Tommy Spears, who runs the meat market inside a Stuckey's convenience store on the outskirts of Deweyville, is mad at the officials who won't let him go home and the dam keepers he blames for the flood that inundated it.
"We're getting the shaft from every direction," Spears said. "This is our world. We need to be taken care of. ... We all need help."
Spears apologized for crying.
Frustration in Deweyville and other Sabine River communities has ebbed and flowed with the river's crest for several decades, with calls for reform coming after the flooding many residents remember in 1989.
The overrun of their town this year was far worse than previous floods of memory, and the clamoring for change is louder as the restless, anxious people the flood made homeless look for resolution.
"I will stand behind our community, and yes, we will (change things)," 50-year-old Deweyville resident Cheryl Lummus said.
A different flood
Deweyville abuts the Sabine River, and its residents have an understanding of floods. This wasn't that.
Several residents said the most recent comparable floods were in 1989 and 1953, times when the Sabine rose enough to cause fear and become a nuisance, but not immerse the entire town.
"If it only floods every few years like this, living out here is worth it," Ronnie Pitcher, who lived in the River Oaks area, told The Enterprise in 1989 after the Sabine crested.
The Pitchers parked their car on a highway bridge, and used a motor boat to reach it. No armed officers stopped them from coming or going.
"We're enjoying this," Pitcher said then. "We're gonna make it out with any big problems."
The 1989 flood wasn't without damage. Some homes in the Kirkendahl area took on water. That's the neighborhood where a family this year moved all of their belongings to the roof they've camped on while the Sabine swallowed their yard.
Families in 1989 told The Enterprise it was the worst flood since '53, a late-May inundation that led at least 15 families to seek refuge in a Deweyville school building.
"The school is the highest point in Deweyville," The Enterprise reported then.
It's unclear where that school was located, but current Deweyville ISD Superintendent Kevin Clark said it's possible the article was either referring to the former high school - and current administration building - or the elementary school. Both took on several feet of water this week.
Spears, the butcher, has his own measuring stick. His late father's still-standing home was built in 1904.
"It never had water - until now," Spears said.
This year's flood is the new "flood of record," said Ann Galassi, assistant general manager of the Sabine River Authority. It broke a record that stood since 1884, she said.
The record flood displaced 2,500 Newton County residents, including all of Deweyville, a town of about 1,000.
A new frustration
Spears has wanted to return home, which has been marinating in a mixture of river water, sewage and debris since last weekend. But the state troopers blocking Texas 12 wouldn't let him.
"I don't care if they kill me," Spears said. "I'm going home (Sunday)."
Spears, who lives on the south side of town, later said he's willing to wait until early next week, but he can't shake the feeling that he's losing time to begin making repairs.
Spears planned to one night sneak in by boat so that he could see his home for the first time since he left March 12. He was dissuaded by a friend who said game wardens learned some of the back roads and other clearings locals were using to access the town.
State and local authorities said the evacuation order is in place for residents' safety. They're also able to better stop looters from pilfering hundreds of abandoned homes.
Department of Public Safety troopers maintained barricades, and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game wardens patrolled the underwater town by boat last week, keeping an eye out for boats without a government escort. Upon finding these people, the officials turned them away.
'Didn't have to happen'
About 200 Newton County residents drove down a long gravel road off Texas 87 on Thursday evening to get to Star L Ranch.
It was there that an Austin-based attorney answered questions about a potential class-action lawsuit against the Sabine River Authority.
That's not new territory: a lawsuit stemming from the '89 flood on the same grounds the attorney proposed Thursday met its demise 15 years after it was filed.
"What I'm saying to that attorney is: 'Good luck. Been there, tried that,'" said Sid Stover, a Jasper attorney who litigated the case for Paul Hughes, a business owner whose property was destroyed and cattle killed in the '89 deluge. "I hope he gets paid in advance."
The SRA manages the dam on the Toledo Bend reservoir. The lake was brimming with water when the SRA opened gates to release its buildup at a record rate - more than twice the average rate of Niagra Falls.
The authority is federally permitted to generate hydroelectricity. Louisiana state law and the permit guidelines say the authority can only generate electricity when the reservoir is at a certain elevation, Galassi said.
There are exceptions for times of downstream droughts or brownouts, when the keepers could operate below that threshold.
"The guidelines are specifically designed to protect the integrity of the dam and to balance the concerns of upstream and downstream stakeholders," Galassi said.
The federal government last reviewed the permit guidelines in 2000, at the request of residents north of the lake who want the reservoir maintained at a higher level and those south of the lake who want it lower, and again when the license was extended for 50 years in 2014.
Galassi said enough citizen outcry could prompt the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to reconsider the guidelines again.
Newton County residents argue that the SRA should have released more water earlier, when the weather forecasts showed heavy rain, so that the inevitable flood would have been moderate.
"I know SRA is going to keep doing this to us," 58-year-old Henry Stanley said. "Everybody knew that we were going to get all this bad weather. They could have done more" to make it a moderate flood.
"I think that's the consensus of everybody in Deweyville: This didn't have to happen," Lummus, one of the town's residents, said.
The SRA, which is not tasked with flood control, followed its charter, Galassi said.
"We're looking at this as a natural disaster," she said.
The Hughes lawsuit from '89 won a summary judgement against the authority in a Newton County courtroom, Stover said, but the state's appellate court in Beaumont later reversed the decision.
Don Grissom, the Austin attorney who spoke to residents Thursday at the Newton County ranch, was brought in by the ranch's owner.
Grissom could not be reached for comment Friday but said at the ranch he thought some property owners might have a claim under Texas law that prohibits government agencies from destroying private property without compensation.
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