By Joel Langton
The 830 Times
In August 1998, torrential rains unleashed a devastating flood on Del Rio and Val Verde County, overwhelming creeks, streets and homes.
Much of San Felipe was underwater, and 830 Times news editor Karen Gleason found herself helping a sheriff’s office team document damage as they prepared for a visit from then Texas governor and future president George W. Bush.
As Gleason watched the Kerrville tragedy, it brought memories of wading through the San Felipe community, and the memories came rushing back, like they did for many others.
Gleason opened a vein and poured many of those memories out, and many readers responded with memories of their own.
This is a short collection of memories Facebook users shared. The names included in this story are Facebook display names.
Bea Vallejo recalled the harrowing rescue of elderly neighbors. “We found them in waist- and neck-deep water,” she said.
A local man, Raul Noyola, along with his brother-in-law and nephew, used a boat to search for people in danger. Firefighters helped rescue an elderly woman who had awoken to floodwaters reaching her bed. “She was too scared to move until we showed up,” Vallejo said.
At the Del Rio Civic Center, volunteers met the flood’s human toll face-to-face. “The nurse who taught at DRHS and I washed the feet of those coming in,” Vallejo recalled. “The look in their eyes was distant… they didn’t know if they’d go home to find everything destroyed, full of mud.”
Help came to Del Rio from across Texas. Missionaries from First Methodist Church of Houston assisted in cleanup efforts.
Jackie Calderon, whose husband was the choir director at that church, had just purchased a hotel next to Brown Plaza. She had been remodeling it when the flood hit. “It was as if a bomb had exploded in the hotel,” Vallejo said.
Stephanie Dwl was a teenager, working at Pizza Hut. “We continued to work using bottled water,” she said.
Trucks from Uvalde and San Antonio brought desperately needed water and cleaning supplies. However, initially, they couldn’t reach Del Rio and could only get as far as Sycamore Creek.
Still, reaching Sycamore Creek to distribute aid felt “like an eternity.” But amidst the heartbreak, Vallejo remembers feeling deeply blessed. “Yehoshua provided for us abundantly… we are so grateful to everyone who helped us help each other.”
For Javier Arredondo, the flood became personal. He was part of the rescue and recovery team that night and in the difficult days after. “These last few days have brought back bad memories,” he said. “So similar to what Del Rio went through—but with much more loss of life.”
Ruben Meza, a TxDOT employee at the time, was dispatched to U.S. Highway 277 and 377. “The rain was so hard you couldn’t see the road lines,” he recalled. While returning from a flooded county line, Meza and others used a dump truck to rescue people from floating cars. “We pulled them out and brought them in,” he said. Later, he radioed his boss to warn about road conditions. “He didn’t believe me. We got stranded—but safe—around 3 a.m. Some of those people could’ve been saved sooner.”
Freddy Rodriguez, like many others, summed up the memory simply: “Like it was yesterday.”
Local man Richard d’Avy said it was almost beyond his comprehension, and the experience brought awe as well as sorrow.
“Awed by the forces of nature,” he said. “I had never seen anything like it.”
The writer can be reached at JoelALangton@Gmail.com .
