SAN ANTONIO, Texas – A heavy downpour of rain Tuesday morning seemed to catch numerous drivers by surprise.
No less than ten cars traveling along a stretch of N. New Braunfels Avenue between Austin Highway and Eisenhauer Road were suddenly sent off course by a rushing river of water.
One man captured his ordeal on his cell phone camera and shared the video with KSAT 12 News after firefighters rescued him.
Others were left stranded, waiting for the water to recede and tow trucks to haul them away.
Chris Mabry, who manages Alamo Heights Car Care, saw the chaos unfold from his shop.
“When we have a good hard rain, it will flood on occasion. But yesterday was unusual,” Mabry said, Wednesday morning.
The high water that carried cars past his shop also lapped at his front door.
Later, he was flooded by customers with water-related car troubles.
“What that does is it damages the underneath of the vehicles. Some of the splash guards get torn out,” Mabry said, explaining the most common problem he saw.
The flooding itself has become a common sight in that area, according to Jeff Spear, who purposely avoided the area Tuesday.
“It’s one to be avoided. Any time it rains heavy, it’s flooded,” Spear said. “A couple of years ago, I was on my way to downtown to a concert, and I kind of got caught in it.”
Others took to social media to talk about the ongoing trouble with flooding, wondering when it might be addressed and exactly what went wrong.
North New Braunfels Avenue straddles two cities in that particular area — Alamo Heights and San Antonio.
KSAT 12 News contacted the public works departments in both cities for answers to people’s questions on social media.
Both departments said the sudden onset of the heavy rain seemed to overwhelm the drainage system in the area.
In addition, Frank Orta, Alamo Heights’ public works director, said in an email that trash bins, garbage and other items that floated down into the drain had exacerbated the flooding problem.
On Tuesday morning, crews with the city of Alamo Heights could be seen picking up a large number of overturned trash containers that had landed on top of a large drainage grate near the corner of N. New Braunfels and Austin Highway.
Orta said the drain actually belongs to the city of San Antonio and the Texas Department of Transportation, although Alamo Heights occasionally helps to clear it.
Nicholas Oliver, a spokesman for San Antonio’s Department of Public Works, said the city has two different bond projects that are addressing the drainage problems in that area.
He said one project involved conducting a comprehensive drainage study of the area, while the other funded the design portion of the future project.
According to the city of San Antonio’s website, though, the design project has no completion date set.