City, county and state highway crews were out Thursday morning putting up barricades on flooded streets. A deluge of rain, beginning a little before 6 a.m., dropped more than three inches in three hours. After another rainstorm in the afternoon, a total of 6 to 8 inches of rain were reported across the county within about nine hours. Some neighborhoods received more rain.
The Texas Department of Transportation closed the intersection of Highway 62 and the eastbound Interstate 10 frontage road. People reported seeing 18-wheel truck rigs stuck in water in the area. In addition, the Simmons Drive area at the interstate frontage roads.
Orange Public Works Director Jim Wolf said he is fearful that a couple of houses on Allie Payne Road west of Highway 87 got water inside. The water comes when vehicles, especially pickup trucks, drive through the flooded street and send waves that move water into the houses.
“We put up barricades and still they go around them,” Wolf said.
Mostly the usual streets that flood in Orange during heavy rains flooded again. “We get a lot of rain in a very short time, the streets flood. Wait a while and it will go down.”
City Manager Jerry Jones in Bridge City said the rain gauge at city hall had 6.5 inches. City workers put up barricades on several streets to try to stop vehicles from making waves to put water into buildings. He said they had reports of water getting inside one house, but there could have been more.
By late afternoon, most of the water had drained off, he said.
Pinehurst City Administrator Robbie Hood called out department heads, the police department and the volunteer fire department to put out barricades. He said the worst area was on 41st Street along the former Bancroft School.
He said the city had “a lot more flooding than normal.” He’s going to talk to the city council about some of the problems, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers not allowing drainage in some protected areas.
Pinehurst relies on ditches and canals except on Strickland Drive, which the state maintains. That highway has underground drainage. Hood said he plans for the city to eventually get underground drainage.
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