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Sep 13, 2008 2:39 pm US/Central
Rooftop Rescues Underway In SE Texas
ORANGE (AP) ―
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A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter flies over flooded Bolivar Peninsula in Texas as a result of Hurricane Ike.
AP
Search-and-rescue teams plucked people from rooftops and chest-deep floodwaters Saturday after Hurricane Ike's storm surge flooded parts of Southeast Texas that had never before seen such conditions.
Husband and wife John and Lisa Lee and Lisa's 16-year-old brother, William Robinson, spent four hours on the roof of their Bridge City home Saturday until a sheriff's deputy arrived to rescue them. With their two dogs paddling behind them, the group swam to safety.
"It was like a dream," said William Robinson, while his sister shivered in a blanket at a shelter set up at a Baptist church in north Orange.
They didn't experience flooding during Rita, so they thought they would be safe during Ike. Lisa Lee, 37, said she planned to contact relatives in Oklahoma to come and get them. The move may be permanent.
"My house is destroyed. They can have it," she said. "Nothing's keeping me here."
Debbie Mathis, 54, and John Mathis, 56, found themselves in chest-deep water about 4:30 a.m. Saturday when they left their mobile home, about two miles from Bridge City, as water began pouring in. The couple have lived there for 32 years and say they've never seen floodwaters in their neighborhood.
They found help from a sheriff's deputy who was driving through the neighborhood in a truck and drove them to a church on higher ground.
They only had time to grab their dog, Chipper, a dachshund terrier, and a cooler filled with John Mathis' medication, toiletries and two changes of dry clothes.
"We have nothing," she said.
"Just the wet clothes on our back," he said.
The Mathis' also lost their Corvette, flooded out when it was stranded in the garage.
Battalion chief Joe Mires said the storm flooded parts of Orange that he has never seen flooded before. Mires, 37, has lived in the city since 1982.
"I've never seen any water like this in town," he said, steering his sport utility vehicle down a submerged street in the commercial part of the city.
Mires said crews were using dozens of boats to rescue people from flooded areas and take them to safety. Miles of neighborhoods and city streets were under water, he said.
No deaths have been reported.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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