Flooded areas start to assess damage

Associated Press - Tuesday, July 10, 2007
DALLAS - Officials were assessing damage from intense weekend flooding Monday, while the heaviest storms subsided across Texas.

The storms that have caused widespread flooding and at least 16 deaths across the state appeared to be scattering, and the flooding danger in most areas was reduced significantly barring heavy storms, said National Weather Service meteorologist Eric Martello.

He said the low pressure systems fueling rain for the past month across Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas have moved off.

Smith County officials in East Texas made a disaster declaration Sunday night, asking for state and federal aid to repair an estimated $200,000 in flooding damage. That number could go up after county officials get more estimates of damages to roads and homes, Smith County assistant engineer Doug Nicholson said. After the rain subsided Sunday morning, there were nine impassable roads and 35 roads with flood damage, he said.

"We woke up on Sunday morning with a bunch of roads ripped open," he said.

Meanwhile Monday, the Travis County medical examiner confirmed the identity of a body pulled from Lake Travis as 20-year-old Bradley McMellon, of Leander. McMellon and Paul Slinkard, also 20, disappeared after their sport utility vehicle became submerged in rushing floodwaters in Burnet County.

Rescuers in Burnet County were still searching for Slinkard.

In North Texas, the search for a 26-year-old man missing since his raft capsized on the rain-swollen Trinity River near Fort Worth continued Monday, said Kent Worley, spokesman for the Fort Worth Fire Department.

Teams had shifted their search from a rescue mission to a recovery, Worley said. A police helicopter scanned downstream for the missing rafter while police searched in boats.

Worley described the man and a 23-year-old companion, who swam upstream to safety, as inexperienced rafters who "made a major mistake" by venturing on the swollen river. Neither man wore a life jacket.
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