HARRIS COUNTY, Texas -- One week after horses from Cypress Trails were rescued from raging floodwaters, the owner of the ranch is facing backlash.
Thanks to volunteers, almost all of the 75 horses were saved. One horse drowned and three are missing, but all of the other horses are back on dry land.
L.A. Kaiser owns nearby Sovereign Farms and took in 54 horses as volunteers brought them in.
"They were bloody, they had temperatures," Kaiser said. "Their noses had snot from water coming back and their legs were all cut up."
Kaiser said Cypress Trails is a floodway, and its owner, Darolyn Butler, has been in this predicament several times before.
"It's a chronic issue, her not being prepared for that situation," Kaiser said.
Butler defends her actions, saying she has always put her animals first. Butler told KHOU she had been monitoring the radar since Sunday evening, but never expected the rain to fall so fast in such a short period of time.
"It's not that I ignored it," Butler said. "The warning just wasn't there."
She acknowledged being in a floodway is not ideal, but said moving her business would be very difficult.
"Anybody who has seen this under a flood situation would not buy this property," Butler said. "I can’t sell it for anything close to what it would take to relocate."
Dana Pena of Katy said after years of seeing floods ravage Cypress Trails and put horses in danger, she started a petition online to have the business shut down. She said it garnered 12,000 signatures in four days.