Burnet’s most vulnerable displaced by Hamilton Creek floodwaters
Some of the living units at the Burnet Housing Authority had entire walls blown out by floodwaters from Hamilton Creek. Courtesy photo by Tanner Swope
At around 4 a.m. on July 5, 75-year-old Sue Pratton was awoken by her daughter screaming that they had to leave her home at the Burnet Housing Authority. Pratton and 44 other residents at the public housing project fled their homes that day to escape a raging, flood-fueled Hamilton Creek.
“Somewhere around 3:30 or 4, she come screaming at me, ‘Mama get up, get dressed! Let’s get out of here! (Hamilton Creek) crested,” Pratton told DailyTrib.com.
Pratton, who uses a walker to get around, pushed through calf-deep water in the housing authority’s parking lot to reach her daughter’s vehicle.
“We went up to a hilltop church and sat there for a good while,” she said. “The lightning was unreal—I had never seen nothing like that—but the rain was horrible.”
Massive amounts of rain, about 16 inches around Burnet, fell over Fourth of July weekend in the Highland Lakes area, swelling the normally dry Hamilton Creek into a full-blown torrent. The Burnet Housing Authority, 805 U.S. 281 South, is just a few hundred feet from the creek and was one of the hardest-hit properties.
Of its 40 living units, 38 were damaged. The 45 residents occupying them were immediately displaced by the disaster.
The Burnet Housing Authority is federally funded Section 8 public housing, and the people who live there are either elderly, disabled, or eligible low-income families. The residents are on a special payment plan, contributing about 30 percent of their income to rent on a sliding scale.
According to the authority’s director, Billie Sherburn, it could be 60-90 days before her tenants are able to return home.
“A lot of them have lived here with me 20-plus years, so this is their home,” she said. “It’s pretty devastating. Most of them are elderly; it has been hard for them.”
Sherburn jumped into action on the day of the flood, finding accommodations for all of the displaced residents. Some stayed with family, but others were put up in hotels, motels, and apartments around the Burnet area. The housing authority is helping with living expenses.
Several residents, like Pratton, are staying at La Vista Motel on Buchanan Drive, waiting for the news that they can go home.
Before that can happen, all of the flood-damaged units need to be gutted and rebuilt. Luckily, the units are covered by Texas Municipal League insurance, and work crews are already grinding through the process.
“Once that contaminated water gets on surfaces, it has to be discarded,” said Tanner Swope, project manager with SynergyNDS, which is handling the insurance claim. “As far as severity, it wasn’t as bad as some of the other projects we have been on, but the impact to the residents was very great. The amount of contents and everything inside of their residences was a loss.”
While none of the Burnet Housing Authority living units were destroyed, interiors were heavily damaged and need to be almost gutted in most cases.
Swope said material filling 15 dump trucks and 10 dumpsters has been removed from the units since work began July 6.
Some units are worse than others, with walls and doors blown out by floodwaters, while others had several feet of water sweep through.
Pratton said her son came to collect all of her salvageable items and put them in storage after the water receded. She has experience with flooding, having seen Jim Ned Creek on Lake Brownwood in Brown County rise into her home at least three times.
“This has been my fourth flood. I hope I don’t ever have another one,” she said.