Wednesday, April 20, 2016

here we go again


Once again Houston and environs got hammered with copious amounts of rain in a short period of time and the city is flooded due to urban sprawl and gentrification of all the old inner city neighborhoods. It's all wall to wall concrete now, a veritable sea of concrete. All the farm and ranch land is being bought up for more subdivisions as Houston spreads outward covering it all in concrete. There is no where for the water to go, no land to soak it up, the bayous can only hold so much. Areas are flooding that never flooded before during the same type of events. It's becoming a yearly thing.

just one of many parts of the city under water

Last year over Memorial Day weekend, the Colorado River flooded and crested here in Wharton at just over 44'. Low lying areas where the banks of the river are not steep and/or deep got flooded but it did not exceed it's banks at Riverside Park downtown. I posted about that here and here. Now we are facing a similar flood.


This year the powers that be have decided that the river's going to flood and we're all going to die so they have eight army troop carriers, a truck mounted crane, and several jeeps waiting in the Civic Center parking lot for rescue operations.

When I took these pictures at 2 PM Tuesday, the river was at about 35'.




Noon today it was almost 42' and they expect it to rise another 6+ feet cresting tomorrow.




Might be time to pull out the canoe and locate the paddles.


Just kidding. While we are technically in the flood plain, we are high enough so that if the river does spill over it's banks, it shouldn't affect us surrounded as we are by farm land, though the old timers here say this area has flooded in the past.




7 comments:

  1. You guys are getting a lot of rain, more than we're getting here in Portland where we expect rain. Glad you're high and dry.

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  2. Be prepared and I hope you don't need to worry.

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  3. My last time in a flood was 2008, I had been evacuated and had 2 ft of water at max in my yard.Not fun, I was in a hotel for 2 weeks.Hope you stay safe, it rained almost 1/2 inch here today.

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  4. I think the powers that be read the memo. Worst (best?) case, they send all the equipment back until the next time.

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  5. I was talking to a friend who was telling me of a few people swimming across some street to get to where their cars where parked... mostly underwater. Seeing your pictures puts her words into perspective. Goodness gracious.

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  6. I saw a great photo today of a midwife in the Woodlands (?) heading off to attend a birth on a huge, inflatable white swan. Despite it all, I couldn't help laughing.

    This whole thing was made even worse by conditions that generally come with "rain with a name." Three days before the rain started, the 30-40 kt winds raised water levels here at the bay by at least three feet, and the winds kept blowing from the ESE through the rain. There wasn't any north wind to push the water back out of the bay, and nothing coming down could get out. So, it started spreading and rising.

    I just heard them say that some Creeks like Cypress will crest on Friday. It's going to be a long, slow drain, though -- especially for the Brazos and Colorado.

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  7. Yeah, I feel like it wasn't so long ago we were looking at very similar pictures. I hope this doesn't become an annual occurrence!

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I opened my big mouth, now it's your turn.