DALLAS — A day after a record-breaking rainstorm, North Texas residents recounted what the flood left in its wake — boxes of keepsakes destroyed, piles of books soiled, businesses closed for cleanup, and never-to-forget tales of fleeing their homes in lifejackets amid waist-deep waters.
Up to 15 inches of rain flooded some parts of the Dallas area Monday, swamping roads, submerging cars and prompting Gov. Greg Abbott to sign a disaster declaration for 23 counties, including Dallas and Tarrant Counties. The declaration was at least the seventh in Texas this year in response to severe weather, and Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson noted the deluge in Dallas was just the latest in a string of extreme-weather events the city has had to recover from.
And this time, it was deadly. One woman was killed in Mesquite. Fire officials said her car may have been swept off the road by floodwater.
“We’ve dealt with a series of unprecedented — so-called unprecedented — disasters in the city,” he said. “Whatever you want to call it, whatever time frame you want to put on it, we got hit pretty hard and we got hit in a historic way.”
As for where the water still stands, areas around the Trinity River remained under a flood warning until Tuesday morning, according to the National Weather Service. About 1:15 a.m. Tuesday, the river measured at 38.64 feet — beyond the 30-foot indicator of minor flooding, according to weather service data. Levels of 40 feet cause major flooding, and levees would be breached at 62 feet.
Power outages related to the storm had been restored: As of 1 p.m., Oncor reported 170 outages affecting about 2,600 customers throughout its service area, down from more than 30,000 customers affected on Monday, but those were normal day-to-day outages, the electric utility said.
Looking for help
Most cities were still in the evaluation stage Tuesday, including Balch Springs, where Fire Marshal Sean Davis said although the floodwater had receded, he did not have an estimate of how many homes or families were affected.
Kathy Hitt, a disaster services worker with the American Red Cross, said the Balch Springs Red Cross station had assisted only about 20 people Tuesday morning, “not nearly as many” as she expects need help.
Michael and Latanya Benefield woke about 1 a.m. Monday to a pool of water about a foot deep in their first-floor Balch Springs apartment. They watched as it continued to rise for hours, soaking into the boxes they had packed for their upcoming move in September. Several of the boxes held keepsakes of Latanya Benefield’s mother, who died two years ago.
On Tuesday, the couple hauled away a ruined mattress and other belongings, items they say State Farm won’t cover because their rental insurance doesn’t include flood coverage.
Latanya Benefield called the apartment’s emergency maintenance Monday morning and thought about calling the fire department, but her husband encouraged her to wait it out. The couple said they didn’t receive help until after the water level fell.
A crew pumped water from the apartments Tuesday as residents tried to save their belongings. Latanya Benefield squeezed water from a pair of black shoes that were her mothers, hoping they would eventually dry.
“Some of the things that we didn’t box up here were my mom’s and we put some of it in the trash,” she said.
Kathy Robnett, the property manager of the Spring Oaks apartment complex in Balch Springs, where the Benefields live, said she has “23 units that are homeless at this point,” adding a majority of them were three-bedroom units housing families. Most don’t have renters insurance, she said.
Jaleel Simmons was staying with his sister in the complex when the flood waters submerged the apartment. He showed cell phone videos of several inches of water that came in through the hallway outside, which completely submerged his sister’s unit, but has since been cleared.
”My sister has health issues so she can’t stay there,” he said. “I don’t know what’s she’s going to do.”
Puddles remained as workers continued to vacuum water out of the apartment. With the power turned off, alarms echoed nonstop down the hallway from each unit.
Susan and Gary McDaniel have lived in their house near Hickory Creek on Forest Glenn Lane in Balch Springs for 44 years. They said the area, heavily wooded with several tributaries to the creek, floods often.
”But it was getting kind of scary,” Susan McDaniel said, “I’ve never seen (the water) stay that long.”
Eventually the couple called the fire department help them leave. They headed to Gary’s fathers house nearby on higher ground.
”They said ‘Do you want to wait for the boat?’” she recalled. “And I said ‘no not really.’”
Susan McDaniel said she and Gary donned life jackets and the department guided the couple, while holding their dog Lucy, through the waist deep flood waters.
A waterline of a few feet marked by debris was visible on the outside of their house Tuesday afternoon, and their backyard fence was pushed over in some places piled with leaves, mud and sticks. Inside, the water line was still around knee level.
Gary McDaniel added the boards he put up inside at the bottoms of the back patio doors were swept away, while Susan noted their carpet had so much water under it it was floating: “If you walked on it it bubbled up.”
‘Had to get out of there’
At restaurants and bars in Deep Ellum, downtown and East Dallas, some of the areas hit hardest, owners described inches of rain, dirt and leaves wreaking havoc on their businesses.
Ryan McMurray sat at a cafe across the street from his metal shop, McMurray Metals Co., Tuesday sipping a tall glass of water. McMurray said he “had to get out of there” for a while, as cleanup was underway.
According to McMurray, the shop — which distributes brass, copper and bronze to machine shops, decorators, refinishers and other clients — experienced flooding up to 16 inches after Monday’s storms, submerging the shop’s basement, which is primarily used for storage, in addition to three inches of water in the office, damaging all its electronics.
”We’re gonna have to replace a lot of inventory because we’re copper and brass and when that stuff gets wet, it’s done,” he said, adding that the shop is “semi-open” and taking orders as it can for products that aren’t damaged.
Just a block over at nonprofit book store Deep Vellum Books, manager Riley Rennhack tried to salvage what was left of the books. A lot of merchandise was ruined, including shirts, which, she said while laughing, will now be available “pre-washed.”
What’s hurting the local business the most is two days without any sales, Rennhack said, adding the store will reopen Wednesday.
”You want to make a ton of sales every day,” Rennhack said, “so every day matters.”
Rain is expected to continue in Dallas throughout the week, but chances for showers diminish as the days go on.
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