Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 22, 1990 TAG: 9005220422
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CYNTHIA MITCHELL COX NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It started May 1 with torrents of rain in northern Texas and southeast Oklahoma that fell at inches-per-hour rates. And when that rain overwhelmed basins of the Trinity, Red and Arkansas Rivers, it headed on a perilous course southward that has brought the worst devastation in decades to Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Louisiana.
Fourteen people have died and crops totaling $1 billion have been wiped out.
In Texas, floodwaters cover a third of the state's wheat crop, 66 percent of the oats and half the hay. Thousands of people have been evacuated, and nearly as many homes have sustained heavy water damage. The toll so far is close to $1 billion in all four states, with Texas bearing the brunt. At least 38 counties in Texas, 20 in Arkansas and 13 in Oklahoma have been declared federal disaster areas and are eligible for federal relief. Louisiana has applied for 11 parishes.
"In this region, we've had more than double the average annual amount of rainfall year-to-date, so the ground was very saturated. All the streams and tributaries had a lot of water in them already," said P.J. Spaul, an Army Corps of Engineers official in Little Rock, Ark. "Then came rainfall that pelted very large areas in Oklahoma and Texas - 6 to 14 inches in very short periods of times - and that was the rain that triggered the flooding."
And it's not over yet. Thousands of residents along the Trinity River and its lakes in southeast Texas, a popular vacation and retirement spot and the state's agricultural hub, still haven't seen it crest. Likewise, farmers in central and southeast Louisiana are waiting for the Red River to crest as it courses south from Shreveport and backs up bayous and tributaries.
Moreover, if the area gets more rain, there's nowhere for it to go. It will take weeks for the rivers to recede to pre-flood levels.
It's that aspect that has made this flood such a horrific anomaly in these states' vast experience with flooding.
This region "has flooded since time immemorial," said John Jarosich, a spokesman for the Trinity River Authority, which oversees that river's reservoirs and dams. "It's going to last for a long time."
It's the amounts of water the authority is having to release from Lake Livingston in southeast Texas - a 600 billion-gallon reservoir that provides drinking water to Houston with no flood storage capacity - that has caused the most severe flooding over hundreds of square miles of highly populated, pine-tree-covered flatland. It's now at a record-setting flow rate akin to half the cascade of Niagara Falls - about 100,000 cubic feet per second.
That pace is expected to continue for the next several days. Then it will slow, relatively, to 50,000 cubic feet per second for the next 30 days, and probably will continue at a rate high enough to cause low-level flooding throughout summer and into fall.
People in the numerous communities below Lake Livingston are lining up to sign petitions to sue the authority, and lawyers are circling the area like vultures. They believe the authority could have prevented such massive flooding by lowering the lake's level several weeks ago in anticipation of spring flooding.
"You can't blame people for being outraged," said Liberty County Judge Dempsie Henley. "Their lives are at stake."
Since early spring, Liberty County officials say they have asked the authority to develop a program to lower lake levels. On April 26, an angry crowd of 400 residents packed a public hearing. Authority officials say they can't win - early release would cause flooding that wouldn't otherwise occur and would leave them vulnerable to lawsuits, too.
"What is the problem?" asked a frustrated Jarosich. "The fact that the river floods or the fact that people live in that flood plain? It's a big issue and we're getting a lot of heat, but quite frankly it just comes with the territory."
In Arkansas, the corps is getting blamed for its management of the reservoirs there and in Oklahoma, which control the Arkansas, Red and White Rivers. Two weeks ago, farmers in southern Arkansas lambasted the agency in a meeting with Gov. Bill Clinton. And last week, Sen. David Pryor, D-Ark., asked the General Accounting Office to look into the way the corps regulates water levels in the region.
But David Haun, the corps's spokesman in Little Rock, said the agency is unfazed. "There was a lot of damage and some very severe flooding in many parts of the state, but there were no human fatalities.
"That shows a degree of luck and the grace of God, but also you have to factor in the pre-planning and the response of all the involved agencies," he said.
In northwest Louisiana and in Arkansas and Oklahoma, the rivers have started to recede, and many are cleaning up.
Just a quarter-mile from John's Store - a concrete-block grocery, liquor store and gas station at the corner of Highway 1 about 50 miles south of Shreveport - the churning, clay-colored Red River makes a 45-degree turn just over the levee. But that hasn't fazed John Mondello, 59. As his neighbors hauled truckloads of cattle, furniture and even alligators from nearby farms, he didn't move anything from his sprawling ranch-style house.
"I didn't in '45 and I didn't in '58 and I didn't in '68 and '86, so why should I now?" he asked.
by CNB