Walker County Emergency Management discusses rain storm
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (KBTX) – With many roads shut down throughout the day, a trip to Huntsville Monday afternoon meant taking a detour through Madisonville.
“At one time today, we had Interstate 45 closed here in Huntsville, SH 30, SH 19, SH 190, all the roads into Walker County was at one time closed today,” said Walker County’s Emergency Management Coordinator Butch Davis.
Davis has been the coordinator for 20 years and has been through hurricanes and floods, but this is one, he said, sets a record.
“This started last Sunday we had about six to seven inches Sunday and the river came up, the creeks came up, we closed some farm market roads and everything was getting back to normal when this rain came in last night,” Davis said.
By 4 p.m. Monday, Davis said they had conducted 50 high-water rescues. They included people who drove into high waters or had to be rescued from their homes.
Photos sent in from viewers showed places like Huntsville State Park and an RV park partially underwater.
The rainstorm even tore up roads like FM 247. Davis said Another road in the area, FM 2989 is likely to be closed for a while.
“If it rains more, we don’t have time for rivers to drain down, the creeks to drain drown and even off the roads, because the soil is so saturated because it doesn’t take much to push it back up.”
Still, the Walker County Emergency Management Office says it’s ready to deal with whatever comes its way.
“We have boat squads and then we also have state assets come in here, Task Force 1 has some water teams here and helping us and you know we just constantly planning how we would do things better.”
The mayor of Huntsville has issued a disaster declaration. It will remain in effect for the next seven days unless it is renewed by the city council.
