In September 2014, several vehicles were swept into a retention pond when they got caught in a flash flood in El Paso, Texas. The drivers, who all escaped unharmed, were in the wrong place at the wrong time. The street is designed as a channel to guide flash flood water to the retention pond to protect lives and property downstream.In DeSoto, Texas, in May 2015, a 14-year-old boy and his dog died in a storm drain after heavy rains. The same day in Oklahoma, a firefighter leading a flash flood rescue drowned when he stepped in front of a submerged
