((water)) [carter smith] so all of this road on thisside of the park is completely shut down right now with the flooding. [narration]the memorial day floods of 2015 swamped many state parks across the state forcing evacuations... [ethan belicek]i'd estimate about 75 people were crammed up into the house just to spend the night,stay high and dry and make it through to the morning. [narration]and leaving destruction and debris behind.
although palmetto state park has flooded before,it hasn't seen flood stages this high since the late 1990s. [liz palfini]we've seen 30 foot flood waters for almost 24 hours straight. [carter smith]we've got 15 parks that are closed at this moment. another 30 that have been impactedin some form or fashion and so we're going to have a lot of rebuilding and restoringin the weeks and months and really years ahead. [liz palfini] the headquarters was sparred,the cabin was sparred and a little bit of high ground.
[narration]at bastrop state park, park hosts david and dorothy hall were inside their camper whenthe destruction began. [dorothy hall]it was like a raging river behind our trailer. logs and debris just floating down. beforemaybe it was i don't know dry, five feet wide. it looked like it was 30 foot wide. [narration]a blow to the park was the loss of an earthen dam that formed the lake at bastrop statepark. enhanced by the civilian conservation corp during the 1930s, the lake was a primaryrecreational spot for park visitors. [jamie hackett]a lot of hard work was put in by the ccc boys
and it is quite a loss to see that come downwith this significant rainfall event. [todd mcclanahan]that additional heavy downpour caused the lake to go over the spillway eventually breachingthe dam all together. we've been through a lot here at the state park and to see thelake empty uh is pretty tough. [jennifer oines] flood stage is 13 feet andit crested at 43 and it went up 33 feet in an hour. [narration]at blanco state park the recently added kid's nature scape activity center was washed away.two years and $40,000 worth of donated funds from the friends of blanco state park hadprovided a climbing wall, sand playbox, rainwater
collection tank and benches for parents tosit and watch their children. [jennifer oines]the only item still standing is the one for the younger children's side. we had beautifullylandscaped it with wildflowers and native trees. yea, it's on its way to the gulf. [narration]nearly half the state parks across texas have been impacted by the floods and texas parksand wildlife will feel the loss of revenue from visitor fees, which pay about half thecost to run the state park system. [carter]because of the diminished visitation, because the parks simply aren't accessible now andwon't be in the near future, that's going
to have a significant impact on the agency. [ethan]the day use area was hit the hardest. everything along the bank where we're standing was shadeshelters, picnic tables, bar-be-que pits, as you can see we're pretty much at a completeloss. [narration]but there is some hope for recovery. [carter]looks like the legislature is going to provide significant capital funding this session uhbut we're going to obviously look at re prioritizing it. address the tyranny of the urgent andright now the tyranny of the urgent is all of the flooding that is resulting from allof this just horrific memorial day flood event.
[narration]and friends of the parks and park staff are staying optimistic. [jennifer]all our work..the trail tamers... but we can do it again. i'm never giving up. [ethan]yep, we'll get it back. [narration]for texas parks and wildlife, this is karen loke.