Williamson County Sun, Sept. 9, 2010: GEORGETOWN — He’d been listening to the rain for hours, watching the floodwaters that had breached the San Gabriel’s banks creep along the ground toward him.

But by 2:30 a.m. Wednesday, when his 30-foot Puma trailer began to drift, Frank Smith knew it was time to go.

“I just pulled in here Saturday, and then this,” said Mr. Smith, who spent Wednesday morning searching a stand of trees for the trailer that had been swept away from its spot in the Shady River RV Park. “My truck is in the shop, so I couldn’t pull her out. That’s just my luck.”Within hours of Mr. Smith’s evacuation to a friend’s home near Granger Lake, the river had ripped across the RV park, over U.S. Highway 29 and into the River Run subdivision, where Cami Graham, boyfriend Jeff Pergrem and her 7-year-old son, Andrew, made their way to the roof carrying clothes, snacks and a cherished Bible in trash bags.

“Everything’s gone — cars, belongings,” Ms. Graham said. “We had about three feet of water in the house when we got up on the roof.”

The soaked and mud-spattered family was evacuated with many of their neighbors to the makeshift American Red Cross evacuation shelter at the Georgetown Recreation Center later that morning, and soon made arrangements to move in with Ms. Graham’s father in Hutto.

They’re lucky to have family in the area to turn to, she said, but the reunion will be terribly bittersweet.

“We just moved in there the first of August after being pretty much homeless for a year and living with family,” Ms. Graham said. “We just got back on our feet, and then this.”
Hermine’s strike

Tropical Depression Hermine, which swept onto the Texas Gulf Coast as a strong tropical storm around 8:30 p.m. Monday, ravaged Central and North Texas with pounding rains, gale-force winds and a handful of small tornados early this week.

And it came as a surprise to even many of the region’s meteorologists, who’d initially anticipated 3-4 inches of rain throughout most of Central Texas.

Pat McDonald, a meteorologist with the Austin-San Antonio office of the National Weather Service, said the shift came when the center of the storm continued moving north — instead of scooting to the east or west — allowing trailing storms to linger over Austin and Williamson County.

“Hermine came up as forecasted,” he said. “The problem that happened in Georgetown and in much of Central Williamson County is that a swath of heavy rain from San Marcos north to Belton trained over the same area for nearly 20 hours.”

The result was more than a foot of rain in communities like Cedar Park and the Anderson Mill area of Northwest Austin, with the highest totals seen in a line stretching from Mansfield Dam to Georgetown, which recorded about 15.5 inches of rain on Wednesday — the highest daily total in the state.

“The storms ran along Interstate 35, and they kept coming,” Mr. McDonald said. “The moisture stream converged with the storm right over Georgetown, and that is what caused all of the massive flooding in the area.”

Coordinating efforts

Officials said Wednesday that Texas Task Force 1, a FEMA Urban Search and Rescue team representing more than 300 emergency response personnel from 60 organizations and departments statewide, was put on alert Monday.

And as rain dumped onto Travis and Williamson counties in the subsequent days, units from across the region suited up and headed out to lend a hand.

Members of Austin-Travis Couny EMS were activated around 2 a.m. Wednesday, Paramedic Sean Norton said, and spent hours searching neighborhoods along the San Gabriel River for stranded residents.

“That’s Class 4 White Water,” Mr. Norton said, gesturing to a raging San Gabriel around 10 a.m. Wednesday after a three-person team of fellow rescue workers jetted away from the scene on a mission to recover a rescue boat that had malfunctioned earlier in the day.

“It’s come down about six feet in the last six hours. Thankfully, now we’re down to recovering equipment.”

Even that wasn’t an easy task, though; the three-person rescue team whose boat malfunctioned earlier that morning had tied it to a tree and been airlifted off the river.

When the recovery crew found it hours later, after the river had begun to settle back into its banks, it was hanging about eight feet high in a tree.

“Those things weigh 200, 300 pounds,” Mr. Norton said. “It’ll take some time to wrestle down.”

Elsewhere in the county, various emergency and law enforcement officials kept busy closing roads, performing swift-water rescues and evacuating flood-prone neighborhoods with the help of dump trucks and school buses. STAR flight out of Austin, which completed four rescues in Williamson County early Wednesday morning, kept a helicopter in a field off Highway 29 for much of the day, just in case.

The Georgetown Fire Department alone handled 55 calls between midnight and 4 a.m. Wednesday, Chief Robert Fite said.

“The firefighters did an outstanding job considering the amount of floodwaters that inundated the city,” he said. “I am so very, very proud of their hard work. At the end of the day we had no injuries, no deaths, and all of our firefighters were able to go home to their families. That’s what it’s all about.”

Declaring a disaster

Williamson County Judge Dan A. Gattis issued a disaster declaration early Wednesday morning after learning of the widespread flooding of homes and farmland.

Governor Rick Perry followed up on Thursday, declaring 40 Texas counties, including Williamson, as disaster areas because of flooding and damage caused by the storm.

The next step will be for the Texas Division of Emergency Management to conduct damage estimates in each of the affected areas, and determine whether those areas qualify for state help or federal relief from the Small Business Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency or other agencies.

In order for federal funds to be dispersed, the region must attain at least $26 million in damage.

