MCLENNAN COUNTY, Texas (KXXV) — Two businesses on Waco's 25th Street — The Carpenters Daughters and Project Lifeforce — were hit hard by last Sunday's heavy rain, with floodwaters strong enough to rip a bolted gate from a wall and wash away a picnic table.
- Justine Lisa, owner of The Carpenters Daughters, found 3 inches of water inside her shop and said floodwaters reached higher than the steering wheel of a graffiti car outside — a level she had never seen before.
- Project Lifeforce, a nonprofit serving Waco's youth, had to cancel the first two days of its youth camp after floodwaters filled the building with mud and debris, and now needs an estimated $14,000 to replace damaged floors.
- The City of Waco said it is still assessing damage across the city and warned that identifying, evaluating, and executing repairs will be a long road to total recovery.
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BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
More Waco businesses are still recovering from last Sunday's heavy rain, and at least one is asking the community for help.
On 25th Street, floodwaters were so high and strong that a bolted gate was ripped from the wall at The Carpenter's Daughter.
Justine Lisa, the owner of The Carpenters Daughters, said there used to be 3 picnic tables outside her business belonging to a nearby business — but after Sunday's rain, one of them is nowhere to be found.
"The water must have been so strong that night that it pushed everything over, and these were actually bolted to the walls," Lisa said.
Inside her shop, Lisa found 3 inches of water.
"We just had a lot of, um, water damage to furniture, rugs, but we were able to clean those up pretty quickly. The side of this building, um, did get some, uh, damage when it comes to the water that rose up over the creek," Lisa said.
Lisa said she has never seen floodwaters get higher than the steering wheel of a graffiti car outside her business — but last Sunday's rain surpassed that.
"It got so high to push all of this out of the way, and our whole street was just flooded," Lisa said.
Justine Lisa said she did have to close her store for two days, but with the help of nearby business owners, the cleanup was much quicker than anticipated.
"It was such a reminder of how we all really do come together, for a common goal. And so I'm really thankful for Harvest and Sloan's and Cafe Mila. We, we really did band together and, um, clean up our street fast and our businesses fast so that we could open," Lisa said.
Across the street, Project Lifeforce also took a hit. Oticia Childers runs the nonprofit focused on Waco's youth. After the rain left their building flooded and dirty, they had to cancel the first two days of their youth camp.
"A ton of mud, everything that was in the creek was actually inside our building," Childress said.
It will take an estimated $14,000 to replace the water-damaged floors. Until they come up with the funding, the organization is using tape on the floors as the wood continues to split.
"The children are having to make sure they keep their shoes on, or we're purchasing socks so that they won't get splinters in their feet," Childress said. "We don't have the ability to purchase more floors, so we're hoping that someone would come in and want to donate to get those floors, uh, replaced for us."
A fence behind Project Lifeforce was also caved in by the floodwaters. I reached out to the City of Waco about both fence areas. The city is still waiting on a definitive answer for who is responsible for repairs. I also asked about the reason behind this area flooding; they responded in a statement,
"The reason behind the flooding is the volume of rain during the rain event. Across the city, our teams are still looking for damage that hasn't been reported yet. It will take a while to identify, evaluate and execute repairs, so we're looking at a long road to total recovery."
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