The west side desert became a raging river catching the Furtado family by surprise. The neighborhood is in a flood zone, but the family has never seen anything like it in decades. Water reached 4 feet high.
Dolores Furtado returned home only minutes after she left for work. "I thought I will still on sand and I fell into water. It came up to my chest," she said.
She had to quickly get to her 81-year-old father inside the home. "And then my yard started getting flooded little by little they were coming down two streets and then I was talking to my other daughter on the phone and I told her hey, water is starting to come in my house. She said get blankets and everything and I said we're going to need more than blankets," said Charles Furtado.
The water was powerful enough to damage a neighbor's gate and knocked down a cinder block wall that stretched from the front to the backyard.
Neighbors belongings floated into the Furtado yard.
"It was out of control," said Denise Furtado. She said a bridge her father built over a wash beyond her backyard swept away. "So right when my son was about to cross he watched the bridge. The water level was really high up here," she said.
After the water receded, the Furtado family, neighbors and a clean-up crew quickly began cleaning up the soggy and muddy mess inside the home. They were able to salvage the furniture and wooded floors, but some things perished.
Charles Furtado: "I had a lot of good potted plants. It's all gone."
Cavazos: "So what about any personal items you care about. Were they ruined?"
Furtado: "No just my pride."
Cavazos: "Why your pride?
Furtado: "Because at my age I don't know I will ever see this back the way it was."
The Furtado family has cleaned up much of the mud, but now they're worried about the next powerful storm, which is forecasted to roll in on Wednesday.
