By Kelly Young

news@jacksonvilleprogress.com



A night of fierce rain on already-saturated ground led to flooding conditions throughout Cherokee County, Friday. County officials received constant phone calls from all corners of the county reporting dangerous water levels and ruined roadways, forcing the closure of 46 different roads, at one time or another.

Most of the damage fell on the northern sections of the county, with precincts No. 3 and 4 baring the brunt of the deluge.

“We’ve had major damage throughout the entire precinct. The destruction has been pretty dramatic. We’ve had to close a number of roads, and another half dozen or so will lose their culverts if we get any amount of additional rain in the next few days,” said Commissioner Moody Glass, of Precinct No. 3. “The overflow from Lake Jacksonville has caused us to close County Road 3314. In the northeast part of the precinct, near CR3802, Mud Creek is out of its banks, but we can’t get anyone in there to see how bad it is. On CR3901, near Lookout Valley, we have a concrete bridge that is washed up beyond its retaining walls and is not passable.”

Glass mentioned one family of seven that is stranded inside its home because all paths onto their property are now covered in water.

“There’s no way to give you an accurate damage estimate yet, but we are looking at tens of thousands of dollars in damage to the roads, bridges and culverts. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if we have $100,000 in damage to Precinct No. 3 alone — I’ve got asphalt that has just washed away,” Glass said.

Things were even worse in Precinct No. 4, where the city of New Summerfield received 8.19 inches of rainfall from 8 a.m. Thursday to 8 a.m. Friday, according to the National Weather Service.

“The damage is real, real bad — we estimate that at about 9 a.m. this morning, 90 percent of the precinct’s county roads were underwater. We’ve got seven or eight bridges that are underwater,” said Commissioner Byron Underwood, of Precinct No. 4. “The water levels are starting to go down slowly, but the spooky thing is that it looks like it might rain some more. We can’t afford to get any more rain, and I think we are.”

Underwood said that 10 of the 15 closed roads in his precinct had suffered major damage from the storms.

According to the NWS, if Cherokee County can make it through the weekend, weather conditions should dry-up considerably.

“Beginning Sunday and continuing into the week, the area will have a 30-percent chance of storms during the day, dropping to 20-percent in the evenings. The forecast should remain much the same throughout the end of the week,” said NWS Meteorologist Bill Parker. “It appears that the worst is behind us. We had a big upper-level ridge on each coast of the country that locked in a big storm over us. Now the upper-level ridge to the east is relaxing, which will allow the storm system to move off to the northeast.”

The Shreveport office of the NWS reports that Jacksonville has received approximately 7.02 inches of rain so far in the month of July, blowing the monthly average of 2.62 inches away in less than a week.

“The main thing we are worrying about right now is trying to get people to where they can get into and out of their houses again. At this point we can’t even survey the damage until the water level comes down,” said County Judge Chris Davis. “Once we know the damages we are looking at, we can look into getting some financial aid from the state. I just can’t believe we went from where we were last year — begging for an inch of rain — to where we are right now.”

As of 4 p.m. Friday, the following roads are closed: FM3052, CR1201, CR1207, CR1310, CR1318, CR 1403, CR1405, CR1410, CR1807, CR3114, CR3220, CR3305, CR 3308, CR3310, CR3402, CR3434, CR3802, CR3812, CR 3901, CR4222, CR4223, CR4301, CR4303, CR4307, CR4401, CR4405, CR4408, CR4606, CR4608, CR4623, CR4625, CR4707, CR4807 and CR 4905.

The follow roads are not closed, but the Texas Department of Transportation advises drivers to use caution while on FM23, FM343, FM768, FM855, FM1857, FM2064 FM2274 and U.S. Hwy. 13.