Flash Flooding in Texas, August 23 to 24, 1998

By nightfall on the 23rd, the central low pressure associated with the remainder of Charley had indeed stalled near Del Rio. A second seige of devastating rain fell between 9 pm and 2 am, producing over 10 inches by midnight. The intense rain was again in a "feeder band", oriented north to south over Del Rio and extending up the Devils River to above Bakers Crossing, eventually drifting slowly eastward to the Sycamore and Pinto Creek drainages. Heavy rain began falling in Del Rio at 9 pm, and produced 10 inches of rain by midnight. In all, nearly 18 inches of rain fell between 8 am Sunday morning and 6 am Monday morning. This is approximately the annual rainfall for Del Rio. Explosive flash flooding redeveloped in the city, washing away homes and vehicles near 11:30 pm that evening. San Felipe Creek again rose out of banks, this time rising to several feet deep in homes in a very few minutes. The flood was so rapdi that people were cut off in sections of the flood plain and escaped to the roofs of their homes. The Creek, several hundred yards wide in places, moved downstream like a freight train, destroying and pulverizing anything in its path. Rescues were desperate as neighborhood citizens, the Sheriffs Department, Police Department, Fire Department, Border Patrol agents, DPS, and several law enforcement personnel mobilized rapidly. Dozens of residential blocks of homes were left unrecognizable by the flood wave. Whole blocks of residential areas were left as empty lots, with the asphalt of their streets completely gone, and covered in debris. The scene was comparable to an F4 or F5 tornado.The County Sheriff reported that he and several Border Patrol agents formed a human chain at one point to try to reach a family stranded on the roof of a home in the creek. As they entered the fast flow, the turbulence broke apart their chain, sweeping all of them downstream. Somehow they all survived. In another case, a Sheriff's deputy lifted a paraplegic lady on his shoulder and waded out of chest high water with her. The powerful, turbulent flow knocked her husband from his feet, and the deputy, with a woman over his shoulder, still was able to reach out and grasp the husband, rescuing him. The fact that only nine drowned in the devastating flood in a testimony to the excellent rescue work by the aforementioned. Six persons remain unaccounted for.Another area of widespread residential flooding was in the extreme northern part of Del Rio. Poor drainage in a very subtle draw flooded over 10 square blocks of homes up to three to four feet. As the flow moved downstream a mile or two below Highway 90, it swept some mobile homes from their pads.