My sweet mother would have rolled over in her grave if she knew where my reporting took me Friday — wading through trashed-out high water in northwest Dallas to reach a homeless encampment on the edge of the Elm Fork.

It was my only option if I wanted to find out how Wendy, alone except for little dog Boo and Kitty Cat, had managed through 24 hours of heavy rain.

When I first met Wendy, the 100-yard trek from the Loop 12 service road to her patch of high ground required picking my way through a hoarders’ field of discarded junk.

This time I navigated the same stretch in waist-high waders. I snared a sturdy branch to ward off all the rubbish that floated by — and to poke at anything faintly resembling a snake.

What I saw was similar to the discoveries Dallas Morning News photographer Tom Fox and I made at other locations after the downpour. The people living in makeshift structures had survived — but the trash problem had gone from disgusting to a godawful disaster.

“It only takes one bad rain to undo six months of cleanup, especially when homeless encampments are involved,” said Rick Buckley, CEO of Greenspace Dallas, who toured the area with us Friday.

Potential dangers

The several inches of rain pushed the trash and miscellaneous junk from homeless encampments around West Joe’s and Joe’s creeks toward the Trinity River’s Elm Fork. The concrete storm water system was flushed clean. This mess is now part of the pollution in the river and floodplains alongside it.

Homeless people aren’t responsible for all the garbage. This area is also a favorite of illegal dumpers who seize the opportunity to contribute to the problem.

Given what we saw Friday of the water’s fierce power, it’s no wonder environmentalist Garrett Boone worries just as much about the homeless living in these hazardous conditions as he does about their trash polluting the river.

Boone has heard of a half-dozen high-water rescues from people who work in the stretch of Harry Hines Boulevard north of Walnut Hill Lane. He can’t forget the young homeless woman who told him she saw her boyfriend swept away several years ago.

Stories like these are part of the reason Boone and Greenspace Dallas hired Charlie Brown, a well-known member of the homeless community, to get the word out about potential dangers.

“This time we got lucky with people being OK,” Brown told me as we assessed the Harry Hines culverts Friday. “A storm like that can throw people and trash around.”

One of the encampments that had disappeared in the few days since our first visit was a complex of tarps, crates and siding at the concrete channel’s edge. It’s possible the homeless carried off the materials just before the flooding, but Brown believes fast-moving water at this sharp turn in the culvert swept away the structures.

Brown told me he has rescued two people from floodwaters in the last year. In one case, after hearing a woman’s screams, “I jumped in and fished her out before she could get farther,” he said. “That water was raging.”

Boone has paid for large yellow signs now posted at several of the most dangerous spots. In red and black print, they read, “Flash flood area. No camping. Severe danger. Drowning. Loss of belongings.”

Home

Unlike the camps off Harry Hines, the riverbank Wendy calls home is almost invisible. Nearby is another encampment in the shadow of an elevated portion of Loop 12, where a half-dozen people lived prior to the rain.

“I don’t have anything to do with them,” Wendy told me. “They throw their trash into the river.” She then pointed to dozens of full trash bags. “I don’t. You write that.”

Wendy says she and a friend came to North Texas from Wichita, Kan., about 20 years ago. After the other woman moved back home when her mother became ill, Wendy wound up living in a tent in a homeless community behind an Irving shopping strip.

Five years ago, she heard about this spot on the river, and she swears she has never been happier.

True, she’s been flooded out many times — the worst was when her car floated away with her pets inside. Luckily, the cat and dog were saved, and her swamped-out red PT Cruiser now serves as extra storage.

Because of a bad hip, Wendy uses a wheelchair, walker and single crutch. She lives in a small box structure perched on a makeshift foundation covered in tarp. The adjacent rotting structures are evidence of other inhabitants whom Wendy says didn’t stay long.

During our first visit, Wendy said the isolation doesn’t bother her. Like so many people who prefer to live off the grid, she recounted a history of trauma and physical violence. “I prefer being alone to being around a lot of people, That’s what worries me.”

When I went back Friday to check on Wendy, the Elm Fork appeared more lake than river. The water, which flowed a football-field’s distance or more to the road, was thick with trash: A baby-blue oversized couch, waterlogged mattresses, broken-open garbage bags, shipping materials and a lot of stuff I couldn’t identify.

As the water grew deeper, a pair of women’s ankle boots floated past me, followed by several brand-new uniform patches from the Godley Police Department and still-glittery gift bags emblazoned “2018 Prom.”

Finally back on dry land, I called Wendy’s name, which sent Boo on a barking tear from inside the elevated hut. Wendy emerged to assure me she was just fine. Yes, the night before had brought a lot of wind and lightning. At one point, water completely swamped the ground underneath her dwelling.

But Wendy slept through much of it. She’s ridden out bigger storms than this one.

She expected her friend, Urbano Zepeda, who has a camp across the Elm Fork, to drop by soon in his canoe with food and cigarettes. He arrived just as I was leaving.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said as we parted. “Eventually the water will go down and we’ll start cleaning up again.”