‘You can’t plan for it’: Homes in Gatesville damaged by flooding

GATESVILLE, Texas (KWTX) - The historic flooding left the community of Gatesville with a giant mess to clean up. Crews spent Monday repairing damaged roads while homeowners picked up debris from their yards.

Linda Harris lives on Leon Street, which was underwater, and she hasn’t seen floods this bad since 2007. Due to the high water levels she, like many other homeowners on Leon Street, had to evacuate.

”I didn’t even know what to take, Harris said. “I didn’t think about deodorant. I didn’t think about my blood pressure pills.”

After spending Sunday night in a hotel, she returned home on Monday.

”It’s definitely scary because you don’t know what the river’s going to do and you can’t plan for it,” Harris said.

Although the water has receded, Harris’s backyard is still completely underwater, and many of her belongings have floated away.

”All of my new garden that I was putting in that all washed away, there’s nothing left,” Harris said.

She’ll need to replace everything and redo her entire driveway.

”Hopefully I’ll be able to do that,” Harris said. “I’m about to go in for a knee surgery, so it’s kind of hard for me to get in and out of all of that stuff, but I’ll make it.”

Coryell County is encouraging everyone to report damages to the Texas Department of Emergency Management.

”There’s a TDEM website that you can go to if you have personal or property loss and you can report your home, livestock, any of your personal items,” Coryell County Commissioner Kyle Matthews said.

The county issued a disaster declaration due to the significant amount of damage left behind.

”Starting on the west side of the county, with Cow House, it probably saw the most amount of damage,” commissioner Matthews said. “There’s about 7 bridges damaged between county bridges, TXDOT bridges and low water crossings.”

It’s a long road ahead for Harris, but thankfully nothing inside her home was damaged.

”You know I prayed for a miracle for the water to not get inside my house and it didn’t, so it worked,” Harris said.

Harris didn’t have flood insurance because she couldn’t afford it, so replacing all of her belongings will have to come out of her own pocket.