TYLER, Texas — The continuous rainfall is causing more and more problems around East Texas.
"So we are very saturated at the moment. We’re currently getting more rain. We’re expecting more rain. So conditions are not going to improve over the next several hours," said Smith County Emergency Management Coordinator Brandon Moore.
The last three days have been an absolute downpour in Tyler and all throughout East Texas.
"Our lakes, our streams, our rivers are at five-year highs in terms of water levels," said Eric Greaser, fire chief for Smith County Emergency Services District 2.
The National Weather Service in Shreveport said as of Wednesday afternoon Tyler has seen 5.34 inches of rain since Monday evening. Higher storm totals are coming from the southeast corner of the county. There is a point in Bullard with 7.72 inches of rain.
The rain has fully soaked into the ground and it's filled most area lakes and rivers. Even if the rain were to completely subside Wednesday night, emergency response personnel is still concerned about the impact its made already.
"So that’s something we’ll see a lot for the next couple days is debris coming downstream, down the rivers and into the lake. So we’re going to caution people and then urge everybody to just use caution if you’re going to be on the water," said Henderson County Game Warden Mark Anderson.
The consistent rainfall over these last few days has caused the ground to become almost completely saturated. There’s really nowhere else for it to go, and that’s caused some roadways that aren’t typically flood hazards to become just that.
"We’ve had a couple of water rescues, one down in Troup, one down in Bullard. Motorists that are stalled out in a roadway that’s in deep water. So the vehicle had stalled. It wasn’t necessarily fast water at that point, but flood waters and those same flood waters will cause a vehicle to stall out," Greaser said.
Now, if you find yourself in a situation where it doesn’t feel safe to drive, just remember this key phrase: turn around, don’t drown.
"Turn around don’t drown is not just a catchphrase, like there is purpose behind it," Moore said.