It is serene now on the banks of Lake Grapevine. But shredded structures and piles of debris along that shoreline tell a much more tempestuous tale.
Over the summer, during the heart of the floods, you could barely see the tips of structures that stand dozens of feet tall.
Months later, the water has finally receded and the damage has been revealed.
"Every day we were surprised how much water just kept coming and where it would go," said Randy Sell, Grapevine's parks and events manager. "Then going down, same thing. Amazing to see the power of it."
At one point, Sell says, the lake water was 28.5 feet higher than where it should've been.
Now, at Meadowmere Park on the lake, misplaced and mangled docks are scattered with pieces of picnic areas. Vandals have only made things worse, breaking the windows of the guard shack -- which was already damaged from the water.
At the Vineyards Campground, playgrounds and pavilions have seen better days after spending months under water.
Sell says the city and its volunteers are working as quickly as they can to clean it all. It'll likely cost the city millions.
They hope to reopen the campground around Thanksgiving, and Meadowmere some time after that. Other smaller parks have already reopened.
"I'm sure it will be a year-long process before we get everything put away," Sell says.
Life-long Lake Grapevine visitors Ann and Henry Pulliam say they watched this summer as the floods swallowed the area whole.
"Oh yeah. It's sad," Ann says of seeing all the damage.
"We drove by just to check it out, several times," Henry says of the summer.
And they'll continue to watch, patiently, as the city works to right Mother Nature's wrong.
