Environment
Shocking Footage Shows “1-in-1,000-Year Flood” Wreck Dallas
Hundreds of water rescues in Dallas as record-breaking rainfall and flash floods rip through the area—and it’s still not over.
Record-breaking rainfall in Dallas, Texas caused flash floods to rip through the area late on Sunday (August 21) overnight and into Monday (August 22), sweeping up cars and trucks along the highway as some areas have now received 15 inches of rain.
The previous record for Dallas on Aug. 21 was 2.25 inches, which had been set back in 1919. On Sunday, the area received a total of 3.53 inches of rain, including 3.01 inches at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in just an hour.
On Monday, 5.49 inches of rain fell in the morning, shattering the old record for Aug. 22 of 2.47 inches set in 1916.
A shocking video posted to Twitter by Dallas Texas TV shows vehicles on a local highway as a river of water rushes down the roadway, submerging cars along the way and leading to people getting rescued.
The stunning footage even shows some vehicles being totally swallowed.
This month is the second-wettest August on record for Dallas-Fort Worth so far and already the wettest since October 2018.
Up to this point for August 2022, the Dallas-Fort Worth area has seen 9.91 inches of rain.
Incredibly, 9.02 inches of that rainfall total has fallen over the past 24 hours.
According to NBC DFW, the record deluge totals were nearing 15 inches as of 4:00pm EST on Monday and rain continues to fall.
The National Weather Service warned citizens to immediately get off the highways and avoid the affected areas, describing the flash floods as “life-threatening.”
The ferocity of the storm qualifies it as a “1-in-1,000-year flood,” according to The Washington Post.
The newspaper adds that over the past month, three rain storms that occur once every 1,000 years have slammed the United States, specifically in St. Louis, eastern Kentucky, and southeastern Illinois.
After a woman’s vehicle became trapped in the floodwaters, a reporter named Robert Ray helped in pull the woman from the vehicle.
“She literally, as I was standing here setting up for the shot, pulled in and didn’t realize it,” said Ray. “The next thing you know, her car was floating.”
Ray attempted to move the vehicle to a more secure location closer to the highway, but he was unable to do so. Consequently, he reached out and grabbed the woman, Stephanie Carroll, from the automobile window.
Carroll shared with Ray that when she was approaching the intersection, she did not notice that there was water on the road.
She was just traveling down the path she always took to get to the place where she picked up her kid.
“We have to sometimes, that’s a human being,” Ray said. “You’ve got to go in and try to help them.”
As heavy rain keeps falling late Monday in the Dallas area, there is still a danger of flooding along the area’s highways. In spite of the ongoing flooding, motorists have been observed making their way cautiously down the Downtown Dallas Canyon.
There have been over 200 water rescues across Dallas since Sunday as the flooding has continued, according to the Dallas Fire Rescue Department.
“Numerous” roads across Dallas are still closed due to flooding, police have warned.
“Never drive through high water,” the Dallas Police Department said. “If you have to go out, slow down and be prepared to find alternate routes.”
Drivers were seen swimming across a flooded interstate to save themselves as record rainfall hit several areas of the state overnight.
First responders were also seen on aerial footage rescuing people who looked to be drivers trapped on a roadway.
The video was uploaded early on Monday morning, and it shows drivers swimming through several feet of water to get off the road and away from a submerged vehicle.
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