Oct. 17th, 1998 Flood in Seguin

On Saturday, Oct. 17th, early in the morning, rain began to fall over Seguin and New Braunfels, almost exclusively on the Guadalupe River water shed below Canyon dam. By the end of the day, 30 or more inches had fallen and the largest flood on the Guadalupe had begun.

My parents home overlooks the Guadalupe in Seguin. Flooding has never been a major worry for us. We are above the 500 year flood plain. This flood made us rethink the risks.

Originally, I was suppose to be on a Flower Gardens trip in the gulf, but it was canceled due to ocean conditions. This proved very lucky. It allowed me to remove most of my possessions from the apartment I was in, which was just above the 100 year flood plain.

After several hours of hard rain in the morning, we began searching for news. Only one local station was caring the story of a building flood in New Braunfels. The other stations weren't even talking about the rain. My father called a friend in GBRA for information and discovered that a very significant flood was beginning. The expect crest was as high as the last major flood in 1972 which had destroyed the neighborhood across the river from my parents (much lower).

We began calling family and friends that lived on the river to offer help. Later in the afternoon with the help of my Sister's boyfriend, I went to my apartment and removed as much as I could take in my Supra and his Suburban. It was already difficult to reach due to flooding along all the creeks.

In the end, we would evacuate our home, leaving my father to watch (the road climbs up from our house and we are not in a flowing area so the risk was small). He evacuated at 2:00AM with the last national guard trucks. When he left water was just feet from the back porch, maybe 12" short of reaching the house. GBRA was predicting another 2' of rise before crest so things did not look good.

The next day we discovered that our house, as one of our neighbor's, had been spared. A water line, only 1" below the top of the foundation, marked to highest approach of the water. Our neighbor to the right sits 18" below us and got flooded. My apartment washed off its foundation, and received 3 feet of water.