Washington County working to get back to normal after getting 12 inches of rain
WASHINGTON COUNTY, Texas (KBTX) – Counties across the Brazos Valley are now dealing with the repercussions from the rainfall.
KBTX visited Washington County to see how it’s coping with the excess water.
Jonathan Failor, the site manager for Washington on the Brazos says they’ve received twelve inches of rain on their property.
“And from that just a lot of drainage onto our property, Washington on the Brazos drains about 5,000 acres here in this end of the county, so much of that it the water is flowing towards the Brazos river,” said Failor.
But he says there’s minimal damage to the historic site.
“We have some washout on some of our drainage areas but pretty minor compared to some of the areas around the county,” said Failor.
Wesley Stolz, the engineer with Washington County Road and Bridge Department, said their roads held up during the downpours.
“Most of our roads handled pretty well, but we did have some washouts. Not complete washouts, mainly partial washouts through the county,” said Stolz. “Really the large portion of those have been towards the Burton area.”
The department says most of the road damages include high water on roads, partial washouts, and potholes.
On roads like Nicholson Lake Road in Chapel Hill one can see pothole after pothole that was caused by the rain over the last few days.
The department says there are twelve partial road washouts and 30 to 40 roads beneath high water. They said that damage like potholes will be fixed, but after they repair damage like partial washouts.
Just because the rain has stopped doesn’t mean the crews are done working.
“We still have roads under water so until the water actually recedes, we’re not gonna clearly see all the damage. We’re going to be monitoring all our bridges, all our structures and monitoring really kind of see where we stand from there,” said Stolz.
Both say they’re already seeing improvements.
“We had a lot more water flowing through our property yesterday, that has ceased,” said Failor.
“But as it stands today, there’s a lot of damage but we’re in pretty good shape all this considered,” said Stolz.
KBTX spoke with the Washington County Emergency Management Coordinator, Bryan Ruemke, who gave some updates on the county as well.
“Washington County has seen a substantial amount of rain over the last 3 days. Amounts vary throughout the county but we have had reports of 13-plus inches in some areas. The County sent out situational awareness reports to public safety partners. Washington County Engineering and Development staff have been monitoring the county roads and closing them as necessary. Sheriff’s deputies also monitored roads. There were over 40 roads in the county that were closed or had water over them. Water is starting to recede on these roads but it may take several days to re-open all of them. Once the water has receded, our Engineering and Development staff will evaluate for any damages that may have occurred. The public was informed of road closings by several social media posts and other media sources. The Brazos River has reached major flood stage but we have not received any reports of any issues.”