The toll

Dozens of Williamson County residents were displaced early this week, and many spent Wednesday stranded on still-damp roadsides and sitting in makeshift shelters, working to figure out their next move.

Camped out at the First Baptist Church storm shelter in Florence Wednesday morning, Tacha Trujillo and her two children, Alexa and Alex, awaited word from officials about the state of their Beck Street home. She was not alone.

Red Cross Volunteer Vinton Stanfield said more than 15 Florence residents were evacuated to the shelter because of flooding along the Beck Street and FM 487 corridors.

“We opened the shelter around 2 a.m.,” Mr. Stanfield said. “Most of them were from the Beck Street area of town, and we had a couple of residents that were brought in from around the Salado Creek area.”

By 10 a.m. Wednesday, about six families remained at the Florence Red Cross shelter. The Trujillo family was one of them.

“I got a knock on the door around 11:45 p.m. Tuesday, telling us that we needed to evacuate,” Ms. Trujillo said. “The water was already coming into the laundry room area, so I knew it was getting pretty bad, but when we got outside it was nothing that I have ever seen before.”

Large swaths of grass from a nearby corn field, debris and trash surrounded Ms. Trujillo as Florence firefighters carried her and her young children to safety.

“It was pouring down rain when we were leaving the house, and the whole neighborhood looked like it was under water,” Ms. Trujillo recalled. “It was nothing I’ve ever experienced before in my life  . . . it was quite frightening.”

The morning was also a first for Marie Williams, a New Orleans native who said it was “a funny thing” to be evacuated — especially in Central Texas.

“I’ve been through hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, and after 85 years this is the first time I’ve been evacuated in my life,” she said. “Who’d have thought?”

Ms. Williams’ only fears Wednesday morning were for Chief and Cindy, the family’s two hound dogs. She wasn’t too worried about the house, she said, because it didn’t look as though the water would reach it. The Trujillo family wasn’t so lucky.

“When we were leaving the house, I saw water getting into my car,” said Ms. Trujillo, whose husband is in Kuwait working as a military contractor. “That really worried me because we need transportation. Plus, we had to leave our cat behind and the kids keep asking me if the cat is OK. All I can say is, ‘I don’t know.’”

Despite a couple of close calls, as of Friday morning there were no confirmed deaths or flood-related missing people reported in Williamson County.

Cleaning up
By late Wednesday, the rain across much of the region had finally stopped. Now it will take months to assess and repair all of the damage.

County and city cleanup crews were out in force by Thursday clearing roads, collecting trash, and making note of trees that needed pulling and equipment that needed replacing.

Families across the county spent days this week sifting through damp belongings, calling their insurance companies and trying to make the best of things.

A shirtless, tired and soaked Fortino Sausedo was already busy ripping drenched carpet for his modest Beck Street home.

“It was bad,” said Mr. Sausedo, trying not to trip over a waterlogged sandbag. “We’ve been moving carpet out of the house all night since the water went down.”

Property manager Buddy Franco said Mr. Sausedo’s house took in more than four feet of water.

“When they came out of the house, the water was up to their waists,” said Mr. Franco. “This happened in 2007, so I tried to raise the washer and dryer and the air conditioner on cinderblocks; we even put down sandbags . . . nothing seemed to work this time.”

By Thursday afternoon, streams of cars were turning onto Crystal Springs Drive in Sun City, as neighbors carried brooms, coffee and water to help homeowners whose houses were flooded by Berry and Cowan creeks.

“It’s been wonderful to have the help,” Crystal Springs resident Warren Gray said. “I’ve seen people who I’ve not met come and help pick up debris and trash in my yard … people are really showing that they care.”

Mr. Gray said it was about 2 a.m. Wednesday when gusts of wind awoke him and his wife.

They knew there was a problem the moment they stepped out of bed.

“It was wet,” Mr. Gray said. “That’s when we knew the creek had flooded into the house, so we immediately started moving stuff off the floor. Then I walked to the garage, and when I opened the door the current knocked me to the floor.”

Like for Ms. Williams, the storm offered Mr. Gray a new life experience.

“It was the first time in my life I actually called 911,” Mr. Gray said. “But when I spoke with the nice dispatcher, she told me if my life was not in immediate danger, we needed to stay put.”

By daybreak, the damage was done.

“We had about 24 inches in the house, and we don’t have flood insurance on the house,”

Mr. Gray said, pointing out a waterline on his garage door. “The contractor is going to have to replace the bottom floor cabinets, the walls up to three feet and we’re going to have to get new carpet . . . we’re going to be out of our home for about three months.”

Mr. Gray said he was encouraged by Governor Perry’s announcement to sign a statewide disaster declaration, a process that once signed by President Barack Obama could funnel much need monetary relief to disaster victims in Texas over the coming weeks.

“Getting help from FEMA is going to help a lot of folks around here that didn’t have insurance,” Mr. Gray said. “Next time this happens, I’m going to be insured.”

Reports from the National Weather Service show a high pressure system set to nestle in over Central Texas this weekend, which meteorologists anticipate will provide enough heat to dry out much of the earth from the disastrous rains.

It will take much longer for many of the lives affected to return to normal, but city and county officials, and many of the residents themselves, say they’re determined to make the best of things.

“You have to smile,” said Ms. Graham before gathering her things to head to Hutto. “Even when you lose everything.”
Rachel Slade contributed to this report.