DALLAS — Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday signed a disaster declaration for 23 counties impacted by Monday’s severe flooding, including Dallas County, as the region recovers from what’s been called a “one-in-a-thousand-years” event that flooded roads, submerged cars and left at least one person dead.
But even while North Texas has been clobbered in recent years by extremes in heat, cold, rain, fire and tornadoes, the governor refused to mention the words “climate change,” even when specifically asked by a reporter, while declaring a weather disaster in the region — at least the seventh such declared in Texas this year.
“We have constant conversation about what we categorize as extreme weather,” Abbott said, while acknowledging that “we are dealing with more extreme weather patterns.” But the governor ignored requests from Spectrum News 1′s Brett Shipp to acknowledge climate change.
“The point is this,” Abbott said. “We’re constantly looking at what extreme weather may lead to, whether it be power demand, extreme heat, extreme cold, heavy water or even drought.”
The disaster notice comes as Texas and the rest of the country are experiencing a greater frequency of so-called “once in 1,000 year” or “once in 100 year” floods and other weather disasters. Similar language was used to describe Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
The declaration, which was also implemented for Tarrant County, allows the state to exercise emergency powers in order to respond to a disaster.
“Additional counties may be added as the storm system makes its way through the state,” Abbott said before signing the document at Dallas City Hall.
Sitting next to Abbott, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson was quick to point out the unusual nature of the continuous weather disasters.
“We’ve dealt with a series of unprecedented — so-called unprecedented — disasters in the city,” Johnson 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.”
The storm soaked parts of Dallas-Fort Worth almost constantly from late Sunday into early Monday, dropping up more than 10 inches of rain in the hardest hit areas. One reading near Fair Park captured 15 inches of rainfall.
“There was not time to prepare for anything or even respond to it,” Dallas emergency-management director Rocky Vaz told the governor during the briefing.
South and East Dallas bore the brunt of the flooding, authorities said. North Dallas escaped relatively unscathed.
Dallas-Fire Rescue responded to 232 high-water incident calls and 84 water-rescue calls, authorities told Abbott during a briefing at the city’s emergency operations center. Nineteen of those rescue calls involved boats.
First responders rescued 21 people and 10 dogs. About 1,650 total calls were received by first responders in the city from 6 p.m. Sunday to 6 p.m. Monday, compared to 960 calls in a typical 24-hour period.
Dallas Police Chief Eddie García said 28 police vehicles were damaged during the flooding, in a department which was already struggling with its aging fleet.
No fatalities were reported in Dallas, but in Mesquite, a dead woman was pulled from her car that was swept away by flood waters. Four people in Dallas were treated and released at hospitals, officials said.
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