Freight trains were detoured and Amtrak passengers were put on buses as floodwaters from the Trinity River surged over Liberty, the last city before the Gulf of Mexico.
Southern Pacific Railway workers dumped carloads of ballast to bolster the pilings on its Sunset Route trestle across the Trinity just outside Liberty. The trestle is part of Amtrak's main route between New Orleans and Los Angeles."This is a very difficult situation. We sustained hurricanes, earthquakes on the West Coast and tornadoes in the Midwest," said Southern Pacific spokesman Jim Johnson. "It's a battle we're all in against now of how long can we sustain."
Elsewhere, Louisiana and Oklahoma officials said flooding there caused more than $20 million damage to farms. Officials in Arkansas assured travelers that holiday weekend visits to state parks shouldn't be canceled for fear of flood damage.
In Texas, torrential rains some three weeks ago 200 miles to the north caused the Trinity on Wednesday to rise to a record depth of nearly 30 feet in Liberty, officials said. The old record of 29 feet was set in 1942.
Liberty, population 8,500, is about 16 miles from the Trinity Bay, which feeds into Galveston Bay and eventually the Gulf of Mexico.
Volunteers in Liberty County shored up levees to keep floodwaters from swamping the expensive Travis Park subdivision and other parts of the city.