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JONESTOWN, TEXAS – A Texas man described what it has been like witnessing the worst flooding to hit his area since he started living there and vowed to keep his business running.
“We’ve been here 20 years and nobody’s seen anything like this, not even close,” David Abboud, an owner of a paintball facility and resident of Jonestown, Texas, tells Fox News Digital.
Abboud shared details of what it has been like since the storm ravaged Central Texas and how fast the storm’s destruction worked.
“I wasn’t here in the wee hours of the morning when it crested or came down like a wall of water. There’s a monitoring station right up on FM 1431, monitors cubic feet per second. And when it got wiped out it was at 50,000 cubic feet a second. And I think somewhere around… 23 to 25 feet high, nothing like that. I mean, you can see the debris line up in these trees, but that’s how high it got up in those trees,” Abboud pointed out.
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“We have lower fields and trees, we lost a few of our fields, but we’ll clean it up,” he continued.
Abboud said that some people in the area also helped rescue people from a nearby home in the area.
A creek near Abboud’s business now covers where the road used to be just a few days ago, which Abboud described as not a new issue for him.
“We’ve done it before. We’ve had issues with the low water crossings really still there. This is the bank side, so it (the flood) widened it,” Abboud explained.
“This guy put this wall in here. So it kind of concentrates the water on this side. So it has always been a problem ripping this up,” he continued.
Abboud added that he was surprised the wall was even still standing.
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“I’m surprised the wall is still there. It’s been coming down in pieces over the years, and we’ve kind of been cleaning it out of the creek when it dries up,” Abboud said.
During a press conference, Texas officials shared that they had received “unconfirmed reports of another wall of water” forming.
“Another thing I’m getting right this minute during this press conference is reports of an additional wall of water coming down some of the creeks going into the forks,” Texas Division of Emergency Management Chief W. Nim Kidd said.
Kidd said they were “evacuating parts of the river because we’re worried about another wall of water coming down in those areas.”
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“This is the live updates that we’re getting right now from the field is there are unconfirmed at this point reports of additional water coming in. And as the governor mentioned, there’s rain still falling on the area,” Kidd said.
“We’ve got DPS aircraft that are flying up to try to find this wall of water right now, and the people in the reported areas, again, unconfirmed, that are on our communication systems. We’re asking them to get out of the water and out of the way so that we don’t wind up having to do additional rescues.”
On Sunday, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha also warned that the Guadalupe River and Johnson Creek could rise another one to two feet as rainfall continues in the area.
“There was additional rain in the upper Guadalupe basin this afternoon, leading to a rise in Johnson Creek,” the sheriff’s office shared in a Facebook update. “This water may lead to a rise of 1-2ft downstream when it enters the Guadalupe river in Ingram. Please be aware if you are near the Guadalupe River or Johnson Creek.”
During a Sunday news conference, Leitha said they have recorded 68 deaths in Kerr County.
“Among those who are deceased, we have 40 adults and 28 children,” Leitha said. “18 adults are pending identification and ten children are also pending identification.”
“At present there are ten Camp Mystic campers unaccounted for, and one counselor. We continue to offer our condolences to those affected, and we will work tirelessly till we reunite them with their families,” he continued.
President Donald Trump said he was planning on visiting Texas, “probably on Friday.”
“We want to leave a little time. I would have done it today, but we’d just be in their way. Probably Friday,” Trump said.
Fox News’ Lorraine Taylor contributed to this report.
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