SILSBEE, Texas — A water rescue and an evacuation has resulted from flooding along Village Creek in Hardin County Friday morning as waters on the creek rise following heavy rains Wednesday.
Silsbee firefighters rescued a driver from floodwaters Friday morning in the 3800 block of Texas Highway 327 Friday according to Hardin County Sheriff Mark Davis.
This is about a mile east of Village Creek near Mill Creek just west of the Silsbee city limits.
"Most of it is county road flooding, but we do have some houses that have taken on some water," said Hardin County Judge Wayne McDaniel.
A car was swept off the roadway and into a ditch by flood waters and the driver was rescued off the roof of their car by Silsbee firefighters, Davis told 12News.
Judge McDaniel says Silsbee fire crews responded to 10 evacuation calls and one water rescue overnight.
"Somebody had driven off in the water and the lady was on top of her car and they had to rescue her," he said.
Officials are also evacuating a few residents in and near Lumberton. Some residents are being evacuated from the area off of Wingfield Dr. in Lumberton and the area of Old Beaumont Hwy and Old Andover Rd just north of Lumberton, Davis said.
Residents near John Loop have been using trucks to help each other go back and forth across the bridge on Taft Avenue.
Village Creek began rising early Wednesday morning, April 10, 2024, rising from about four feet at 2 a.m. to flood stage at 17 feet by 10:15 a.m. according to the gage at Texas Highway 418. The creek was at major flood stage at 23 feet by 9:30 a.m. Thursday morning.
The creek peaked at 27.16 feet at about 2:45 a.m. Friday morning and started to drop a little.
At 9:30 a.m. Friday Village Creek was at 26.64 feet at Highway 14 which is still nine feet above flood stage and more than six feet above major flood stage according to the gage data.
"Well we went out to take kids to school at 7:00 and it was starting to rise," said Bonnie Schmidt a Lumberton resident.
Schmidt has lived in her neighborhood for 20 years. She says the bridge on Taft Avenue that was lifted after Hurricane Harvey quickly took on water.
"I came back at 8:00 and it was almost to the top of the bottom of my car. Then when I came back at about 1:30 I couldn't drive through. It was that quick," she said.
The residents of this neighborhood are no strangers to this kind of flooding.
"Honestly I'm kind of used to it," said Schmidt.
Judge McDaniel says it will take about 24 hours for water levels on Highway 327 and Highway 96 and Village Creek to finally recede.
"We just ask residents to continue to watch the situation. The water's not done rising here it's still going to come up a little bit, how much we don't exactly know," Judge McDaniel told 12News.
Chief Robin Jones with Silsbee Fire and Rescue says everyone rescued so far hasn't been hurt, but he wants the communities help to keep it that way.
"Don't go through the water. Turn around. It's not worth it. Everything is kind of going back to normal around Monday, Tuesday," he said.
Local officials want to remind anyone whose home has been damaged to report it to the state using the iSTAT tool.
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This is a developing story. We will update with more if and when we receive more confirmed information.