Floodwaters recede, but leave ‘a mess’ in Horseshoe Bend

After several days of flooding the rural Parker County neighborhood of Horseshoe Bend, the Brazos River was beginning its slow retreat on Tuesday.

The river crested at 26.92 feet at the Dennis gauge, a few inches less than expected.

That was also less than the 27.55 feet recorded during the June 29, 2007, flood and well below the record crest of 31.88 feet on Oct. 14, 1981.

“I watched it all night and it didn’t get to the 2007 level. It’s a mess out there,” said Horseshoe Bend resident Bart Salter, who owns 13 rental houses in the flood-prone subdivision of more than 1,000 homes.

By Salter’s estimate, about 100 homes were flooded. By 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, Salter said he noticed the river was slowly retreating.

Barring any unforeseen flooding upstream and more rain, the water should keep dropping.

The Brazos River Authority closed one floodgate upstream at Possum Kingdom Lake earlier Tuesday, which will start reducing flows.

The river authority’s spokeswoman, Judi Pierce, said floodwaters still have the potential to affect low-lying areas above and below Lake Granbury.

“It’s on its way back down,” Pierce said. “It should be out of all areas of Horseshoe Bend by Thursday morning.”

The weekend’s heavy rains were also felt in area lakes.

More rain possible

At Lake Bridgeport, the water was still rising from heavy inflows into the Wise County reservoir. The water was expected to flood the lowest house on the lake sometime Tuesday or Wednesday and the situation remained unchanged by Thursday morning, officials said. The water being released downstream was also impacting low-lying roads downstream, including parts of Bridgeport and Boyd.

“There’s just a whole lot of water coming into the lake,” said David Marshall, the Tarrant Regional Water District’s director of engineering and operations support. “It’s a difficult balance between impacting homes and not flooding roads downstream to the point where it impacts emergency services.”

The heavy flows should continue from Lake Bridgeport to Eagle Mountain Lake for a few days, but shouldn’t flood any homes at Eagle Mountain or Lake Worth.

Another line of thunderstorms is expected to move through North Texas overnight that could bring more rain, hail, damaging winds and isolated tornadoes.

“There might be some isolated flooding but it’s not going to be like what we saw over the weekend,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Jamie Gudmestad.

Mosquitoes on their way

In Horseshoe Bend, residents like Salter will be holding their breath.

If the waters seep out of the neighborhood by Thursday, Salter estimates it will take him a couple of weeks to clean up his rent houses.

But the flood damage to homes and the neighborhood’s roads will take far longer to repair. It’s been exacerbated by high-profile vehicles creating destructive wakes through the neighborhood.

In one instance, the wake from one vehicle knocked a neighbor’s propane tank off one of its stands and sent it floating through the neighborhood, Salter said.

The puddles of muddy river water left behind also mean mosquitoes will be intolerable in a week or two.

“They were already bad,” Salter said. “Now it’s going to mean you can’t be outside without bug spray on. You’ll get eaten alive. And it will stay that way until it gets hot and dry late in the summer.”

This story was originally published April 19, 2016 at 3:19 PM with the headline "Floodwaters recede, but leave ‘a mess’ in Horseshoe Bend."