Leon County heavily affected by rainfall, crews travel 10 hours to help

LEON COUNTY, Texas (KBTX) – Leon County has been heavily impacted by rainfall received over the last few weeks, receiving 18 to 25 inches of rain.

Leon County Judge Byron Ryder says around 20 roads in the county are either washed out or damaged from the onslaught of flooding.

County Road 429 is a prime example of how much damage water can do. The road is completely eroded, making it impossible to drive on.

Judge Ryder says Normangee, Jewitt, Marquez, and Leona have been impacted the most by flooding.

“We’re doing as well as we can do. We have a long way to go. People out there are going to have to be patient with us as we have a lot of roads out here that are completely gone. I know there’s roads out there that have ditches and some washouts but they may not be as bad as the ones where they are just completely gone, so we are trying to get those roads back going first before we even start on doing a ditch or a washout,” said Ryder.

Judge Ryder says it’s going to take weeks for the county to recover from all the damage caused by rainfall.

Water rescue teams traveled from El Paso Texas to assist the Centerville Volunteer Fire Department with water rescues.

According to Colton Adams, a Firefighter EMT with the Centerville Volunteer Fire Department, there have been around 20 water rescues in Leon County since the flooding started. The Centerville Volunteer Fire Department conducting five of those.

“Vehicles just driving into the water and been getting swept off the road because the current is just too swift. We’ve had several calls for the ambulance and the ambulance has been unable to get to the residents and we’ve had to go in and get them and bring them out to the ambulance, and it’s just been so much,” said Adams.

Flooding has washed out roads, isolated homes, and carried cars away.

“There’s a lot of the main roads that are flooded and unable to be passed by cars. Yesterday we had to conduct a rescue that was actually on the service road next to the interstate,” said Adams. “Highway 75 has been shut down serval times due to water over the road.”

To help carry the load, Texas A&M Task Force 1 sent water rescue crews from the El Paso Fire Department to assist Centerville. Steve Dankers, the Water Group Supervisor with Texas A&M Task Force 1, describes what water rescues entail:

“Typically responding to incidents where people have found themselves trapped from floodwater and so our crews respond in either by boat, we also have helicopter resources available. just a wide range of resources that we can tap into just to handle these emergencies,” Dankers said.

The crews will be helping the Centerville Volunteer Fire Department until the water recedes.