Flooding swamped 64 homes in Everman. Could the disaster have been prevented?

On Friday, six inches of rain battered the city of Everman. When the downpour stopped, 64 homes had been inundated with water. Nearly a week later, the city was still in an official state of disaster.

Many residents say a creek clogged with debris caused the flooding because neither the city nor the county managed it.

“We may be small. We may be little. This city may have not a lot of money, but Tarrant County has a lot of money and we’re in Tarrant County.” resident Jerry Mims said. “We deserve answers. They need to fix this creek.”

The city, however, says the flooding was not caused by the creek and was unpreventable.

Mayor Ray Richardson said there has been a lot of misconception about what caused the flooding.

“The creek is not clogged. We got six and a half inches of rain in an hour. This was an act of God. The creek could have been four times the size and it still would have caused damage,” he said.

On Sept. 21, up to five feet of floodwater rushed into houses closest to the creek on Christie Avenue. Other homes as far as a block away had furniture and floors ruined by water seeping through the doors.

“They may not have been able to stop some houses from flooding, but it should not have been this bad,” another resident, Samuel Lewis, said.

Residents like Mims said a combination of factors caused the flooding in the area to be worse than it should have been. He cites recent construction nearby, the lack of retention ponds and a clogged creek as contributors to the devastation.

The creek

Mims and other residents argue the clogging of the creek impeded its flow, causing the water to rise faster.

Vicki Waters, who has lived in her home on Christie Avenue since 1973, said the creek is always clogged with debris. She said a cement factory that closed in the ‘80s built a road across the creek with culverts underneath it. The culverts, however, are easily clogged, damming the creek when it rains.

Mayor Ray Richardson said the city removed the bridge that crossed the creek years ago.

“Corrections have taken place, we’ve made some changes,” he said. “When our guys see debris, they pick it up.”

Mims said the concrete factory, Everman Corporation, also dumped cement into the creek, impeding water flow.

On Wednesday, a visual survey of the creek showed there was at least one fallen tree and a large amount of small debris caught in surrounding trees. Blocks of cement were built into the bed of the creek in several parts behind Christie Avenue. The cement did not stretch over the entire creek.

The other issue, Waters said, was the actual cleaning of the creek. Residents seemed to have different understandings of whose responsibility it is to keep it clean.

Waters said the city should be cleaning out the area. Mims agreed.

However, Craig Spencer, the emergency management director and also chief of police, said much of the creek is actually owned by the residents.

“The residents with property own part of the creek so they’re responsible for it,” he said. “Code enforcement goes out and makes sure there isn’t any large amount of debris in the creek.”

He added that the city does go out to the creek twice a year to clean any major debris, but even then workers can’t access certain parts because some of it is private property.

More importantly, Spencer said he does not think debris in the creek contributed to the recent flooding.

“I don’t think there was anything in the creek that would have contributed to the flooding factor,” he said. “It was just too much for the creek to handle.”

Richardson agreed.

“The creek is not clogged,” he said. “Rain from Fort Worth runs into the city. Within a couple hours, we had 8 inches of rain. It has to go somewhere. Unfortunately, it went into houses.”

Nonetheless, Spencer said the city is planning a massive clean-up to remove debris to “help mitigate any issues in the future.”

“What we’re going to have to look into is geo-surveying, development, purchasing the creek and doing some mitigation on it,” he said. “That would be a daunting task for the city. It’s owned by so many folks.”

On Tuesday, Mims and other residents who own creek property received a letter from the city. The letter included a copy of a city ordinance stating that if a resident owns property where a drain way is located, it is their responsibility to “prevent the diversion or impoundment of water outside the confines of the drainage way.”

Mims said the letter frustrated him.

“The first thing I asked the city manager was where is my access to there? The problem is the trees are 50 feet tall. How do you get back there to get the trees back there?” he asked. “How do people with no access there get there? It’s not their responsibly to keep this clean.”

Runoff and floodplains

On Wednesday, Mims, who lives on Langley Avenue on the other side of the creek, handed out fliers to neighbors. The fliers showed a map highlighting Stallion Pointe Apartments.

Stallion Pointe Apartments, built in 2016, is less than a half-mile away and about 30 feet uphill from Christie Avenue and the surrounding streets.

Mims said the nearly 700,000-square-foot apartment complex caused a much higher volume of runoff into the creek than it could handle.

Based on his 17 years as a construction worker, Mims said he thinks a retention pond should have been built at the new apartment complex to decrease runoff.

Stallion Pointe Apartments are technically Fort Worth property - the Fort Worth City Plan Commission approved the project in 2015.

Mims said Bishop Elementary School, built about a half-mile from Christie Avenue, also increased runoff amounts.

Waters said she has been in her house since the early ‘70s and never had flooding in it. Another resident, Veronica Ditto, moved in in 1974 and said this was the worst flooding she’s seen.

“It is a nightmare,” she said as she and her family pulled flooring and ruined furniture from her house on Wednesday.

Mims said the only explanation for the flooding is these recent developments.

“My neighbors have been here 50 years and they’ve never had water come into their house. The only thing new is those new apartments, that new school and the apartment they’re building,” he said. “We deserve answers.”

Going forward

If another round of torrential rain hit the area today, Spencer said, the flooding would probably happen again.

“That’s entirely too much rain for this area to handle. That particular area is all within a flood plain and that is per the emergency management folks,” he said.

Richardson said they are looking into various solutions to prevent future flooding. He said he’s been writing to government officials for help with the problem.

For residents hit by flooding, each day has been spent tearing up floors, throwing out furniture and hoping no more rain comes.

“This is going to affect us for a long time,” Lewis said. “We’re down to bare concrete in most of the house at this point.”

On Wednesday, some houses were boarded up, deemed unfit to live in. Others were still being stripped, groups of people walking in and out of open garages and front doors to toss armfuls of drywall and furniture into dumpsters.

“I’ve seen little kids down here crying because they lost everything,” Mims said. “When it floods into your house, you don’t just lose your furniture, you lose everything. You lose your dignity.”

This story was originally published September 28, 2018 at 10:07 AM with the headline "Flooding swamped 64 homes in Everman. Could the disaster have been prevented?."