Thursday, June 6, 2019

shades of Harvey


I had to reschedule my appointment on Wednesday with the electrophysiologist til next week as I woke up to heavy rain about 3 AM, with the resultant panicked dog, which continued with intermittent bouts of moderate rain til a little after 10 AM when it finally stopped. 

7:45 AM


8:45 AM


The house was completely surrounded by water 2” - 8” deep, the low lying areas around the house finally meeting up with the ditch in front and the field in back, the flower beds seeming to be little islands but I'm pretty sure they were under water too. 

9:50 AM


The toilet in the little bathroom on the slab was gurgling when I got up and so we decided not to try and flush the toilets and we tried not to use the water too much because it drained very very slowly into the septic tanks that were buried in the ground and that ground was completely underwater. Water was just starting to creep into the garage when it stopped raining and I think some seeped in from the back door as it was wet under the mat. 

An hour and a half later the ditches were still overflowed and didn't look like they were draining so the dog and I waded out to the street and down to the corner to see that it was draining into the cornfield which was already flooded. 

11:30 AM


By 1:00 PM I still couldn't get to dry ground that was not under water unless I waded through ankle deep or higher water as we were still surrounded but the dog and I ventured out, walked to the other end of the street. At the far end it was all mostly underwater and it all would drain to my end and my end drains into the cornfield across the road which was, as above, already flooded. 


It was going down albeit very very very slowly. This has never happened before, just from rain, not in the whole 12 years we have owned this property Harvey aside though Harvey was a completely different situation. This was 7 hours of rain. The Lower Colorado River Authority says we got a little over 8”. My friend Debby about 8 miles to the east of us reported 9” and my friend Bobby 12 miles east of us in Boling reported 10”. By 3 PM the water had receded a goodly amount but we still had standing water on all four sides of the house, by 5 PM the front and the two sides of the house and the little backyard no longer had any standing water while there was still quite a bit in back and the field behind us was still flooded.

I didn't empty the rain gauge yesterday and I should have because this morning about 6:00 AM another storm came through and it rained like hell for another hour or so leaving a little bit of standing water on the west side and in back.




21 comments:

  1. OH . MY. GAWD. Ellen! And this is only the beginning??? So much for weeding the garden this morning! I fear for your work on the house that you have done so well. Fires are predicted for our summer- I will have to leave, lungs too compromised to go through another summer like the last one. Welcome to "As the World Burns"

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    1. I guess I'd rather have a flooded house than a burned to the ground one.

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  2. We're just starting to get a drizzle here. I sure would like to see more than that. But not as much as you've got! Lord, things are just crazy. We don't even need to go there, do we?
    We are there.

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  3. Lawdy Lawd, It's floodin down in Texas. We had rain about 3am this morning but not much of it . Kind of a little here a little there then it moved on out to your part of paradise. It's going to be a bad summer.

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  4. Time to pull out the pontoons. I am very happy to be on high ground - we are getting downpours as well. As long as it all drains off, it's okay by me. Well, not okay, but what the hell are we to do about it? Let's hope this is not a trend.

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  5. looks like there is going to have to be some water management ditches and rain garden drainage and whatever efforts to prevent the house from taking on water again. I am so sorry to see this!!

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    1. ultimately we might have to raise the house. drains from the yard to the ditch don't do any good once the ditch overflows which is what happened.

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  6. Well, at least we won't have to water for a while!

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  7. This is worrisome. Is there a way you can build ditches or a dyke, you know like the Dutch? I hope it's gone by now.

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  8. Holy crap that's a lot of rain. :(

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  9. We had some light street flooding -- mostly in the usual areas, like freeway frontage roads. We had around 4", but it was pretty variable. The farther south and west you went, the worse it was -- like at your place. It looks like we've got some good drying weather now. They're muttering about passing showers tomorrow, but a nice weekend. You sure need it!

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  10. I watched the Wharton flooding from a ten minute drone video. I did not realize how many trees are in your town. It made me seasick watching all that green from overhead. I cannot imagine where all this weather will end.

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  11. Hmmmmm. That's scary. Do you think there's been some larger change in the regional drainage that's affecting your neighborhood? Like from development in surrounding areas? If it used to drain more easily and no longer does, that makes me think something is different. (Climate, too, I suppose!)

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    1. 8 - 10 inches of hard rain for 7 hours is going to overcome any drainage so this is just a result of climate change, harder longer fiercer storms from the heated up atmosphere. Wharton does need to do some drainage work and flood control. something they have been talking about for a decade, supposedly have the grants for and yet so far nothing has been done but study after study.

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  12. I am sorry to read this. It has to be nerve wracking to see all of that water after Harvey.

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  13. Golly, this is like round here when the river bursts its banks. We had a lot of rain yesterday and this morning but it has stopped now and slowly the river level is going down. I am on a hill and my house can only flood when there is enough rain to flood the front yard. Luckily that happens rarely. I am sorry you have to worry over rain when I normally read that you worry about drought. Climate change is a-coming.

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  14. Oh this is just so scary! We had a gullywasher last night - my dad said he had over 8" of rain in his gauge & I can believe it. So glad I live on the side of a hill so the water keeps on agoing by. My dad's road had flooding - I drove over there today & saw that the driveway had collapsed at a house in the neighborhood - it goes over a large culvert & it had just disintegrated. Water is so destructive.

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  15. That’s a lot of water Ellen! How does one raise a house?

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    1. they have special jacks that raise it up and then they add piers if the house is on a slab or build up the piers underneath.

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  16. Ellen, how are things today, Sunday? Improving, I hope!

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    1. we got another 2 1/2" Thursday night but no rain since. ground is still wet and a little bit of standing water at the very back of the property, actually the part of the field that we mow.

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