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CNN Live Today

Texas Residents Return to Homes Following Floods

Aired July 08, 2002 - 13:22   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: In central Texas, flood-weary residents are returning to homes filled with mud and backyards soaked like sponges. This has happened as more Texas counties may be placed on a federal disaster list.

Our Ed Lavandera is live from New Braunfels, Texas with more, still hanging out with the Maxwell (ph) family. And have they put you to work, Ed?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No. I'm trying to avoid that as long as I possibly can, to be honest. But they've got a tremendous amount of help here. A group of high school ROTC students have been helping out this family throughout the morning, and they're getting pretty exhausted here, as they are pulling out here in the garage. They have made quite a dent in the garage area.

Let's take you inside here. The garage had about two feet of mud all the way through, and these guys have been working and scooping all of this up with shovels, putting them in wheelbarrows. People have come by dropping off wheelbarrows to help these guys out. And there's just a lot of work to be done here.

The rush of river water that came through the house, you can see, just knocking out walls throughout the area, knocking out all of the appliances inside. And you can kind of see from high above this area what it was like to see this rubber -- this river -- excuse me -- run through the city. New Braunfels had about 300 homes that were underneath water; about 48,000 people in all affected in the central Texas region.

So this is a common sight that you're seeing all over the city today as people get back to this neighborhood to start assessing the damage as to what they have and what they don't have anymore. There are other homes just down the river. If you can see kind of over this tree line over here, there's another house that's been severely damaged as well, and this is still (UNINTELLIGIBLE).

Now, not all of the homes yet are out of harm's way. Closer to the Canyon Lake area, which is just northwest of the city here, there are still homes as more floodwaters continue to spill out. Although the flood levels down here are receding, there is still water spilling out at quite a high rate of speed, so not all of the homes are out of the clear just yet. But for the most part, though, residents here in this area are getting a clearer picture of just how much they have to contend with. And there's a lot of work to be done, and this is a common sight. You have seen a lot of people with friends and family coming by to help out, a lot of the mud that needs to be moved out, the belongings that need to be cleaned up.

Just along here in front of the Maxwell's (ph) house, there used to be rose garden. That's no longer anywhere to be seen around here. And this is -- the Maxwell family here says they will rebuild, and they have gone through this once before already, and that they don't have any plans of leaving this area. So, Kyra, they like it here, and they especially like their neighbors at this point.

PHILLIPS: I don't blame them, Ed. They definitely seem like a strong family. We'll see that rose garden again. We'll give them some time.

LAVANDERA: OK.

PHILLIPS: Ed, thank you.

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