Dedicated Supermarket Employee Runs to Work Despite Flooded Roads in Beaumont, Texas

Tropical Depression Imelda flooded parts of southeast Texas, but the heavy rain didn’t stop a determined supermarket employee from running through floodwater to get to work on Thursday, September 19.

A flash flood emergency was declared for a number of towns in southeastern Texas on Thursday, and several roadways were impassable due to flooding.

But when H-E-B plus! store director David Rodriguez got called in to work, he figured out alternate transportation. Carrying a backpack with “everything” he needed, he sprinted off into the flooded streets of Beaumont.

“When the VP calls and tells you to get to the store … you run the 2 miles to work,” Ali Kelsey Rodriguez, who filmed the video of her husband, said on Facebook.

Ali Kelsey Rodriguez wrote in her Facebook post that the store was only allowing five customers at a time “so expect a wait.”

The National Weather Service said radar estimated that more than 40 inches of rain had fallen in Jefferson County, where Beaumont is, over the past 72 hours. Credit: Ali Kelsey Rodriguez via Storyful