CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — La Volla Creek flooding is affecting many residents in the surrounding neighborhoods, especially the neighborhood around the Calle Las Colonias street.
“I had some jackets and the floorboards and the floor mats….they’re soaked,” Steve Johnston, a resident living near La Volla Creek said about the items in his car.
He said the flooding got so high that it got inside his car and noticed that the water was the highest around 5 a.m. Thursday. He said it’s the third time his street has flooded in the past year and said the water actually gets higher on his street rather than the area nearest the creek.
He suggests better drainage in the area so flooding doesn’t impact the street as much.
His neighbors who live on the same street, Aurora and Abel Chavana, have been living in the neighborhood for 30 years and said the flooding has been an issue for them ever since. They said the water comes all the way to the electrical boxes, making them scared that they will get electrocuted, but they said it also brings other issues.
“We a lost a lot of things inside the house, furniture, clothing, shoes, a lot of stuff that you just put on the floor of the closet,” Abel Chavana said.
They said the flooding also causes potholes in the area, and said the City of Corpus Christi only patches them up but will not fix the roads. They also said they’ve attended City Council meetings and wrote in to the City but nothing came about it.
City Councilman Roland Barrera, who is in charge of the area, said they’re in the design stage for a 130 acre storm water detention pond that would remove the flood water. He said they’re also putting in new box culverts under North padre Island Drive at the airport tributary.
He said the project would take until at least the end of 2022 and they’re still figuring out what’s next in the other phases because they’re still in the design phase.
However, he said in the meantime the City of Corpus Christi is preparing to evacuate citizens to shelters that will feed them if the flooding gets worse.
“If we see that the water is getting to a certain level where it might be going into homes, you know we’re going to go door to door, staff is going to go door to door. I think there’s like 80 homes out there to make sure that everybody is notified,” Barrera said.
Red Cross volunteers were scoping out the area to see if the flood water was so bad that residents would have to be evacuated.
Fernie Fernandez, a volunteer with Red Cross has been with the organization for 10 years and said it’s a labor of love.
“It really hurts when a disaster like this happens but that’s why I do it because I like to help people and do the right thing,” he said.
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