Residents of Alice, enduring recurrent severe flooding, voice frustration as city officials work to address inadequate drainage systems in the wake of heavy storms.
ALICE, Texas — The city of Alice also felt the storm as heavy rain poured in early Thursday morning.
Adan Perez has lived on the same street for nearly seven years. He said flooding is a common issue in this area.
“Oh, it gets really bad. Uh, this whole area, this whole intersection right here, it’s, I’m saying underwater probably a good 3 feet,” Perez said. “It stays on for a long time, for about a good 3 to 4 hours before it recedes, you know, see, but it’s pretty bad.”
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Down the street, Corina and Daniel Torres have lived in the area for decades. They’ve made changes to their home to stop the water from coming inside.
“It has gotten worse, not only worse, but I’ve seen it. I’ve seen water go up down the street. Um-hum. And houses over there flooded. And this one more. I had to get the concrete around my house. Keep it from going inside the house,” Daniel said.
City Manager Michael Esparza said certain areas are more prone to flooding, but the city is working on it.
“It’s very difficult to fix an area that was developed 50, 60 years ago. Right now, if we were gonna develop that area, there’d have to be a drainage study done and flood studies done, you know, when you do new subdivisions. Back then it wasn’t,” Esparza said.
Esparza urges residents to stay weather aware as more storms move in after this morning’s heavy rain.
“Well, anywhere from 3 to 4 inches. Some localized areas it was up to 6. So, you know, an inch and a half in an hour is quite a bit just in an hour. And there were some places that got up to almost double that,” Esparza said.
Before we left, public works crews arrived to clear drainage.
“So now they’re finally getting it cleaned out and hopefully we won’t have that problem tomorrow morning,” Perez said.
Officials say crews will continue to work in flood-prone areas.