Officials: No major increase in flooding despite levee problems

Water diverted to the regional floodway system continued to flow out into the Laguna Madre on Saturday morning.

The rushing water flooded sections of two roadways east of Sebastian — a community of about 1,900 people located just off U.S. 77, nine miles south of Raymondville.

Still, despite minor levee problems south of Weslaco and near Santa Monica, officials reported no major increase in flooding.

“Things could always change upstream, and we really encourage people to stay on top of National Weather Service reports, but things are looking fairly stable right now,” said Sally Spener, spokeswoman for the International Boundary and Water Commission — the binational agency charged with flood control along the Rio Grande.

Hidalgo County officials said flooding and levee conditions in the county remained mostly unchanged Saturday from the prior day. Mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders in Los Ebanos, Peñitas and La Joya remained in effect.

Spener did note a minor problem south of Weslaco, where a levee valve was leaking water into a nearby neighborhood. As of Saturday afternoon, workers had sealed the leak but were still pumping water out of the area in an effort to keep the flooding from reaching the nearby homes.

Though the water behind Falcon Dam has reached record levels, the amount of water flowing through the floodway is still well within the capacity of the regional levee system, Spener said.

Even so, Harlingen’s McKelvey Park on the Arroyo Colorado looked like a reservoir Saturday — so much so that people were calling it Lake McKelvey. Many residents were enjoying a unique evening in the park.

A couple dozen people lined the western bank, some with cameras but most with fishing poles. A few trees poked out from the water and a young man was seen swimming toward them in the middle of the stream.

Victor Hernandez, a Harlingen native, brought his two sons and fishing gear.

“We come out here every now and then for the kids to play and we’ve never seen this much water ever,” said Hernandez, 45, a salesman for a Harlingen outdoor power equipment company.

Roberto Saldaña Jr., 26, of Harlingen, normally fishes at Arroyo City. But he took advantage of the high water Saturday.

“This is the first time in a long time that you get a chance to fish when the water is so close to the park,” he said. “Yesterday two different gentlemen caught two alligator gar.

“It’s kind of neat, instead of driving all the way up to Arroyo City. The only bad thing is the mosquitoes.”

High water levels in Willacy County continued to flood portions of Farm-to-Market Road 507 and FM 1420 that bridge the floodway running south of Sebastian, through Santa Monica and out into the Laguna Madre.

Robert Cruz, 53, parked his truck near the flooded stretch of FM 507 Saturday afternoon, fishing pole in hand, hoping to catch some alligator gar swimming in the floodwaters.

“The last time I saw it like this, I was 11 years old,” Cruz said, recalling the tremendous flooding in the wake of 1967’s Hurricane Beulah.

“I’ve been watching this pretty closely,” Cruz said, noting the flooding seemed to have leveled off over the past day.

Saturday, a leaking levee valve diverted attention to the Santa Monica area just east of FM 1420, where crews worked throughout the day to pump water away from a string of homes, said Willacy County Sheriff Larry Spence and the county’s emergency management coordinator, Frank Torres.

The county called on the IBWC and the state division of emergency management Saturday morning for help in pumping out the area and fixing the leak, Torres said.

“It’s not really a cause for alarm,” Spence said. “We’re hoping to get it fixed within hours.”

Spence said deputies went out and warned the nearby families of possible flooding.

The IBWC expressed concern Saturday that water diverted through the floodway wasn’t draining into the Laguna Madre as rapidly as had been expected, leaving prolonged high water levels near the Santa Monica area.

“It’s a little bit of a backwater condition out there right now,” Spener said. “That’s one of the areas that we’ve been keeping a close eye on. … It’s just not draining as well as we had hoped, and we’re still looking into that.”

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Monitor staff writer Lindsay Machak contributed to this report.

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Michael Barajas is a reporter for the Valley Morning Star in Harlingen.