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News/Beyond the 806

Beyond the 806

Edouard, now a tropical depression, drenches Texas with flash flooding and downed trees - AP News

Edouard, now a tropical depression, drenches Texas with flash flooding and downed trees - AP News

Tropical Depression Edouard dumped up to 21 inches of rain on parts of Southeast Texas Wednesday, flooding roads, knocking down trees, and forcing at least one water rescue of a family caught in the rising water. The storm made landfall as Tropical Storm Edouard before weakening into a depression, but the downgrade did not slow the rainfall.

The storm made landfall as Tropical Storm Edouard before weakening into a depression, but the downgrade did not slow the rainfall. Areas northwest of Beaumont took the worst of it, with some spots recording between 10 and 21 inches in just a matter of hours. Schools and municipal offices closed across the affected region, and residents were told to stay home as the system slowly tracked north.

For people in Lubbock, the storm is not a direct hit, but Southeast Texas connections run deep here. Plenty of folks have family in Beaumont, Port Arthur, and the surrounding area, and that corridor gets hammered by Gulf storms in ways the South Plains rarely does. A slow-moving tropical system dropping nearly two feet of rain in hours is a different category of flooding than anything West Texas typically sees.

Beaumont sits roughly 550 miles from Lubbock, but the last major Gulf storm to track this far inland reshaped Texas weather conversations for years. Rain totals and damage counts remain incomplete as the storm continued moving north Wednesday.

Common questions

How much rain did Edouard drop on Southeast Texas?

Some areas northwest of Beaumont recorded between 10 and 21 inches of rain in just a matter of hours. The storm made landfall as a tropical storm before weakening to a depression, but the downgrade did little to slow the rainfall or the flooding.

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