After flood Brazoria County will take time to mend

Image 1 of 6

Like thousands of others in her community, the Brazos River has been hard on Donna Bond - her Buffalo camp home of 23 years rendered a sopping mess.

"This is things from the garage and the house that we are expecting to have to trash," said Bond pointing to piles of household goods piled on the side of the yard.

More than a foot of water inundated the inside of her home.

"This is the drywall from our house. Four feet up over the entire house all had to come out," said Bond stand before a pile of rubble across her front yard.

What took the river just hours to wreck, will take months to replace and repair. But like so many in Brazoria County, the Bond family will not toil alone.

"We had 45 friends show up to help us clean out the house," said Bond.

They were followed the next day by ten Mormon missionaries. The river brought destruction, but it also brought caring.

"Neighbors were distraught and had been crying and it's as hard to see them in that situation, so any house that didn't flood was like a ray of sunshine," said Bond.

With scores of contaminated wells and untold tons of debris to clear, Brazoria County Judge Matt Sebesta believes his citizens will need a heaping helping of patience to match their surplus of compassion.

"The scarring from this flood is going to take a year or two, truthfully. It's going to be a long drawn out process for some folks, but knowing the spirit of the people in this county, they'll be back," said Sebesta.

And Donna Bond will be among them, even with much of what her family owned reduced to garbage, she's not running to higher ground.

"We are going to rebuild and stay and are excited to do it, I guess," said Bond with a laugh.

Brazoria County is offering free water well testing and Judge Sebesta says contracts have been approved for debris removal, although he adds it will likely take  several months to get the job done.