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At a Glance Big Tex is almost 14 feet long.

He lives at Gator Country, an alligator attraction and sanctuary in Beaumont, Texas.

The owner says Big Tex may be hunkered down in his den at Gator Country, but it's still too flooded to tell. UPDATE: Big Tex was found Friday afternoon in a retention pond on Gator Country property.

MISSING: Alligator. Length: 13 feet, 8.5 inches. Weight: 1,000 pounds, and then some. Answers to the name Big Tex.

The alligator is one of about 40 unaccounted for at Gator Country in Beaumont, Texas, after Tropical Storm Imelda inundated parts of Southeast Texas with more than 40 inches of rainfall last week – more than some areas got during Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

"It was worse than Harvey for us," Gator Country owner Gary Saurage told weather.com in a phone interview Wednesday. "We did this almost exactly two years ago to this date. The water was higher (in Imelda) than it was the last time."

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Despite his size, Big Tex is considered tame and isn’t believed to pose a threat to humans, according to Jonathan Warner, alligator program leader for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

"At the time being, there’s definitely no concern for public safety," Warner told weather.com.

Some 40 alligators also got loose from the facility during Harvey. After that, Saurage said, a higher fence was built around some parts of the 21-acre park. The alligators that escaped this time were from an area that didn't get a higher fence, because Saurage assumed the existing one was sufficient after surviving Harvey.

"We did make changes and we did prepare for that, but Mother Nature still got us," Saurage said.

He said Big Tex and other large alligators were evacuated from Gator Country ahead of Harvey, but the sheer amount of rain from Imelda caught him off guard. He said a rain gauge on his property measured 43 inches of rainfall. Imelda formed quickly and, while heavy rainfalls were predicted, the heaviest amounts were highly localized.

He thinks Big Tex might be hunkered down in his den on Gator Country property, but the floodwaters were still too high to tell. Plans are in the works to check the den as soon as possible, Saurage said, hopefully Thursday.

Most of the buildings at Gator Country, including the home where Saurage and his family live, had water inside.

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Saurage, a trapper for the state of Texas who also has his own TV show, caught Big Tex in 2016 after game wardens were worried about people feeding him from a nearby boat ramp. Alligators that are fed can become nuisance animals and a danger to humans.

Big Tex's massive size made him a legend and a big attraction at Gator Country.

"That is a world record," Saurage said. "That is the largest alligator ever captured alive in the United States. Everybody says we need to get that alligator back because they love him."

Saurage fears someone may hurt or kill Big Tex if they spot him outside the Gator Country property.

While both he and Warner said Big Tex isn't likely to attack anyone, they asked that people call them and not approach the animal if they spot him.

"I expect him to pop up as these waters drop and we’ll have a happy ending," Warner said. "They're homebodies when it comes to where there at. They really don’t spread far, especially bigger ones."

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