WOODVILLE – In a special-called meeting of the Tyler County Commissioners Court on Monday morning, the commissioners voted to ratify a disaster declaration order which was issued last week.
The declaration was dated April 21, 2025, and issued by County Judge Milton Powers following severe storms that caused flooding on several roads in the south end of the county, as well as a subsequent school cancellation for Warren ISD for last Monday.
According to the county’s emergency management officials, four to seven inches of rain came with the storms, on the night of Sunday, April 20.
Powers’s order was set to remain in place for seven days, unless extended by the Commissioners Court.
Powers said the county has been trying to reach out to the GLO to get whatever help it can for flood mitigation projects. There is some federal funding the county has been unable to get as it hasn’t met the threshold, Powers said, but ratifying the declaration would allow officials to look into some help for flood mitigation.
Pct. 4 Commissioner Buck Hudson said that one location at FM 1013, at the Seventh Day Adventist Church, has flooded three times within a year, and asked whether the ongoing road construction along US 69 might be causing it.
Powers said the county cannot do anything about that project, which is a Texas Department of Transporation (TxDOT) project.
“Normally you don’t get eight inches of rain in one hour,” Powers added. “It’s unexplainable when acts of God happen like that.”
“Anywhere in this county where you get eight inches of rain in one hour, it’s going to do the same thing,” said Emergency Management Coordinator John Settlocker.
Other Business
During Monday morning’s special-called meeting, the Commissioners Court also voted or discussed the following:
• To discontinue road maintenance for 0.2 tenths of a mile along County Road 2928, at the request of a private landowner, who is building a house at the end of where the road stops, said Pct. 3 Commissioner Mike Marshall.
• Thelma Kirkpatrick and Savannah Bourque were added as members of the Tyler County Courthouse Christmas committee to help decorate the courthouse and its grounds for Christmas.
• National Day of Prayer will be recognized on the courthouse lawn, on the west side of the courthouse, starting at 11 a.m. on Thursday.
Owens recognized
During the portion of Monday’s meeting dedicated to comments pertaining to matters of county government, Judge Powers paid tribute to one of his predecessors, the late County Judge Jerome Owens, who died last week.
Owens, as Powers said, not only served several terms as County Judge, but also as a District Judge. “Our hearts go out to them,” Powers said of Owens’s survivors.
“We just want to say ‘God bless you,’…and we’re praying for them, lifting them up,” Powers said.
