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CNN Live Sunday

Central Texas Residents Return Home

Aired July 07, 2002 - 17:02   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: Water levels are receding in parts of Central Texas after a week of horrendous rain and flooding. New Braunfels is one area where the water level is dropping and residents are returning to their homes afraid of what they'll find. CNN's Ed Lavandera is there, and, Ed, what are residents discovering?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we can show you, just to give you a quick idea of just where the water levels have dropped here. Yesterday -- yesterday evening, water levels were still about as high as I'm standing here next to this house, and you can tell that the Guadalupe river here in New Braunfels, which is halfway between Austin and San Antonio, has dropped probably about 10, 15 feet here.

And this is exactly the kind of scene for a lot of people who are returning to here. This is a home that's been completely ravaged inside. Pictures speak for themselves, quite frankly, here. The family that returned here this morning getting a devastating look at what the flood waters tore through their house. Basically, all the water is coming this way, heading out the back door and just tearing up this living room, tearing up all of the carpet. There is about a foot of mud throughout many parts of the house, and the walls, the dry walls ripped apart. And you could just see a lot of debris left behind that the floodwaters left here.

Also, if we bring you into the kitchen, you can see -- the family here, we've been speaking with them throughout the day, they have not touched any of this so far. This is exactly what they found. All of this was brand new to them. They had just finished remodeling this house. You can see just how powerful the waters blew through this. About a foot and a half of mud over here at the corner, the counter tops ripped -- ripped from the walls, and the walls themselves ripped apart as well.

The floodwaters here, you can see here in the dining room area just how much -- how powerful the waters were. They tore through the drywall, ripping apart the wall paper as well. And you can also see, if you go the family's backyard here, the pool has been completely filled up with flood water. Just a few hours ago even, the Guadalupe river was reaching up to the bottom of the porch here. And all of that is starting to recede.

But 48,000 people, we're told, in the Central Texas region have been affected by these floods over the last week, and there are a lot of people who are getting their first chance to return home and finding this. Now they're just waiting to find out what kind of aid and how fast the aid will be able to reach them so they can start rebuilding here.

Many of the people we've spoken with say that they want to stay in this area, even though this is a situation that they're familiar with. Four years ago, there was a similar flood, and many people considered that one a lot worse, and a lot of people rebuilt in this area.

So these are some of the issues that folks here are dealing with tonight -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. Ed Lavandera, thank you very much.

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