A large storm cell headed south toward Waco on June 14. As the front reached the city that evening, it did something unexpected.
It slammed the brakes, “dumping rain almost in a stationary area,” said Ryan Dirker, the Waco area’s emergency management coordinator. He said heavy rain fell in “the exact wrong place” – the narrow watersheds of Waco’s urban creeks.
For example, 4.5 inches of rain were recorded at Waco High School that evening, the most recorded anywhere in the city.
The city expects an after-action report on the flash flooding in coming weeks will yield lessons for emergency responders and future stormwater drainage projects.
Some of those projects could be funded by a stormwater drainage fee that the city approved in 2021. The typical monthly fee for residents is $5.55 but is expected to increase by 20 cents in the coming budget year.
Portions of Flat Creek near Hewitt breached the banks on June 14 and flooded Interstate 35, briefly severing a major regional traffic artery. Across town, Waco Creek — a peaceful brook most days — surged some 15 feet near 25th Street, inundating multiple businesses.
Several high water rescues ensued, all successful. While the June flash flood spotlighted the effectiveness of Waco’s emergency first responders, it also underscored the city’s structural vulnerability to storms, even relatively small ones like June’s. “It was certainly a learning experience, that’s for sure,” Dirker said.
Information overload
Dirker’s team at the Waco-McLennan County Office of Emergency Management watched carefully as the storm approached June 14 and prepared accordingly. The city’s swiftwater rescue team was assisted by counterparts from Texas A&M Task Force 1 and Freestone County.
In a two-hour period, the Waco Fire Department alone responded to around 50 storm-related calls, Dirker said. The Robinson Fire Department and the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office were also involved with incident response. Dirker said the sheer amount of information coming from first responders, partner agencies and 911 dispatchers was the main challenge during the flood.
“This was a massive, complex incident,” he added. “It’s not like we failed in that regard, but we could certainly improve how we amalgamate all that data as it comes in to display it in a more useful way.” In an office dedicated to emergency response, the key measure of success is a simple one: “We didn’t lose anybody,” Dirker said.
Building flood resilience
Twentieth century reservoirs such as Lake Whitney and Lake Waco have reduced the risk from serious flooding on McLennan County’s major rivers. The same can’t be said about the small creeks running through innercity Waco and its suburbs.
The city has historically seen damaging flash floods along its creeks, including Waco Creek, which flooded parts of Baylor University in 1989, along with less extreme flood events in the last two years.
And as more of the city is covered with cement and asphalt, a greater share of stormwater is shunted into Waco’s creeks. Dirker said the June flooding was concentrated along two of them. One was Waco Creek and its tributaries, which run under 25th Street and Washington Avenue and continue along Franklin Avenue through Baylor University.
The other was Flat Creek at the border of Hewitt and Waco, which runs east toward WC Tractor Waco before crossing I-35.
The Waco City Council approved a drainage fee in 2021 to begin funding long-term stormwater solutions for known problem areas throughout the city. The city’s stormwater department requested more than $18 million to finance over 50 drainage repair projects through 2031, according to last year’s city budget.
Charles Leist, Waco’s director of infrastructure services, said the next three to four months will determine which of those projects are funded for the next fiscal year.
“We’re going to start going down through that list … and evaluating ‘Was somebody injured or was somebody’s property damaged or destroyed?’ Then we’re moving those projects to the top,” Leist said.
Additionally, the city is seeking more than $20 million in federal funding for stormwater infrastructure on Primrose Creek by La Salle Avenue. But the portion of Flat Creek that engulfed I-35 is under the Texas Department of Transportation’s jurisdiction, Leist said.
Locations the city identified for stormwater projects, he added, “are not associated with the Flat Creek interstate issue that we saw in this last deluge. The interstate and that drainage system is managed by TxDOT.”
The area where Flat Creek intersects with I-35 is categorized as a flood risk in Federal Emergency Management Agency 100-year flood maps. The June storm was much less intense than what Waco could expect during a 100-year storm event, which means a storm that has a 1% likelihood of occurring in a given year, Dirker said.
A viral video by a stranded I-35 motorist during the flood was taken at a risk area highlighted in the federal flood analysis.
Damage assessment
While the June floods did not set a record, their impact was real for some Wacoans. Harold Alexander woke up the next day to debris piled against his vintage shop, Artier Resale, located along Waco Creek at the intersection of Washington Avenue and 25th Street. Water and mud came up about 8 inches inside, destroying books and some merchandise. “(After the storm) I had 14 people in here cleaning the floors and removing anything that was any wet at all,” Alexander said.
Creek water surged into The Carpenter’s Daughter on 25th Street as well, while several Waco-area homeowners described water and flood damage in a recent story in the Waco Tribune-Herald. Preliminary damage totals for city property exceed $600,000, according to a statement to the Bridge from public works officials.
The total includes pothole repair, resurfacing roads, vegetation management and renting equipment to perform work. Damage is also being assessed along Waco Creek and in the Texas Central Industrial Park along Jewell Drive, the statement said.
