In the aftermath of record-breaking floods in North Texas, residents on one particularly hard-hit street in Old East Dallas are recovering — and wondering whether the flood could have been prevented.
Few homes along the stretch of Alcalde Street between Victor and Elm streets were spared from floodwater, which rose to heights of 4 or more feet in some areas, deluging households and forcing people to abandon them.
“It was like a little Katrina, right here,” said Benito Chavez, 61, who spent much of Tuesday removing soaked belongings from his family’s home.
His sister Carmen Chavez was also there on Tuesday helping him and other family members salvage what they could.
“Everything’s destroyed, we don’t even know where to start,” she said. “You open doors, and water’s coming out from all directions.”
The area has a history of flooding, according to several longtime residents, but never to this extent, and many suspect the severity of the flood was due to more than natural causes.
They point to a construction site for the Mill Creek Drainage Relief Tunnel around the corner, one of six sites for the project. Residents maintain that drainage had been covered up during construction and that the site’s management had neglected to remove the coverings before the flood.
At least seven residents The Dallas Morning News spoke to say that early Monday morning, when the flood was at its peak, the water suddenly started receding.
“Before you knew it … all the water was gone,” said Delores Lopez, also Chavez’s sister.
Their neighbor A.B. Cardenas, a former Dallas firefighter, said “it looked mechanical … it was like somebody flushed a big toilet or something.”
At least one person reported seeing a truck drive to the construction site just before the water started receding.
City spokesperson Jenna Carpenter said the city spoke with the contractor for the tunnel project and learned that “they removed all inlet protection for the project during the rainfall event,” and that the protection would have partially restricted water from being drained.
“There are a number of construction projects in the area, and it is unknown if these projects removed stormwater inlet protection prior to the rainfall Sunday,” she said.
Council member Jesse Moreno, who used to live on Alcalde Street and visited on Monday with his staff after the flood, said the city is investigating whether the inlet coverings were removed before the rainfall began.
“We do have Dallas Water Utilities investigating that now to see if that was a factor,” he said. “With the forecast saying that we’d receive the amount of rain that we were, it was my hope that … staff or city employees should have removed those.”
The contractor for the project, Southland Holdings LLC, declined to comment about the flooding or the drainage.
Moreno himself experienced flooding while living on the street, which cost him a vehicle but never was as extreme as on Sunday night.
“It has a history of flooding so I was not at all surprised,” he said. “But this go-around seems to be much worse than previous times of flooding.”
Chavez said his neighbor woke him and his family up in the middle of the night when it became clear the downpour was turning into a flood.
The water was too high at that point for them to move his mother, who uses a wheelchair, out the front door. They headed out the back to the alley, where the water was up to his mother’s chest at that point, he said.
They made it out safely but most of their belongings are ruined, he said, including brand new mattresses and a recent load of groceries. “Had to throw it all away,” he said.
Juan Portugal, 35, said he stayed at his girlfriend’s on Sunday night when he heard about the flood warnings. He returned on Tuesday to assess his home’s damage, where he’d only been living for about a year.
Lopez approached him while he stood looking at the home, a dark line visible several feet above the porch marking how high the water had risen. “If you need anything, we’re right next door,” she said.
Moreno said there will be a neighborhood cleanup on Thursday to help people remove debris from their homes. He added that he wants to ensure that code compliance doesn’t cite anyone in the area for bulk trash being left out and that his staff is working to provide affected residents as many resources as possible through the city and foundations, including groceries, bedding, school supplies and housing.
“I want to thank our East Dallas neighbors for stepping up … even though their homes weren’t directly affected,” he said.
