HISTORIC FLASH FLOOD LEAVES DEVASTATION IN AUSTIN, TEXAS USA

Historic flash flood leaves devastation in Austin

Rick Jervis, USA TODAY 7:40 p.m. EST November 7, 2013

Residents are reeling from the deadly rush of water on Halloween.

AP Texas Storms

Story Highlights

   Creek rose to historic high of 41 feet
   Flash flood measured at twice the force of Niagara Falls
   At least four dead and 1,200 homes damaged in flood

AUSTIN – It's a Halloween nightmare that won't go away.

Tirso Perez awoke to find shin-high water streaming into his living room. Outside, walls of water washed over his street and rolled into his lawn.

A week later, Perez's neighborhood and many others are still reeling from the flooding as residents and volunteers dig out from the mud-caked destruction.

After propping up his two Chihuahuas – Chico and Gizmo – on a bed, Perez, 76, and his wife, Maria, 72, pushed their way to their front lawn and into waist-high water. It was the beginning of a harrowing three-hour ordeal that ended with rescue crews in a boat plucking the pair from a neighbor's roof.

"I've lived here 30-something years and never seen anything like that," said Perez, a retired state worker.

This week, residents tried to locate tool sheds, cars and pets that floated miles away in the flood. Others pulled soggy sheetrock from homes.

Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell declared a local state of disaster Monday.

The neighborhoods near Austin-Bergstrom International Airport were overwhelmed in the early morning hours of Oct. 31 when water from nearby Onion Creek surged past its banks and rolled into their streets, filling homes within minutes.

They were caught in a historic flash flood with more force and volume of water than the city has ever seen. The flood killed at least four people – including a woman and her 8-month-old son who were swept away in their car – damaged more than 1,200 homes and sent hundreds of residents fleeing to higher ground.

A torrential rainstorm that stalled over a limestone watershed prone to flash floods led to the flooding, said Wendy Morgan, a city spokeswoman. Onion Creek rose 11 feet in 15 minutes and crested at a record 41 feet, sending walls of water into surrounding neighborhoods. The previous record for Onion Creek, set in 1869 and again in 1921, was 38 feet, Morgan said.

The recent flood had a flow rate of 120,000 cubic feet per second – nearly twice the force of Niagara Falls, she said.

"It was flattening trees. It was moving boulders. It was pushing cars around like they were pieces of paper," Morgan said. "It was a huge volume of water. There was no standing up to this flood."

"I'm still in shock," said Carmen Perez, Tirso Perez's daughter, who lost a home on the same street as her father. "It all happened within 15 minutes. It was that fast."

Immediately after the flood, the American Red Cross of Central Texas opened two shelters that accepted 60 displaced residents, said Jose Dominguez, a spokesman with the group. That number has since dwindled to 45, he said. The Red Cross has not received any state or federal funding, he said.

"The biggest need right now is permanent housing," Dominguez said. "It happened in the middle of the night. People didn't expect to be woken up to such devastation."

The water started to flow into neighborhoods around 5 a.m. Oct. 31 and intensified until around 10 a.m., Morgan said. The water came on so hard and fast that it overwhelmed two river sensors in Onion Creek, she said. Emergency response teams were dispatched to manually measure the rising water.

Earlier that morning, the National Weather Service had issued a flash flood emergency warning for the area — the first one Austin has ever received, she said.

"We knew we had a record flood coming," Morgan said. "What surprised us was the volume of water."

Emergency officials were thrown off because they had endured a drought for so long, said Toni Grasso, another Austin spokeswoman. "It overwhelmed our resources," Grasso said of the flood. "No one anticipated this."

Viola Brown was asleep the morning of the flood when a neighbor called to say water was rising against her front door. She should come to the neighbor's two-story home, the neighbor said.

Brown, 70, packed her glasses, keys and a change of clothes into a plastic bag and headed to the neighbor's house. Halfway there, a surge of water knocked her down. She crawled to a stop sign, stood and held on for the next three hours, singing church hymns and praying as the water rose to her chest, she said.

"I thought, 'This will pass soon,'" Brown said. "But it didn't."

Instead, the current strengthened, ferrying branches, uprooted trees and the tops of submerged cars past her, she said. Dogs and deer paddled frantically in the dark water around her.

Finally, an Austin police helicopter spotted her and lowered a rescue worker on a cable to her. He wrapped her in an emergency lifesaver and hoisted her to the helicopter, which flew her to higher ground. For now, Brown sleeps on an air mattress at a Red Cross shelter. She's debating whether to try to rebuild her home or move to Houston with family members. Mostly, she's happy to be alive, she said.

"God brought me through that," Brown said. "He'll bring me through something else."