Brazos River threatens new flooding downstream
New evacuation orders farther south as previous records washed away
With an estimated 1,000 residents already evacuated, Fort Bend County braced on Memorial Day for floodwater to continue rising along the Brazos River, likely flooding neighborhoods along its path for several more days.
The river reached a record level of more than 50 feet Monday in Richmond — about 30 miles southwest of Houston — and was projected to crest at 53.5 feet on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, north of the city a voluntary evacuation of a Spring neighborhood in northern Harris County was lifted, and streets in flooded areas such as Humble and Kingwood were expected to become passable by vehicle on Tuesday.
Down south, just outside Richmond city limits, it was a bleak holiday. Floodwater lapped around Anice Divin’s knee-high rain boots as she waded into overflow from the Brazos that was slowly closing in on her home.
“I’m worried that Richmond, Rosenberg, Sugar Land, Rosharon and other communities downriver don’t know what’s coming.” Stephen Sear, Simonton emergency operations chief
Divin’s street has taken on water in past storms, she said, but this was the first flood in 49 years to
bring the river up to her home’s brick exterior. Firefighters told Divin, 71, that the water likely would reach her windowsills.
“I ain’t going nowhere,” Divin said. “I’m not going to leave my junk.”
The statewide death toll from flooding over the long holiday weekend rose to seven, after a 16-year-old died in Brenham on Monday after being struck by a falling tree limb during storm recovery efforts.
The teen, whom Brenham police declined to identify, was part of a church youth group cleaning up yard debris from last week’s rainstorm when a large pine branch, snagged on wires, fell on him. His was one of five flood-related deaths in Washington County, some 80 miles northwest of Houston. The National Weather Service recorded almost 17 inches of rain last Thursday in Brenham, snapping a previous one-day record of 10.38 inches in 1994.
By the weekend, water flowing down the Brazos from that hard-hit region caused flooding in Fort
“I hope the water will go ahead and start receding, but it’s not looking good, because they are talking about it raining more during the week.”
Stephen Johnson, 42, Fort Bend County resident
Bend County, which received less than four inches of rain last Thursday and Friday.
An eye downriver
Beth Wolf of the Fort Bend County Office of Emergency Management projected that water would continue rising through Tuesday, when the Brazos River is set to peak more than three feet above its 1994 record.
“There’s some question about how long it will take to run off,” Wolf said; she was unsure how many homes countywide were flooded as of the holiday. “Everything’s very wet, and it may take a while to go back down.”
Officials ordered residents in portions of Richmond in Fort Bend to evacuate Monday afternoon as floodwater seeped across more city streets. Evacuations in Simonton, Rosenberg and Missouri City already were in place.
Many of the homes threatened in the Richmond area are located either in the floodway, the zone most at risk for flooding, or further out in the “100-year” floodplain — deemed to have a 1 percent chance of flooding in any given year.
Resident Jim Klentzman said his home was eight inches out of the floodway when he bought it in 1989, but it has since been redesignated, making flood insurance cost-prohibitive.
Klentzman, who lives across Strange Drive from Divin, was hoping the water would remain in his yard. Neighbor Donna Walleck, 55, was preparing for the long haul, too.
“Hey, are you making Whataburger runs?” she shouted to Klentzman as he floated down the street in his skiff. Several homes already appeared waterlogged.
Some 20 miles north of Richmond, in the town of Simonton, most of the 800 residents on property near the bulging Brazos had been evacuated by midafternoon, many with the help of airboats, high-water vehicles and dump trucks.
The higher ground near City Hall was dry, but longtime inhabitants were nervous.
“The only thing that’s saving us is it’s not raining,” said Stephen Johnson, 42, who has lived in this region of Fort Bend County all of his life. “Back in 1994, it rained for three or four days and the water was almost to the grocery store” a block away.
Johnson repeated a refrain expressed by many in this flood-ravaged area. “I hope the water will go ahead and start receding, but it’s not looking good, because they are talking about it raining more during the week,” he said.
Stephen Sear, coordinator of emergency operations for Simonton, feared the worst for those living downstream.
“I’m worried that Richmond, Rosenberg, Sugar Land, Rosharon and other communities downriver don’t know what’s coming,” Sear said. “They say they are prepared and they have prepared for it as much as they can, but not for what is still on the way.”
‘Fearing the worst’
Glenn Lamont, deputy emergency management coordinator for coastal Brazoria County, expected the county to close additional roads Monday night and early Tuesday morning, at which point he projected homes in the Rosharon area would take on water.
Lamont estimated 300 to 500 Brazoria County houses would flood from the rising Brazos, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico, compared with 200 during last year’s Memorial Day flood. The Brazos is set to crest in Rosharon on Thursday. As a precaution, about 2,600 inmates from two prisons in Rosharon were evacuated on Sunday to nearby facilities because of the rising river level.
Harris County officials tallied 48 flooded homes in the northern reaches of the county Monday, said Francisco Sanchez, spokesman for the Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management. They planned to continue counting on Tuesday. Tomball, Humble and Kingwood were among the northern neighborhoods that flooded during last week’s storms. The city of Houston was spared, with virtually no Memorial Day rainfall.
Major flooding along the San Jacinto River Basin northeast of the city was projected to continue through midweek, though the majority of Spring Creek was back within its banks, according to the Harris County Flood Control District.
Accordingly, authorities on Monday lifted the voluntary evacuation order issued Saturday for Spring’s Northwood Pines subdivision, where the creek did not end up breaching its levee.
“We were fearing the worst,” resident Sharadha Jani, 28, said. “It could have been very bad.”