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After 2 weekends of severe flooding, calls for improvements in southeast Fort Worth

Three people died in the southeast part of Fort Worth two weeks ago, not far from 820 and Wilbarger. It was the same general area that saw devastating floods again this past weekend.

As the relentless rains terrorized Fort Worth late Friday night into Saturday morning, Gloria Gonzales got a phone call she'll never forget.

"He's like, 'Mom I don’t know how to swim,'" she told us Tuesday. "And I just started screaming 'get out of the car, get out, get out now!'"

She says her son Adrien was stuck in his vehicle on a flooded East Loop 820 near Sun Valley, on the city's southeast side.

"I said 'get to the highest point, get to the middle, hold on to the median,'' Gonzales said.

Her son listened to her and made it out, snapping a photo of the submerged highway. In the photo, you can see the tops of vehicles poking out of the water. You can barely see his submerged SUV on the right side.

This is the same general area in which three people lost their lives two weeks ago during floods. A woman and her child died near 820 and Wilbarger, and a 69-year-old man died in the floods just minutes away.

"We’ve never had that kind of rain before, we’ve never had people come through there and lose their lives like that," said Fort Worth Councilwoman Gyna Bivens. She says she grew up in this area and what we've seen over the past few weeks has been unprecedented.

She's calling for the city and Texas Department of Transportation to address it immediately."Very, very unhappy, very sad—just questioning what can be done. And that’s where the experts need to come together," she said.

WFAA reached out to both the city and state to see what, besides rain, could be contributing to the flooding, and what's being done to fix it.

"We are analyzing the events from two weeks ago to get a more clear idea on what happened," said Assistant Director of Transportation and Public Works Greg Simmons. "With another event on Saturday, we've now got more to factor in and are working on that as a matter of top priority."

TxDOT spokesman Val Lopez told WFAA that they're currently looking at drainage improvements there as part of a larger project.

Fort Worth Fire spokesman Mike Drivdahl said nearly half of their 74 water rescues this weekend were in the southeast quadrant.

"If we’ve had a couple tragedies, and we almost had some more, something needs to be done," Gloria Gonzales said. Words from a mother who wants no other mother to get that call.

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