Heavy rains pelt area, flooding creeks, streets
Leon Creek expected to crest with more showers in forecast all week
Rosie Lopez surveyed the devastation at the Comfort Cafe San Antonio in Leon Valley with an air of resignation.
Tomatoes and lemons had rolled across the wet mud that covered every square inch of the floor. Refrigerators, ice machines and display cases had tipped over. Dining tables and chairs were tossed together in a chaotic pile.
Fierce rains Tuesday had brought more than 4 feet of water into the low-slung building on the banks of Zarzamora Creek just inside North Loop 410.
Lopez looked at the messages of encouragement to people in recovery from addiction — affixed to the restaurant’s walls as part of its mission as a fundraising arm of a nonprofit group — and wondered how that decor could be saved.
“Some of this stuff I have to surrender,” she said.
Since Monday, 9 to 10 inches of rain had fallen in some areas of San Antonio, according to National Weather Service measurements. And chances of more rainfall remain strong every day this week through Friday. The city’s Emergency Operations Center will continue to closely monitor weather conditions.
Some areas around Culebra Road and Loop 1604 were pummeled by up to 6 inches of rain in a four-hour period Tuesday, while 4 to 5 inches fell in the same period in an area extending from the South Texas Medical Center out to Helotes, said Cory Van Pelt, an NWS meteorologist.
“Most of that ton of rainfall went right into the Leon Creek stream area,” he said. “It’s all just cramming down that stream there.”
The National Weather Service often releases an impact statement if Leon Creek reaches a height of 22 feet, Van Pelt said. On Tuesday afternoon, Leon Creek at Interstate 35 stood at 19.7 feet.
That waterway is expected to crest at 26 feet, San Antonio officials said Tuesday evening. The highest recorded level in Leon Creek’s history was 29.31 feet, measured during one of the city’s worst floods in modern memory, on Oct. 18, 1998.
The San Antonio Fire Department responded Tuesday to reports of flooding near homes and conducted a water rescue on the city’s North Side, spokesman Woody Woodward said. Two people were rescued after being swept away by floodwaters near Jackson Keller Road.
Laura Mayes, a spokeswoman for San Antonio, asked that residents check for road closure information on the city’s website.
At Comfort Café San Antonio, Lopez and her wife, Teri Lopez — co-founders of the dining establishment at 5616 Bandera Road — said they will rebuild.
“It’s totaled, the whole café,” Rosie Lopez said. “They’re going to have to start from the ground up, pretty much.”
The restaurant is a nonprofit operation. All proceeds benefit an alcohol and drug recovery program, Serenitystar Recovery Resource Center, which Rosie and Teri Lopez established in Smithville in 2009. Diners are asked to make a $10 donation for any breakfast or lunch dishes they order.
Sometimes customers choose to give more — at times, donations of up to $100. Everyone working at the restaurant is in recovery and provides their services on a volunteer basis.
The Lopezes also opened an additional restaurant known as Comfort Café East just last month at the Los Patios development at 2015 Northeast Loop 410. That establishment follows the same nonprofit and donation model benefiting Serenitystar’s recovery program.
Despite the severe damage to their Bandera Road restaurant, Rosie and Teri Lopez were calm.
“We live with a full heart knowing that for anything that happens, there is something much bigger and better on the opposite end,” Rosie Lopez said. “We take it literally — ‘Serenity is not freedom from the storm, it’s peace amid the storm.’ ”
“We’re kind of used to dealing with crisis,” Teri Lopez said.