TYLER, Texas — The City of Longview experienced substantial flooding due to heavy rain early Wednesday morning. Some areas hit hardest include Boorman Trail and Lois Jackson Park.
“It is something that we have to talk about every single time we have something like this is that this area is going is going to flood. There's nothing we can do about it," Longview spokesperson Shawn Hara said. "We knew it when we put it in the park that we were utilizing a floodway."
As Longview residents have become accustomed to, outdoor spaces like Boorman Trail and Lois Jackson Park that regularly flood with this type of rainfall, need to be closed until the water recedes.
“We have this great feature, this great natural walkway right through the middle of the community," Hara said. "But when we've got rain like this, it's going to have some flooding."
It is a fact that city leaders accept and believe is just a reality.
“Right through the middle of Longview is Grace Creek, anytime we have a significant amount of rain like this, where we had a flash flood warning, you're going to see flooding conditions within this creek and then within this floodway,” Hara said.
Hara says how quickly the water recedes depends on future rainfall, but the flooding usually goes away within a few days.
He added the city will be out to clean things up as soon as water levels are down.
