A Houston TV station was forced to evacuate when its building’s first floor was flooded during its live news coverage of Hurricane Harvey.
News anchors were at their desks when water began to seep into the building, forcing them to a second level before the staff fled the building entirely on Sunday.
From the field, one reporter carried on with the hurricane coverage for 30 minutes, with the journalist saving the life of a man who was trapped in his truck.
The station is still abandoned as KHOU continues its broadcast coverage from a makeshift studio in a bank and with the help of another station in Dallas.
Houston TV news station KHOU was forced to evacuate on Sunday as its building’s first floor became submerged due to flooding during its live news coverage of Hurricane Harvey
The Houston station began flooding on Sunday morning, with the managing editor Bill Bishop, arriving to find the floor soaked, reported the Washington Post.
The team moved its operations to a second floor in order to carry on with the day’s news, but by 10.30am water was rushing through the door, flooding the first level.
Videos and photos posted to social media by employees show how the station was soaked, with water rising a foot within 15 minutes, one staffer claimed.
The station last flooded during Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, according to KHOU.
While the rest of her coworkers were evacuated, Brandi Smith was the sole anchor left to carry on with the newscast for about 30 minutes.
Anchors were at their desks when water seeped into the building, forcing them to a second level before the staff fled the building entirely, with water rising a foot within 15 minutes
The station is still abandoned as KHOU continues its broadcast coverage from a makeshift studio in a bank and with the help of another station in Dallas
She transmitted coverage from the side of a highway near Beltway 8 and Hardy Toll Road on the north side of Houston.
It was during this time, while her station was underwater, that Smith saved the life of a man.
Smith spotted a tractor-trailer up to its windshield in the still-rising murky brown waters with the driver still stuck inside.
Running into the road, she flagged down a Harris County Sheriff’s Office truck that was towing a boat past.
‘Are you guys going down to the truck that’s right here?’ she asked. They weren’t – until she said that.
Hero: Brandi Smith (left) turned from KHOU 11 news anchor to on-scene hero when she saved a trapped driver. She was reporting from the Houston beltway when she spotted the truck (right)
In danger: The driver (pictured later, after cops reached him) was up to his shoulders in flood water – and it was still rising. His possessions could be seen floating around him
‘There’s a truck here that’s stuck in about 10 feet of water,’ she explained, guiding them to the edge of the bridge.
There, the stricken vehicle could be seen, stopped on a downward ramp heading towards a near-totally-submerged bridge.
The cop saw the man, then said, ruefully: ‘This is the same location we had an 18-wheeler go under the bridge, and he died last year. Same place, except it was on the other side of the freeway.’
And so, as the police began guiding the life-saving craft down the freeway’s exit ramp – now a boat ramp into the murky water – Smith shouted out at the driver not to panic.
The man – who was already up to his elbows in water, with a book and other objects floating around, shouted the affirmative.