A cold north wind blew through Orange County Saturday morning pushing the rushing river water out to the Gulf faster. The Cooper’s Gully pump station went full force churning the draining water into the swift Sabine and streets were clearing.
By late afternoon, most streets in Orange were clear of water. Water still stood at some places like the curve at DuPont Drive by the Port of Orange. The waters covered the soccer fields, the roadway and vacant land on the other side of street.
Deep streams were at the Green Avenue end of Simmons Drive and at the east end.
North of Interstate 10, FM 1130 was almost drained. Even though water covered the road in a section, a car could go by.
As the rushing waters for the historic Sabine River Flood of 2016 went out, reports show the most damage to homes will be in the Little Cypress area. However, no official damage survey has been made.
A funeral home director from Port Arthur surveyed Hollywood Cemetery and the caskets that had floated out of the burial faults. “It looks better than I thought it was going to be,” he said.
After Hurricane Ike, nearly 40 caskets floated out of the 140-year-old cemetery. The funeral home director said three were out of their vaults. He was checking for a tiny spot in each casket where a glass vial is hidden. The vial is supposed to hold the name of the deceased.
He said the goal is to identify the remains and get them back into their proper spots.
The grave of Grammy-winning musician and singer Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown was undisturbed. Even a jar of grape jelly that fans leave as a tribute was still on the top of his vault. The funeral director said the custom black granite marker at his grave tilted a bit, but it could be easily fixed. Brown’s coffin was one of the ones that floated out during Ike.
On the east end of Cherry Avenue in the East Town area, neighbors were out in the sunshine. One man said he got an inch or two, “but it was nothing like Ike.”
Hurricane Ike in September 2008 still holds the record for the Sabine River flooding in Orange with 9.86 feet above sea level. That flood was caused by a hurricane surge from the south coming from the Gulf of Mexico into Sabine Lake and then Cow Bayou, the Sabine River and Adams Bayou. Little flooding went north of Interstate 10. It was the worst hurricane surge in Orange’s recorded history.
The 2016 flood has set the record for river flooding form the north. The river crested on Wednesday night at 7.62 feet above sea level. Flood level is 4 feet and anything at 6 feet or higher is considered a major flood. The previous high was 6.27 feet in April 1913. Saturday evening it was down to 6.4 feet.
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