How Bad Was The Dallas Flood, Actually?

The storm came and went so fast, it's hard to grasp how abnormal this flood actually was. It's not just the amount of damage that it caused, it's also the speed at which it happened. Scroll through this experience to walk through the events of the thousand year Dallas Flood.

From one extreme to another, at the end of July, we were edging on an Exceptional Drought.

Crops weren't growing, our soil was cracked, everything caught fire easily, and our rivers were receeding. This unprecendented climate disaster was already preceeded by another catastrophic unprecendented climate disaster.

Last July was our 6th driest month and 7th driest year on record in 128 years.

The worst of the worst are getting worse

according to globalchange.gov, the 1% most catastrophic storms in the midwest are 42% more severe than they were 50 years ago.

August 21st, 2022 at 3:00 PM the rain begins.

Within mere minutes, a slight drizzle becomes a torrent.

Calls for help bombard emergency services.

Dallas police report 470 traffic and water-related calls between 6:00 pm Sunday and Monday evening.

The Trinity River went from 12 feet of water to 34.3 feet overnight.

Flash flood warning declared.

The city will extend this warning multiple times over the next day as the storm causes more damage than expected.

40% of this year's rainfall happened in this single hour.

3.01 inches of rainfall happened during thte hours of 1:00 AM to 2:00 AM on Monday morning. That is more than the entire month of May which recieved 3.00 inches of rain, which is our rainiest month.

12.31 inches

was the highest level recorded near the downtown Dallas area.

Remember where you parked?

Overnight, cars floated down the streets and even submerged in the torrent. Many Dallasites lost their vehicles and homes in the flood.

At least one person died.

A 60 year old woman was killed when her vehicle was swept away by flood waters.

$6 Billion

in damages were caused within 24 hours according to AcuWeather.

When the rain stopped

the water dried relatively quickly. The torrent did little to help with the drought. As of writing, Dallas is still under drought conditions.

This will keep happening.

Unless we take climate change seriously, more people will continue to suffer from catastrophic climate disasters.