SAN ANTONIO — One mid-October weekend nearly 25 years ago, the city of San Antonio experienced an unexpected flood so massive it was dubbed the "500-year flood."
In the early morning hours of Saturday, Oct. 17, heavy rain began to hit San Antonio. It was caused by a pair of hurricanes moving over the Eastern Pacific Ocean and a near-stationary cold front in South-Central Texas. As the morning passed, heavy rain then turned into torrential rain, and a constant downpour continued for about 36 hours.
Rainfall levels reached 11.26 inches Saturday, the most recorded rainfall on any calendar day in San Antonio. The previous record was set on Sept. 9, 1921, with 6.83 inches recorded.
Twenty-nine people died during the weekend flooding. The heavy rainfall and flooding caused homes built along the Guadalupe River to wash away from their foundations.
KSAT meteorologist Mike Osterhage described being on the scene at the time as the storm raged on.
"Think of those summer storms where the sky opens up…for maybe 10 minutes. This had been going on all morning and would continue well into the afternoon. Every street had inches of water rushing across," he wrote.
He described the water levels quickly rising, going from ankle-deep to knee-deep to waist-deep in an area where he and a photographer were forced to abandon their car.
Despite the devastation, something did help prevent the flooding from being worse than it could have been. A flood control tunnel had recently been built in downtown San Antonio right before the big flood. This helped direct water underground to flow below the city, providing some much-needed relief.