GRAPEVINE — Thursday morning, people who live in three separate apartment complexes off FM 2499 in Grapevine received emergency emails and letters from the city. The letter said, in part, "excessive rainfall has resulted in imminent flooding conditions in your area, which require you to take action," according to Jennifer Bonnell, who received one of the letters.
The letters confused residents, who pointed to a sunny, dry day. But Grapevine Fire Chief Darrell Brown said the damage had already been done by Tropical Depression Bill.
The rainfall worsened an already dicey situation at Lake Grapevine. The lake level was already nearly 30 feet above normal, with it two feet above the uncontrolled spillway, and it's only getting higher. The water is then funneling downstream into Denton Creek and flooding from there.
The messages prompted some in Grapevine to spring into action right away, putting sandbags at the doorsteps of ground-level units at the Marquis at Silver Oaks apartments.
Others, like Marc Perez, rushed home from work.
"I immediately thought, 'oh, shoot, I live on the first floor, I need to evacuate my stuff and elevate things,'" he said from his home at the Camden Riverwalk apartments.
Workers stacked sandbags around garages and entry ways at the apartment late Thursday morning. Even though people living there had not been ordered to leave their homes yet, some decided it was best to start packing up anyway. The biggest worry seemed to be not knowing how long they may be gone.
"You don't know how much to pack for however many days," said Alan Heard. "Dealing with the dog and this and that, but other people are dealing with a lot worse than this. So in the grand scheme of things it's not that bad."
Wednesday night Mayor William Tate signed a Disaster Declaration due to flooding at the lake and warned that evacuations could become necessary.
For authorities, the concern is less that the water will actually make its way into homes and more that it'll flood the roads so badly, people won't even be able to get into their homes. Thursday, both directions of FM 2499 closed because of water on the road.
Chief Brown said if that happens, it could cut off entrance to the Camden Riverwalk apartments. He said they had a contingency plan in place to allow access through a business road.
"We understand," Brown said. "We take it very seriously. We don't want to tell people, 'look you can't go into your homes.' That's a really big deal and we don't want to do that if we can come up with an alternative plan."
Jennifer Bonnell says she'd barely paid attention until today, when emergency messages flooded her phone.
"That's interesting, maybe going to work today is not gonna happen," the veterinarian said.
Chief Brown said that, unfortunately, there's no telling when this immediate situation will resolve itself, and he worries we'll continue to see the effects of the flooding on roads throughout the summer.
