(Seguin) — The Seguin City Council is getting an earful from residents who were flooded out of their homes during the recent rainfall in the area.
Several flood victims publicly spoke during Tuesday night’s meeting of the Seguin City Council.
All of the residents live in areas along Baxter Street north of the railroad tracks, and in another area along Leonard Lane west of the HEB shopping center.
Veronica Sauceda lives on Baxter Street and says the water came up into her home. She told the council they don’t have money to make repairs and questioned future help.
“Will Guadalupe County be on the FEMA list so that we can get help?” said Sauceda.
Melissa De La Garza spoke on behalf of her parents who live on Leonard Lane. De La Garza says this is a problem that has been years in the making. She says they have long complained that the storm drains in the area were not being properly maintained.
“We were devastated when we received a call from our neighbors stating that the water was quickly rising and it had already entered our homes. We had only been gone for about 36 minutes when we received the phone call. I’m sure for some, this may have come as a surprise, but for my husband and I, it was something we prayed would never happen because when we shared concerns with high water in our area, we were made to feel as if our concerns didn’t matter,” said De La Garza.
Shayna Flores also lives on Leonard Lane. She says they understand that the rainfall was heavy that day, but she says the problem was made worse because water had nowhere to go and because the drains were not properly maintained.
“We have kept being told this is an act of God. The act of God is the rain, but the act of God is not the negligence of the maintenance of these drains, and that has now caused flooding in our home. I have lived in the same home for over 40 years. This has never happened – ever. Has our home flooded? It has come up the backyard. It has been reported. Nothing has ever been done. Those drains are never maintained,” said Flores.
Armando Rodriguez is also one of the neighbors who lives on Leonard Lane. He was out of town during the storm but returned to find his home flooded.
“We had over a foot of water inside of our house, and we were out of town at the time. We have a miniature Dachshund and a Chihuahua that were trapped inside the house, and we had to get them rescued. Luckily, we had some really good friends that went in there and got them. They didn’t know if they were going to get electrocuted or anything else — if it would have made it up to the sockets and everything on the walls,” said Rodriguez.
City Manager Steve Parker says the city has already requested help from the federal government, and they hope that assistance will soon be on the way to help people recover from that flooding.
“We are trying desperately to get a federal designation for, flood relief so we can get these homes repaired, because it is very important to us,” said Parker.
Parker says they are also trying to be proactive when it comes to drainage problems across the city. He says they have dedicated staff to work on drainage maintenance projects. He says it will take some time, but they are actively working to improve the overall drainage in the city.
“We’ve been in the process of developing a drainage utility. Before, there was no funding available for drainage projects, and over the last two years, we’ve been developing that plan. We’re working on drainage master plan projects and then there’s got to be that cost benefit analysis –which projects with the amount of money that we have do we do first? Then actually having maintenance personnel (to do the job). Right now, we’re pulling people off other teams, street maintenance and so forth to go fix drainage (issues). We are going to have teams that are actually dedicated (to the work), and that’s all they do is work on drainage utility projects in the future and make sure they’re maintained,” said Parker.
Parker says even if all the drainage systems are functioning, there may still be times when they could be overwhelmed by Mother Nature.
“Unfortunately, it is a major rain event that happened. Not much water probably coming in as you know, compared to Kerrville. They said there was so much water coming over, (like) Niagara Falls in an entire day. Those things happen. Sometimes, it just happens in the wrong spot at the wrong time. No drainage infrastructure can guarantee that you’re not going to ever flood, but we’re going to make sure, we do our best to make sure that we’re going to minimize that to the best degree possible, “said Parker.
City of Seguin and Guadalupe County officials have requested state and federal help for people who suffered damage during the Fourth of July weekend flood events.
The council took no formal action Tuesday night, because the item was not on the agenda. Staff said it will continue to work to find solutions to help those people affected by the flooding.