More rain is in the forecast for Monday for a large swath of the nation’s midsection.

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.