Girl Dies in Area Flooding: Haltom City Mobile Home Residents Forced to Flee
By Laurie Fox and Debra Dennis, The Dallas Morning News
Jun. 19–HALTOM CITY — As the water rose silently in the dark, only a few eerie sounds announced its presence.
The clunking of floating cars and trash containers.
A 7-year-old girl’s fearful shouts.
A dog’s insistent barking.
By the time residents in the Skyline Mobile Home Park realized what was happening, a threatening sea of debris and rushing water forced panicked families to flee to roofs and into trees.
But some didn’t make it to higher ground. A 4-year-old girl was torn from her mother’s grasp as they tried to flee in a neighbor’s boat. Alexandria Collins was found dead hours later once the water receded along White’s Branch Creek.
It didn’t rain that hard or for that long early Monday in Haltom City, which was declared a local disaster area by Mayor Bill Lanford.
But a deluge upstream in other parts of northeast Tarrant County brought nature’s wrath to their doorsteps.
City officials said they checked the creek, which they said is normally a narrow stream, before 1 a.m. but decided that it wasn’t necessary to evacuate as they had in the past.
“The water came up so quickly, there wasn’t much notice,” said Haltom City spokeswoman Fran Burns. “It was hard to anticipate how bad it would be.”
Severe-weather sirens placed around northeast Tarrant County were not activated.
Haltom City rescue workers, instead, were called to help with a high-water rescue in nearby Keller.
But the water that flooded Keller and Trophy Club upstream converged in a rushing torrent on Haltom City soon after.
And the modest mobile home park — which just flooded several months ago — sat squarely in its path.
Rachael Doss, 34, said her young daughter awoke screaming that water had entered the house.
“My husband rushed to the door and the water was to the porch,” Ms. Doss said. “In 10 minutes it was up to your chest. We’ve had flooding before but it’s never been this bad.”
Those living along the creek’s banks suffered the worst.
Four-year-old Alexandria Collins plunged into the fast-moving water as family members fled their home and tried to pile into a neighbor’s boat.
Her mother, Natasha Collins, said they were trying to escape.
“We were in the boat when the boat capsized,” she said tearfully. “The current swept her from my arms.”
Ms. Collins and other family paced and waited until about 7:30 a.m. when officials told her that rescue teams had found the girl’s body.
Her sobs affected even veteran emergency workers nearby who wiped away tears from their muddy faces.
City Manager Tom Muir called the death “a heart-breaking incident.”
At least 100 homes and 300 residents were affected. The Christian Center of Fort Worth, 4301 NE 28th St. in Haltom City, has opened its doors and will give displaced residents a temporary home.
A woman and her son were burned when their trailer exploded. One man even floated down the street in his home after it was lifted off its foundation.
The powerful water cut an unrelenting swath.
It pulled asphalt from the streets, which broke apart in chunks and floated into yards. It ripped fences from the ground. It piled vehicles on top of one another.
This was the second major flood at the trailer park — which lies partially in the flood plain — this spring. The first occurred shortly before the April 13 tornado that caused $2 million in damage in the city. Officials said the flooding this time eclipsed the earlier round.
“The problem is that there are people living in the creek bed,” Mr. Muir said. “Those trailers should not be there.”
Ms. Burns said it wasn’t clear what authority the city has to prevent the trailers from being located in the flood plain, but that is being investigated. She said the mobile home park was developed in the late 1970s — before there were flood plain maps for that area — and she said that development upstream has increased the water flow in recent years.
The city has been working with state and federal officials on mitigation for some of the homeowners, Mr. Muir said.
“We have identified some lots that would be better to not have homes on them,” he said.
Clay Church, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, said a flood control study of the nearby Big Fossil Creek basin was started in 2000 and continues today.
Public hearings on the study should be held later this summer and several recommendations could be made soon afterward. Mr. Church said the study will look at what’s causing the flooding, whether it’s increasing and what can be done about it.
Suburbanization of rural areas is often a factor as more land is paved over and floodwaters flow into local creeks instead of being absorbed into pastures, he said.
“There has been a large amount of development along Fossil Creek in the past couple of decades,” Mr. Church said, although he didn’t know what role that played in recent flooding in Haltom City.
Sam Gerard watched on Monday as the foundation of his first home got washed away.
“We heard the underpinning ripping off from our house,” he said. “It flooded the house about 4 feet. It came really fast.”
The family has lived on Bonanza Street in the White Creek Estates mobile home park for about two weeks. They unpacked their last box late Sunday night.
They awoke early Monday to the sounds of their cars crashing.
Mr. Gerard, his wife, Diana, and their two children quickly fitted themselves with life jackets.
“We were protected as much as you could be protected,” Mr. Gerard said. “We made it out — can’t say that for everybody.”
Maria Borjas credits her three dogs for the early-morning warning of water rising in the home she shares with her husband, Jesus Borjas; 15-year-old son, Jesus Borjas Jr., and 7-week-old daughter, Abigail.
She called 911 but quickly found herself waist deep in water.
“I kept my baby real close to me,” said Ms. Borjas, 36. “We called 911 and asked for a boa, but they could not get one to us. The water came up over my waist, and I had to lift my daughter high and hold her real tight.
“The water was so strong it was already dragging us. We were hopeless. We didn’t think we would make it.”
When rescuers arrived with a small canoe, Ms. Borjas refused to get inside.
“I thought it would tip over,” she said. “I didn’t think it would hold us. I didn’t want to let go of my daughter to get into the boat.”
She waited until the water receded and the family waded to higher ground.
“I have nothing. I even lost my shoes,” she said, looking down at her bare feet. “We have to start all over again, but we are safe.”
Karin Lazarin and her family fled to her trailer’s roof when they quickly determined that the water was stronger than they were.
“We just knew that we couldn’t get out in that water,” she said. “We knew that we were all together and safe.” She looked around her tattered neighborhood and drew a ragged breath: “It’s amazing. Simple rain did this.”
Staff writers Jeff Mosier and Marice Richter and WFAA-TV contributed to this report.
lfox@dallasnews.com; debdennis@dallasnews.com
—–
To see more of The Dallas Morning News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.dallasnews.com.
Copyright (c) 2007, The Dallas Morning News
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.