Shelby County deals with unusual weather patterns to start the summer

Shelby County deals with unusual weather patterns to start the summer Annika Bloys Wed, 06/05/2024 - 20:32 Image

• Deep East Texas Cooperative took the picture from a helicopter while surveying the damage. DETCO | The Light and Champion
• Karen Evans took this photo on June 4, 2024, of her flooded pasture looking up to her house. Karen Evans | The Light and Champion

Body

Rainfall this year has been nothing short of extreme. Shelby County received more rain than the entire month of June in 2023. To put it into perspective, the National Weather Service reported that in May 2023, Shelby County received a mere .05 inches of rain.

According to the National Weather Service, there were .21 inches in June 2021, .01 inches in June 2022, and .05 inches in June 2023. With no data available for June 2020, the combined amount of rainfall for 2019-2023 is still only .56 inches. That is .91 inches less cumulatively overall than just the first four days of June.

The relentless rain over the past several weeks has wreaked havoc across Shelby County causing flooding, downed power lines, and extensive property damage. Dedicated linemen, working tirelessly on outages, face unprecedented challenges, overloaded, overworked, and exhausted from long hours and sleepless nights.

Record flooding has made access to power lines extremely difficult and dangerous, requiring a helicopter to survey damages in some areas. Some power lines with trees are in flooded areas, requiring boats to access them for repairs.

While outages have significantly decreased, some are still without power. Power Companies may finally be able to catch up on repairs from damages the storms caused and restore power 100%.