Rising Star flood damages 90% of downtown businesses

ABILENE, Texas ( KTAB/KRBC ) – A flood hit Rising Star Saturday night, turning inches of rain to feet. By Sunday morning, about 90% of businesses downtown were damaged from an overflowing creek.

Tommy Vanya owns three properties downtown which were all affected. He told KTAB/KRBC he was not expecting the chaos he saw on Sunday morning.

“I had no idea that it was doing this down here. I mean, we got a couple of inches of rain where we live. I didn’t have any idea that we were going to get this,” Vanya said. “It’s going to take a considerable amount of time to get this place back. So, I don’t know. It’s kind of several months.”

One of the main grocery stores in town was hit as well, damaging almost $10,000 worth of goods in the store. Owner Kay Fraley, said her store has been around for years and will have an impact on the town, not being in business anymore.

“I think it’s going to really hurt the community. We’ve been here 31 years. There was mud everywhere, product everywhere… It was just a huge mess,” described Fraley. “We’ve been moving what we can into them to save what we can, but it’s not much.”

Eastland County Judge David Hullum declared the event as a natural disaster, and the city has been able to get help from outside sources including the Red Cross, Texas Division of Emergency Management, and the Texas Baptist Men group.

Fire Chief Josh Constancio, said after making 16 water rescues during the flood, the fire department is still doing everything it can to help those affected.

“We ordered up some roll off containers so that folks could start with debris. We started working with getting volunteers and taking, actually, getting everybody to tell us what damage they had, and where that damage was located so that we can start assessing that,” Constancio added.

Many store owners are drying out their businesses before fully assessing damages.

This flood comes two years since Rising Star landed in the path of the devastating Eastland Complex fire, which began March 17, 2022.

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