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.
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.
ReplyDeleteBe prepared and I hope you don't need to worry.
ReplyDeleteMy 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.
ReplyDeleteI think the powers that be read the memo. Worst (best?) case, they send all the equipment back until the next time.
ReplyDeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteThis 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.
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!
ReplyDelete