On October 16th, during the recent flooding in southeast Texas, the Tyler County Sheriff’s Office and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department asked for help from rangers in rescuing three people trapped on top of their pickup truck in the swift running flood waters of Wolf Creek, which lies within the jurisdiction of the Corps of Engineers. Rangers Johnny Stafford and Mike Hughes responded with their patrol boat. They found three people trapped on a fully submerged truck. After attaching safety lines and providing life jackets, Stafford assisted from shore while Hughes and Texas Parks and Wildlife agent Bryan Baronet maneuvered the NPS vessel close enough to the truck to allow all three to be transferred safely to the boat. The driver of the vehicle had ignored the barriers closing the road, driving around them into the flood water. The truck was then swept off the road into Wolf Creek. Two of the occupants, one only 13 years old, managed to get out of the vehicle before it was swept away; the other three were trapped on top of the truck. After the rescue, a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper arrested the driver for child endangerment and for intentionally driving around a safety barricade, thereby creating a hazardous situation. Earlier the same day, rangers assisted the Tyler County Sheriff’s Office in the rescue of a 90-year old woman who was trapped by flood waters up to her neck inside her home.
