Swollen river feeds flooding as southeastern Texas residents flee

Associated Press

RICHMOND, Texas

Residents of some rural southeastern Texas counties were bracing for more flooding along a river that reached a record high Tuesday as more rain was expected in the coming days.

Large swaths of suburban communities southwest of Houston were under water and hundreds of people were evacuated from their homes before the Brazos River reached 54.23 feet in Fort Bend County, just two years after it had run dry in places because of drought.

National Weather Service meteorologist Charles Roeseler said 54.23 feet appeared to be the crest at Richmond late Tuesday, but he said it could still go higher before the level started to slowly fall this morning.

An additional 1 to 3 inches of rain expected later this week could keep the Brazos in major flood stage into the weekend.

“I’m scared,” said Abigail Salazar, standing in knee-deep water outside her home in Richmond, where she was retrieving personal belongings after the city issued a voluntary evacuation advisory. “My kids ask me in the morning, ‘Ma, what happened? The water is here.”’

During four days of torrential rain last week, at least six people died in floods in Texas.

Scott Overpeck, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said that the Brazos will recede in the coming days but that its levels will remain high for up to three weeks, in part because water will need to be released from swollen reservoirs upriver.

“There’s so much water on the Brazos that it’s going to take a long time to drain through the whole river and drain out into the Gulf of Mexico,” Overpeck said.

Four of the six people killed in flooding were recovered in Washington County, which is between Austin and Houston, County Judge John Brieden said Monday. Lake Somerville, one of the Brazos reservoirs, was “gushing uncontrollably” over the spillway and threatening people downriver, he said.