Darlene Yanas (left) and Bianca Quintanilla wade through floodwaters past
Max's Cafe in Tilden on Thursday night. The rising Frio River has inundated
parts of the McMullen County town.
Deluge hits same place - Central Texas Gets Walloped
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/712223/posts
Excerpt:
NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas - George Kapidian knows that lightning can strike the same place twice. He just didn't expect it to happen so quickly.
Friday morning, the Guadalupe River rose 20 feet, raging out of its banks to tear off Mr. Kapidian's garage door and run chest deep into his lovely brick home in northern New Braunfels.
Mr. Kapidian, 72, bought the house only last August. He knew it had been built on the foundation of a house washed away by the disastrous flood of 1998.
"We thought, 'What are the odds it would happen again?' Bam! Then the rains came," he said. "This is a big disappointment."
Dozens of homes in the charming riverside neighborhood in New Braunfels about six miles downstream from Gruene were awash to their rooflines Friday after Canyon Dam, gorged with rain from four days of thunderstorms, spilled torrents of water over its spillway for the first time in its 37-year history.
One such home, a wood house built on 8-foot stilts owned by Linda Coble, washed away Friday morning. Incredulous residents watched it float downriver past the Common Street bridge.
More than 50 people gathered along the roiling brown waters of the Guadalupe, taking photos as the river swept the house away. The water churned violently, carrying away tree branches, tires and other debris.
"It's just gone," said Dan Ackerman, who lives on higher ground in the neighborhood. "It got washed away in '98 and they rebuilt it. But it's gone again."
Ms. Coble's house had been built on the foundations of a stone home destroyed when the Guadalupe blasted out of its banks four years ago after record rains over a 24-hour period.
Ms. Coble was able to get most of her valuables out of the house and loaded onto a rental trailer. She later took shelter with family members, neighbors said.
In October 1998, when the skies opened up and dumped about 20 inches of rain on the region, the Guadalupe went on a rampage.
This time, after four days of continuing rainfall, Canyon Lake became engorged with upstream runoff. A new round of thunderstorms Thursday was too much.
Normally, the Guadalupe runs at an average flow from 300 to 500 cubic feet per second. By Friday afternoon, as 6.59 feet of water flowed over the spillway in a torrent, more than 61,000 cfs of water flowed through the Guadalupe.
"We're anticipating a flow of 84,000 cfs through New Braunfels by Friday night," said Comal County Judge Danny Scheel. "At the peak of the 1998 floods, the flow was 120,000 cfs. If we get a substantial amount of rain, it will be just like 1998."
Thursday and Friday, officials ordered about 200 to 300 homes along the Guadalupe to be evacuated. Many of those same residents had been washed out in the record-breaking floods of 1998.
"In 1998, many of the homes affected were outside the 100-year flood plain line," Mr. Scheel said. "They were victims of circumstance. Now, it seems, lightning strikes twice. And it's not over yet."