Following last Thursday's widespread street flooding throughout Nacogdoches County, officials have concluded that Lake Naconiche helped mitigate the effects of flooding in certain areas of the county by collecting millions of gallons rainwater.

According to County Judge Joe English, the reservoir, located about 13 miles northeast of the Nacogdoches, did exactly what it was supposed to do during last weeks downpour where many parts of the county received more than five inches of rain.

"Last week's flooding just proves that waiting 50 years for a lake was worth it," English said.

The National Weather Service issued alerts last week that there could be heavy flooding along the banks of the Attoyac River and Naconiche Creek following the storm. But because of the reservoir, the worst was avoided, English said.

The amount of flood water retained by the reservoir during and after the storms was more than 333 million gallons in addition to the 268 million gallons collected in the rainy weeks before and immediately after Thursday. On average, only 12 million gallons per day were being discharged down Naconiche Creek during that time period.

"Just think of the impact to the Libby and Chireno areas and the many bridges and roads downstream from the reservoir if the additional retention water of about 600 million gallons had flowed uninhibited down Naconiche Creek," English said.

The preliminary cost of the storm to the county so far is about $48,000, according to English. About $3,000 of that is in overtime pay for county employees and $15,000 is for road and culvert repairs. It will cost an estimated $30,000 to replace a bridge that washed out along CR 228.