Polk County ‘dodges a bullet again’ in storms

BY VALERIE REDDELL
Editor
polknews@gmail.com

LIVINGSTON — Forecasters offered gloomy predictions about what weather Texans would see during their commute to work Tuesday morning, but the storm system never quite produced the intense rains or 50 mph winds that were projected. Spencer Karr, spokesman for the Trinity River Authority, said rain gauges in the upper reaches of the Trinity River had gone past fl ood stage as of Tuesday afternoon and will remain there for the next 24 to 48 hours. “It appears that the levels down here won’t be any worse than what we saw in the fi rst part of February – which was the last fl ood of any signifi cance,” Karr said. TRA and the National Weather Service were still compiling rainfall data to complete forecast models for the Trinity River watershed. Their projections will be posted to the Polk County Enterprise’s Facebook page when they become available. “We dodged the bullet for the second time in a row,” Karr said. “The heavy rains forecast for the last night didn’t materialize over the top of us, it hit to the south and east.” Tuesday afternoon, the Lake Livingston Dam was releasing 12,000 cubic feet per second Tuesday afternoon and the pool level was 131.36 feet above mean sea level. The National Weather Service reported peak wind gusts in the Polk County area of about 20 miles per hour and an average of 1.5 inches of rain. A river fl ood warning was in effect for the Neches River in northern Polk County. The Texas Department of Transportation reported water in the roadway in Trinity County on FM 356 about a mile and a half from SH 94 and in Houston County on U.S. 287 with about 3 inches of water over the roadway.