Impacts of an unusually rainy season on Northeast Texas

• Flooded road between Mount Pleasant and Sugarhill COURTESY PHOTO / KATHRYN JENNETT
• Storm clouds hang over Sulphur Springs, early June COURTESY PHOTO / RICKEY DOSS

Northeast Texas has always experienced a rainy season, but many residents agree that the past few months have been particularly eventful. The region has been slammed with storm after storm, causing floods and destructive winds mowing down trees and power lines. It wreaked havoc on people’s homes, businesses, roads, and blew out power for thousands.

Carly Kovacik, Science and Operations Officer with the National Weather Service in Shreveport, confirmed that the back-to-back storms we’ve been experiencing is unusual. She explained what exactly is causing these weather patterns, “The way the global pattern is set up right now has made us susceptible to what we call ‘northwest flow aloft’, which basically is when the storm track is oriented from northwest to southeast, from the plains to the south. So we’re getting storm systems developing across the plains, and then they end up moving east- southeast towards our area. And usually with these types of thunderstorm complexes, they develop into what we call squall lines or bowing echos, where it’s a line of thunderstorms that just move over a large portion of the country.”

Kovacik also told the Tribune that the main threat tends to be damaging winds. Hail is also common, but for the most part, heavy rain and the winds is what is observed. She also explained why so many trees were gusted down during the storms, “With the soil so moist from all the rainfall, it’s easier for trees to come down. What you’d normally get from 60 mile-an-hour winds, we might get the same type of impacts with 30 to 40 mile-per-hour winds.”

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in the Mount Pleasant area, an average of 6.59 inches of rain fell in March. However, April leapt over that number, with 9.96 inches of precipitation. The last time we saw rainfall like this was April of 2016, which hit even higher at 10.59 inches. Going back further, April of 1997 saw a similar situation as this year, with 9.25 inches of average rainfall.

Daingerfield saw approximately 7 inches of rainfall in May and 9.96 in April. In 2019, April was a wet month with 11.29 inches of average rainfall. April of 2016 was also a washout at 10.74 inches.

NOAA also showed that Mount Vernon received a whopping 11.43 inches of precipitation in April and 7.68 in March. In 2016, the month of April had an average of 10.29 inches. April of 1997 showed significant rainfall, with an average of 7.74 inches.

Due to the numerous storms, damage across the counties has been extensive. Bowie-Cass Electric Cooperative, SWEPCO, and emergency management teams worked around the clock to tackle the many issues that blew through with the weather.

Doug Warner with SWEPCO communications explained the extent of downed trees and outages they’ve seen over the past few months, “Between May 26th and June 5th, at peak, I think 45 or 46-thousand people were without power over much of the SWEPCO area. We had over 800 power poles broken and 364 transformers were destroyed. Over time, we ended up with 1,300 crews.”

Many emergency management teams had to step in during these back-to-back storms. In Titus county, Jerry Ward with Titus County Emergency Management said, “April 26th is when we had the worst part of it. It hit the southern part of the county, the Tri-Lakes district, and the North Texas district where the college is. A lot of power lines down and lots of flooding. During the last few storms, we had severe flooding and had to shut down Greenhill Road for a day and a half.”

A number of residents are still struggling too. Many who live past city limits or in rural parts of the counties dealt with flooded roads. Some are still cleaning up fallen trees that have caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages.

Collin Sehi, a resident who lives between Mount Pleasant and Pittsburg, explained to the Tribune how bad the continuous storms have affected him and his family, “In May, a storm knocked a tree on our house. It also ruined our fence and bent the gutters. We were out of power for three days and water drainage was getting in somewhere. We’ve had foundation specialists, landscapers out, but the insurance company wouldn’t come. It was around $1,000 to remove the tree. The landscaping estimate to fix the drainage looks to be around $6,000.”

Though this pattern of continuous storms seems to be over for now, severe weather is a common occurrence for Northeast Texas. Sehi hopes others are luckier than him, “If it’s taught us anything, it’s just being prepared. Prepare for it, even if you think it’s not going to happen. Check on your neighbors too and look out for each other.”