|
Back
Thursday, October 19, 2000
Nothing left but a mess to
clean
By Sidney Schuhmann
Reporter-News Staff Writer
The dog was stranded on a table
and a large trashcan was floating in his son’s bedroom when
Florencio Medellin ar-rived home Tuesday morning.
He waded through waist-high water
to reach his home, which flooded at the intersection of Kirkwood
and North 15th streets. Water rose almost a foot inside, destroying
carpet, toys, clothes and dishes.
Medellin called his wife, 28-year-old
Isabel, with the bad news. On Wednesday, the couple, whose three
children are ages 8 to 2 years, cleaned up and salvaged what
they could. The rest is trash.
“If I don’t look down,
maybe it will go away,” Isabel Medellin said. “I don’t
want to be here. I don’t want to look at it.”
Abilene with as much as 7 inches
of water in some areas Tuesday. The northside quickly flooded,
leaving stalled cars and wet homes.
Andy Anderson, the city’s
Public Works director, said city employees assessed street conditions
and picked up fallen trees and barricades.
Areas that are frequently troubled
by flooding are being identified, he said. A few ways the city
can fix flooding streets is by reconstructing the roadway, installing
underground pipes to drain into a creek or re-grading the area
with dirt, Anderson said.
“You can’t prevent
all flooding problems,” he said.
The city’s last flood-prevention
project was a detention pond built near Sunset Drive and Catclaw
Creek last year. Before the detention pond, area streets were
lakes after heavy rain.
Since then, the water has been
reduced to small streams running along sidewalks. Anderson said
no problems were reported regarding the pond and the area around
it during Tuesday’s rain.
American Red Cross volunteers
scouted out neighborhoods badly affected by the flooding and
handed out disinfectant, sponges, mops and brooms Wednesday.
Volunteer Owen Armbruster said the homes he saw near Abilene
Christian University on the northeast side of town received 3
to 4 inches of water inside.
For the next few months, while
the insurance company repairs their home, the Medellins will
live in a mobile home. Their house near Catclaw Creek has flooded
three times since 48-year-old Medellin purchased it 13 years
ago.
The family will stay in the house,
though Isabel Medellin said she would rather move. She worries
about the sanitation hazards caused by water and dirt outside
bringing who-knows-what inside.
The family’s dog, a mixed
terrier named Lucky, escaped from the garage to a table on the
porch while water poured down. The garage filled up with several
feet of water, leaving grass, debris and waterlogged furniture
and other items.
Water also filled two of their
vehicles parked outside, leaving mud and grass inside. Neither
vehicle will start.
The streets were muddy, and cars
squealed their tires speeding by. Pedestrians slipped and slid
wading through the brown, sticky mess.
The streets are the muddiest,
though, at North 10th and Merchant streets, one of the worst
hit areas of Abilene. The intersection floods when it rains for
just 30 minutes, said 38-year-old Sherie Newman.
Imagine what it does when it
rains all day and the sky dumps 7 inches of water in the area.
Newman didn’t have to imagine
what would happen to her house, which sits on the corner of the
intersection. She watched it from across the street.
Water fell faster than the intersection’s
drains could swallow it. The water flowed into Newman’s
house and scared her two dogs — one of which jumped the
fence.
The next day, her carpet was
rolled out on the lawn and fans and dehumidifiers were set up.
She said the damage wasn’t too bad, but some boxes of her
children’s baby clothes stored under a bed were ruined.
“I was glad it wasn’t
any worse than it was,” she said.
Employees from A-Town Hi-Tech,
a fire and water restoration company, were busy cleaning up Newman’s
home. They said since Tuesday, they have cleaned 27 homes and
businesses damaged by flooding and collapsed roofs.
In January, when the lease is
up, Newman said her family is moving out. Though the home’s
owner said it’s been 20 years since the home last flooded,
Newman said she was tired of the intersection overflowing every
time it rains.
Sometimes the family has to park
four blocks away because the water is so high. Homes’ trashcans
often overturn, sending their contents floating down the street
and into yards.
Her neighbor, 56-year-old Floranne
Bell, said North 10th Street is so busy the city should make
sure the drainage at her intersection works. City workers have
inspected the street, but nothing has changed, she said.
Her own home, where her 81-year-old
husband, Charles, has lived for the last two decades, was spared.
But their garage wasn’t. Waterlogged items were drying in
their house.
The couple was stranded in their
home during the flooding. For him, she said, the house near the
flooding intersection is home.
“But I will not stay here
once he’s gone,” she said.
Contact staff writer Sidney
Schuhmann at 676-6721 or schuhmanns@abinews.com.
|
