Clean-up efforts begin following flood in Texas

Tuesday, hundreds of people evacuated when waterways in Burnet and Llano counties climbed to almost 40 feet, flooding homes in Kingsland and Marble Falls. 

“It was so dark, we couldn’t tell where the water was, but we were standing here with our coffee and a canoe floated by between the deck and the tree,” said Gloria Mays who lives along Lake Marble Falls. 

“So we just packed up a couple of outfits for each of us and some food and diapers,” said Mary Kelly Green, who left her home behind when the water started rising.  

Two days later, when they returned home, they realized just how much water made it inside. “It looks like to us, maybe four feet, four and a half feet, maybe five feet, but the house is toast,” said Green.  

“Oh, it would’ve been over my head, absolutely,” Mays said.  

Almost everything left behind was ruined. “We had probably about four inches, at least four inches, of mud, so everything that was five feet and under was covered,” said Mays.  

Luckily, thousands of people in the community were standing by to help clean out flooded homes. 

“So we go into the house with teams, and when we go into the home, we get all the mud off the floors, scrape it out, if there’s carpet we pull it out, begin to get anything that was soaked out of the way,” said Todd Hickingbottom, executive pastor at First Baptist Church Marble Falls. 

“We’ve had extremely generous people coming by, bringing food, bringing water, helping out,” Mays said.  

“It’s amazing, these are people who we’ve never met,” said Green.  

While several people said their homes likely won’t survive the flood, they are grateful they made it out alive. “It was hard, but we prayed about it, and it’s stuff, so we’re going to be fine,” Mays said.