Whenever the river threatens to turn into a traditional river, someone promptly builds a lake at that spot. The Trinity preserves and saves, though, as the area just south of Dallas features a huge hardwood wetlands forest rendered impossible to clear out and make into tract homes due to the pervasive influx of rivulets of river.
Two of the "mid-cities" between Dallas and Fort Worth are Grand Prairie and Arlington. Each city arose in the midst of the Trinity River bottoms. During the torrential winter rains, such as we had on Friday night, water accumulates on the streets and under the overpasses.
In Los Angeles, the local news always highlights intoxicated eighteen wheeler drivers engaged in futile efforts to evade the local constabulary on the Foothill Freeway. Dallas television news instead features mid-cities residents who try to plow through flowing water beneath underpasses during the rain. I find some tremendous inward metaphor in the folly of folks standing, mid-flood, on the tops of their cars, awaiting rescue--folks who imagined they could take a short-cut through the water, if only they hurried through before the raging waters took them.