Volunteers are delivering supplies by foot after floods cut off this Leander-area neighborhood

When powerful rain turned Sandy Creek, which is usually ankle-deep, into a raging river in a matter of minutes on Saturday, it severely damaged the Big Sandy Bridge and cut off the tight-knit neighborhood on the other side.

“The sheer force of the debris knocked the bridge 4-to-5 feet off track,” resident Amber Taylor said. “There’s no stability there.”

People can walk across the bridge at their own risk, but it is otherwise impassible. The bridge is the only way into town for roughly 500 people.

That part of northwest Travis County is still reeling from catastrophic flooding that swept through the area. Seven people have been found dead as a result, and at least 10 others are still missing. An untold number of roads, homes and cars were damaged or destroyed.

But now, getting resources to residents who live on the other side of bridge is one of area’s biggest challenges.

Volunteers from the community have been wheelbarrowing gallons of water, food and medications to people living across the bridge, some of whom are still without internet service, running water and electricity.

Michael Minasi

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KUT News

Yesenia Ramirez is a resident who isn’t able to leave the neighborhood easily. Luckily, she said, her property wasn’t damaged and she regained access to water, electricity and internet on Monday. But more challenges remain.

“There’s no exit point or anything,” she said. “My husband can’t go to work and … right now we’re going to need the money.”

Travis County transportation and natural resources officials said debris clean-up will likely be more costly and painstaking than efforts from previous winter storms, when crews were mostly dealing with downed tree limbs.

Totaled cars, damaged trailers, slabs of cement uprooted from roads and bridges, dead livestock and other personal items are tangled in heaps of vegetation along this section of Big Sandy Creek near Leander. Travis County officials said clean up could cost up to $4 million and take weeks to finish. The Commissioners Court agreed Tuesday to pull money from its emergency reserves to pay for it.

Dozens of community members have turned Round Mountain Baptist Church into a makeshift resource center for people in the community who need food, water, medicine or clothes. H-E-B is giving out meals. Medical professionals from Integral Care are providing wound care to injured people. UFCU set up a mobile bank to help anyone who lost important financial documents.

Lorianne Willett

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KUT News

Justin Hendrix has spent every day at the church since the flood damaged his home.

Early Saturday morning, he said stepped out of his tiny home into 2 feet of water. He watched as his motorcycle begin to float away and then quickly fled the area.

Hedrix found out later all his tools and equipment used to operate his business, Hendrix Haulin and Handyworkz, were destroyed in the flood. He hasn’t gone back since.

“There’s nothing to come home to,” he said.

Katherine Waggoner, a resident in the area and the de facto head volunteer at Round Mountain Baptist Church, has also spent every day helping connect community members with resources at the church since Saturday.

So many residents have offered to donate goods or volunteer, Waggoner said she had to turn people away.

“The outpour of the community has just been amazing,” she said.

Waggoner said she had never seen a flash flood of this magnitude happen in her neighborhood.

“It was really scary not knowing,” she said. “We did get a notification that it was coming, but the thing is we get notifications all the time for flash floods over here, but never to this level.”

Michael Minasi

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KUT News

Many residents did not know how catastrophic the flood would be until it came raging in the middle of the night.

Taylor woke up to an emergency notification in the middle of the night. Moments later, her best friend called her and said she and her family escaped their double-wide trailer minutes before it was swept away in the flood.

“There’s pieces of it all up and down the bed of the creek,” Taylor said.