Waco digs out of storms that swamped waterways, caused power outages (2024)

The Waco area was still recovering Monday, days after thunderstorms caused power outages, downed trees and swollen lakes and rivers.

Oncor Electric Distribution Co. crews and hired contractors worked into the weekend to restore power to some 16,000 McLennan County customers who were without power after intense storms early Friday that brought heavy rainfall and winds of more than 50 mph.

Restaurants and small businesses from West Waco to Colcord Avenue lost business over two days without power and had to throw out ingredients because of a loss of refrigeration.

Di Campli’s Italian Ristorante, 6500 Woodway Drive, lost power early Friday, owner and chef Massimo Di Campli said by phone Monday. Di Campli talked as he was scheduling deliveries of fresh ingredients with his suppliers to replace discarded food.

He said that by the time the power came back on Saturday before noon, everything in the refrigerators as well as the freezers had to go.

“Some product might have been good, but we threw it all away,” Di Campli said. “In this business, we take no chances. What if someone became ill? Much better to throw it all away and start with fresh deliveries on Monday.”

At Oh My Juice, a few doors down, owner Denitia Blount also lost everything in her refrigerators and freezers.

It was the second time in two weeks that the plaza at Highways 6 and 84 had lost power.

“We have another location over in Waco, but it doesn’t have the large walk-in refrigerator like this one, so we couldn’t take any ingredients down there,” Blount said Monday morning.

Across town at the neighborhood shopping center at Colcord Avenue and 15th Street, the nonprofit Jubilee Food Market was without power from Friday until Saturday afternoon, assistant manager David Daniels said Monday.

Employees came in on Friday thinking power would come back on soon, and they made sure freezers were very tightly shut to keep everything cold, Daniels said.

“But when we saw it wasn’t coming back we started to give away all the meat that hadn’t thawed completely,” Daniels said. “ ‘Cook that tonight, to-night,’ we told them.”

All the ice cream and dairy was a complete loss, along with refrigerated meats, Daniels said, pointing to several empty cold displays.

“Blue Bell came and brought us more ice cream,” Daniels said. “But we won’t get more meat and milk products until Thursday.”

The store, which is operated by Mission Waco to serve an urban “food desert,” still had produce, dry goods and sodas Monday.

A block over, D’s Mediterranean Grill also lost power over the same two days, said Diane Issa, who owns the restaurant with her husband, Azam Issa.

“But we were very fortunate because power did not go out to our second building,” Diane Issa said Monday. “We lost everything in here, but out there the refrigerators and freezers continued to work.”

She said the electric shutters that secure the restaurant from the outside could not be opened all day Friday and not until power came back on Saturday afternoon. Then the employees came in to help them clean up and throw out what had spoiled.

“Azam spent most of the day Sunday buying more ingredients so that we could open today with most of our menu,” Diane Issa said.

She said her husband was now thinking about getting a backup generator.

Many of these restaurants and other small businesses that depend on daily and weekly customers for cashflow, continued to pay their employees for the days they were closed, owners said.

All three restaurant owners said their business insurance would not compensate unless they were closed three days in a row.

These outages were just a small part of what faced the 98 counties of Oncor’s coverage area in Texas. Oncor by the middle of last week had upwards of 9,000 line technicians and other crews, many in from eight other states, helping to restore power to over 640,000 customers.

On Friday morning around 100,000 total Oncor customers had outages, 16,000 in McLennan and surrounding counties. By Monday afternoon this was down to around 8,500 customers out of more than 4 million and 139 out of 108,000 in McLennan County.

Storms late Thursday and early Friday dumped a total of 3.73 inches of rain to an already saturated region, capping off May as the wettest month on record, with 15.28 inches for the month.

After the heavy rainfall, a section of limestone bluffs gave way at Emmons Cliff in Cameron Park, causing a rock slide onto the trail below, Parks Director Jonathan Cook said Monday. His team will find a way to reroute that trail.

The parks department is also responsible for clearing fallen trees and tree limbs on streets, in parks, alleys and other public spaces. Cook said he had calls from 180 separate addresses including 50 locations in parks for fallen trees and limbs.

“We have to clear the roadways first, so we’re piling up brush many places,” Cook said.

Rainfall in the region caused the Brazos River just past Waco to crest at 25 feet Friday afternoon, with a flow of 36,600 cubic feet per second, just shy of minor flood stage.

The Honey Lane neighborhood in Downsville along the Brazos River just downstream of Waco has seen recent flooding that affected at least four homes, according to Emergency Management Coordinator Ryan Dirker.

Though storms cleared by the weekend, heavy runoff continued into Lake Waco from the whole watershed pushing the lake level up to around 480.5 feet above sea level, or 18.5 feet above its normal elevation of 462 feet. The gates reopened over the weekend, releasing 8,600 cubic feet per second, and lowered the flood by a foot by Monday afternoon.

Officials with the Fort Worth District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who coordinate opening floodgates in many counties, said Lake Waco’s gates will likely remain open till late June or early July.

Lake Waco’s tributaries — the North and Middle Bosque rivers and Hog Creek — were all at non-damaging levels and beginning to recede, Richard Baumgardner, the Corps of Engineers spokesperson, said in a Monday email.

Upstream of Waco, Lake Whitney was 17.4 feet above normal and was releasing 8,250 cfs Monday afternoon, while Lake Aquilla was up 9 feet and releasing 1,367 cfs. The Brazos River gauge in Waco showed 18,700 cubic feet per second.

“High flows continue near Hempstead and Richmond on the lower Brazos, but they are at non-damaging levels, so we can continue to release,” Baumgardner said. “Any further significant rainfall that pushed Hempstead and Richmond USGS gages to a flow over 60,000 CFS, we may have to reduce releases at Lake Waco.”