“It’s like a camping trip that won’t ever stop.”

The couple had extensive damage in their one-story ranch home Monday. They’d spent the morning ripping out carpet in effort to rid the house of a musty odor and were going through household items to figure out what to keep and what to pitch. The whole house was a job for Clorox, Donna Jackson said.

Starting late Saturday night, Tropical Storm Harvey moved over the area after making landfall Friday night in Rockport, 200 miles south. The storm dropped more than 20 inches of rain in some parts of northern Galveston County over the weekend, with forecasts predicting more rain throughout the week.

Dickinson Bayou swelled, flooding parts of Dickinson that have rarely — if ever — flooded, residents said.

Even as they worked, Deats Road, where they’ve lived for decades, looked more like a lazy river than a thoroughfare. There was as much as 3 feet of water in some parts.

“We woke up before dawn and we’re sitting out having coffee” and looking at the street, she said. “I joked, ‘I always wanted a waterfront property.’”

Despite the devastation — and a long and harrowing 48 hours — the couple was in high spirits, making jokes about the state of affairs even as water had taken a heavy toll on their home.

“I promise I usually keep a better house,” Jackson said, looking at the remnants of a room where assorted items, including Easter egg grass, had been floating in a foot of water the day before.

“We’re OK. We have food, we have each other. You know, it’s just stuff.”

Donna Jackson, an emergency medical worker, had been in Angleton helping with Hurricane Harvey evacuees Sunday morning when her husband awoke about 5 a.m. to find water in the house.

She headed home, walking through flooded streets for more than an hour Sunday and hitching rides with different friendly strangers, before getting there about 1 p.m. Sunday with an escort from two Marines, she said.

“It all came up so fast,” she said. “Everything is ruined in here, but we’re OK.”

The couple were one of many families in Dickinson surveying extensive damage to their homes, vehicles and property on Monday morning. A few hours later, city officials called a mandatory evacuation because more rain was expected.

It wasn’t clear by press time how many people remained in the city.

A few blocks away on Roylene Court, Don Oglesby was sifting through damp cardboard boxes inside his home.

Oglesby, a retired electrician, had spent Sunday night with his wife and daughter on the second floor of his house, while water pooled inside.

“It came up so fast we didn’t have time to do nothing,” he said. “We all just went to the second floor and kept checking on the water.”

Oglesby had partially shut off power at his breaker box and unplugged everything at lower socket levels to avoid electrical fires, he said.

“I’m an electrician, but I was in water up to my chest” at that point, he said. “I won’t lie, I was a little skittish.”

The Oglesbys had several boxes of toys and back-to-school supplies to donate. As he surveyed the house Monday, it appeared all of it was dampened and ruined, he said.

“The water just destroyed everything,” Oglesby said. “The boxes were collapsing.”

Oglesby figured it might take as long as a year to get his house back in order. He planned to rent dumpsters and start clearing out the house with the help of friends and family in the coming days, he said.

“It’s just a mess now we’ve got to go through, but I guess everybody else has to go through it, too,” he said.