Flash Flood — Loving, Texas

2005-08-14 · near Mentone, Loving, Texas

Event narrative

A National Weather Service trained spotter reported water flowing over portions of Farm to Market Road 652 in northern Loving County. The public also reported high water threatening homes on the Loving County, Texas/Lea County, New Mexico county line.

Wider weather episode

A cold front that stretched from the Davis mountains northeast across the Permian Basin initiated a series of training thunderstorms that persisted over the Permian Basin for 48 hours. Rain began on the afternoon of the 13th and continued through the afternoon of the 15th causing major flooding problems across the area. The Colorado River and the Rio Grande went into flood and flash flooding occurred over many urban and rural areas. In Midland, officials activated the Emergency Operations Center on Sunday to coordinate resources in response to flooding across the city. Downed power lines and stranded motorists were only a couple of the problems experienced due to the record rainfall and flash flooding. Officials barricaded intersections that are especially prone to flooding. Emergency management officials declared a partial state of emergency in the city due to the amount of flooding and the number of motorists stranded. Twenty high water rescues were performed by firefighters on Sunday. Both the National Weather Service office and the police received several reports of children playing in high water flowing down city streets. Despite these reports, no injuries were reported. Elsewhere across the Permian Basin, only one other high water rescue was performed, in Snyder. Streets were flooded with anywhere from half a foot of water up to three feet of water, causing many roads to be barricaded.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (31.8500, -103.2167)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 5469099. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.