Flash Flood — Walker, Texas

2017-08-26 to 2017-08-30 · near Hawthorne, Walker, Texas

Event narrative

Slow moving Tropical Storm Harvey produced torrential rains and moderate to major flooding over portions of Walker County. Areas along the Trinity River and Bedias Creek were among the areas impacted. There were numerous road closures including FM1375, SH75 at Bedias Creek, FM1791, FM2989, and FM3478. High water occurred on Interstate 45 but it remained passable.

Wider weather episode

Harvey made landfall as a category 4 hurricane near Rockport, Texas during the evening of August 25th. The storm then weakened to a tropical storm and slowed, looping back and tracking over SE Texas then back over the Gulf of Mexico making a second landfall along the Louisiana coast during the early morning hours of August 30th. Over that 5 day period over Southeast Texas TS Harvey produced catastrophic flooding with a large area of 30 to 60 inches of rain, 23 tornadoes, tropical storm force winds and a moderate storm surge near Matagorda Bay. In some of the heavier bands rain fell at a rate of over 5 inches per hour. This copious record amount of rain over a led to catastrophic flooding. Thousands of homes, businesses, and roads were flooded due to flash flooding and sheet flow from long duration intense rain. Main stem rivers and adjoining tributaries, creeks and bayous reached full capacity and came out of their banks and this also contributed to the massive flooding across southeastern Texas.

View location on OpenStreetMap → (30.5168, -95.3895)

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 728395. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.