HOUSTON – The White Oak Bayou burst out of its banks Monday, swollen by Beryl’s torrential rain.
KPRC 2 reporter Corley Peel and photojournalist Gil Gredinger showed how the area along the bayou at I-10 and Heights Boulevard was lapping the top of an overpass around noon.
A father and his daughter who live nearby have been monitoring the bayou levels since the rain began.
“It’s unbelievable. I mean we’ve been watching this since about midnight last night and this water bank here has risen well over 30 feet.” the dad said, adding with a break in the hurricane, he and his daughter came out to see the bayou flooding.
At 2 a.m., the water level in the bayou was at about 12-and-a-half feet. The last time the water in the White Oak Bayou rose this high was during Harvey when it peaked at 45.60′. During Alicia in 1983, the bayou rose to 22.60′.
“It kinda restores my faith in the water system here because during the last storm that we had, this filled up pretty high, but we survived a hurricane and we’re well within the safety range from our house that’s right here, so I mean we’re doing great.”
He described how on a normal day you can see walking and jogging paths that are now feet underwater.
“It’s just crazy how high the water’s gotten,” his daughter Maya told KPRC 2. “Last night it was just low under the bridge and then when we woke it was this high. I just hope the homeless people who live here got out safely.”
Our KPRC 2 crew did report seeing people under the bridge move to higher and safer ground.
Power lines were also down in the area.