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Floods Force Central Texas Residents Out of Homes

Aired July 05, 2002 - 14:16   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.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: More people are leaving their homes in south central Texas downstream from flooding earlier this week.

The Canyon Lake Dam is spilling over and a massive amount of water is swallowing up the homes.

David Herbert of CNN affiliate joins us from Greene, Texas with the latest on that. Hi there. What's the latest?

DAVID HERBERT, KENS CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's pretty good news. The river has somewhat stabilized -- that's the really big thing that everybody was keeping an eye one. Emotionally the recovery may take a little bit longer.

We have all heard that old cliche -- time heals all wounds -- but you have to remember that the folks here in New Braunfels were just beginning to bounce back from the big flood of '98 -- a flood that absolutely rocked this area. Now they're having to deal with this -- raging flood waters spilling over from Canyon Lake.

Now that water is trying to make its way into the Guadalupe River but there's a problem -- there are dozens of homes standing in its way. So what's happened is that at least three homes have been completely swept away downriver, hundreds of other homes have been severely damaged by the waters.

About the only good news here is that homeowners had plenty of time to prepare. Evacuations actually started around 3:30 yesterday morning and fortunately most of the people here in New Braunfels -- they listened up to the advice, they followed the advice.

They've been down this road before. They got out of there because, as we mentioned, in 1998 a lot of them saw their homes float down the river. In fact, a lot of them rebuilt and we are learning today that they have lost their homes again.

Now, again, the good news -- the really big news is it looks like the river levels have stabilized. We've been watching them for the past three hours -- they haven't really moved a whole lot.

There are still some rescues going on near the spillway at Canyon Lake. That was a big area of concern where they just dumped all of that water from Canyon Lake Dam. So that's the area we're watching. We've had a Black Hawk helicopter over us about every two hours or so.

So fortunately no loss of life here in the New Braunfels area. Serious loss of property for the homeowners once again just four years after being rocked back in 1998 -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Now, David, you mentioned that no serious injuries reported but are there any vulnerable situations being reported in terms of people who refused to evacuate? Any rescue attempts that have to be carried out?

HERBERT: Not a whole lot. We some early on whenever we had the Black Hawk helicopter circling around here.

One interesting note is the emergency crews could not use the boats -- they couldn't even look at them because the water was rushing so fast.

A lot of folks around the country like the Guadalupe River for the tubing but right now it's running at 50 to 75 times the normal rate. So emergency crews couldn't get in those boats and reach the people that were in trouble.

Basically a lot of them they just had to tell them, "Wait until the clouds clear out a little bit. We're going to get in the helicopter. We'll come and get you."

Fortunately everybody's been moved out and last word is they don't know of anybody else that's out there. We're definitely keeping an eye out along with emergency officials though.

WHITFIELD: All right -- thank you very much. David Herbert of our KENS affiliate there.

And still three more inches of rain expected for that region.

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