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Did Texas dodge a bullet?


jsharr

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Cat 4 hurricane comes ashore.  1 death due to a house fire so far.  Not too much damage on the coast.  Some tornado damage.  Only time will tell if the rainfall causes the flooding predicted, but for now, I am cautiously optimistic that we got really lucky.

It is sort of fun to watch the weatherheads trying to find damage to show us.  

Still have not seen much of what Port Aransas looks like.  Hope it is not too bad, as that is our go to place on the Texas Gulf Coast.

 

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Rockport got flattened. 

We have a little project going on in Gregory. It's kinda nestled between Corpus and Rockport. We'll prolly have to shut it down for a coupla weeks. Between general storm cleanup and lack of lodging, it might be even longer. 

The 6' deep Guadalupe is supposed to crest @ 30'. Bad news for Cuero (where I was most of '15) and Victoria. 

When Houston gets more than 1/2" of rain, everything floods. Dunno what's going to happen there. 

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1 minute ago, Wilbur said:

 poor Houston.

And it is nowhere close to being over.  :(

We had what I thought was a really bad rainfall of 13 inches over several hours one time.  Not anything compared to what these people are going through.  I'd rather have the wind (if not life threatening) than the rain any day.  The rain and the flooding will do huge damage to the people and property of SE Texas.  Very sad.   

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1 hour ago, Airehead said:

Anyone have an update on Montgomery.  She know longer can text or is saving the battery.  SHe has some very special horses in her care which I know she is worried about but we are worried about her.

Looks kike they have received about 10" of rain so far, and it is raining now.  Big question is whether she lives on higher ground, as the rivers, streams, and bayous are going over their banks.

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=30.3886&lon=-95.6963#.WaLY_FGQyos

There were some pretty scary 911 calls reported on tv from the Houston area this morning.  One lady indicated the sun was shining when they awoke, and within a few hours water was waist deep in her garage, where she was staying with her dogs and some disabled relatives.  They are warning folks not to go into their attics without tools to break through to the roof.  I was there during Carla, but this one appears much worse.

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So now I am hearing the news media looking for government officials that they can blame for the flooding and all the people having to be rescued.  We always have to have someone to blame, even if it is a 500-year storm.  I wonder who the media blamed for that forty days and nights flood? 

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1 minute ago, Kirby said:

We get those every time it rains a lot.  Water covers mounds, fireants turn into islands.  

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On 8/27/2017 at 1:51 PM, Road Runner said:

So now I am hearing the news media looking for government officials that they can blame for the flooding and all the people having to be rescued. 

Except the governor said to evacuate & the mayor said not to. Now the dumb-ass mayor says "well, we didn't know how much it was going to rain." :blink:

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Here's one of the bad parts. The rain is winding down, but the stress on the levees is ratcheting up. One breached today south of Houston, and one West of Houston can't contain any more water, so it is having uncontrolled releases, and it could fail also. It's pretty dire.

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2 hours ago, Wilbur said:

Has anyone blamed .. you know.. agent orange yet?

I'm sure some have but Even Trump doesn't make rain.

 

The biggest blame I've seen so far on the political forums is for Texas congress critters that voted down Sandy relief money and who are now clamoring for help, please help.

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3 hours ago, Wilbur said:

How do you evacuate that many people in that short a time?  unpossible. 

Not to mention the uncertainty of exactly which areas will get flooded.  They could have evacuated people from one area only to have the area they just went to get flooded.  It's just not possible to evacuate every area that could flood and move all those people to places that absolutely can't flood.

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40 minutes ago, Kzoo said:

In my experience, it's always the lowest areas that flood first.

 

42 minutes ago, Reverend_Maynard said:

Not to mention the uncertainty of exactly which areas will get flooded.  They could have evacuated people from one area only to have the area they just went to get flooded.  It's just not possible to evacuate every area that could flood and move all those people to places that absolutely can't flood.

That's a good point. The hurricane landed just north of Corpus, about 200 miles from Houston. The models seemed to pinpoint areas South and West of Houston to be in the biggest bullseye, in relatively unpopulated areas, while Houston was still in line for major flooding.

People in Houston remember Hurricane Rita which hit a couple weeks after Katrina. Houston evacuated en masse, but didn't get the Hurricane. The evacuation experience made current Houstonians very reluctant to consider a mass evacuation:

As an estimated 2.5 – 3.7 million people evacuated the Texas coastline, a significant heat wave affected the region. The combination of severe gridlock and excessive heat led to between 90 and 118 deaths even before the storm arrived.[40][41] Reports from the Houston Chronicle indicated 107 evacuation-related fatalities. Texas Representative Garnet Coleman criticized the downplay of the deaths in the evacuation and questioned whether the storm would be deadlier than the preparations.[58] According to local officials, the traffic reached a point where residents felt safer riding out the storm at home rather than being stuck in traffic when Rita struck.[40] Many evacuees periodically turned off their air conditioning to reduce fuel consumption as well as drank less water to limit the number of "restroom stops." According to a post-storm study, which reported 90 evacuation-related deaths, nine people perished solely as a result of hyperthermia. However, it was suspected that most of the 67 deaths attributed to heat stress were a combination of hyperthermia and chronic health conditions.[41] In addition to the heat-related deaths, 23 nursing home evacuees were killed after a bus caught fire on Interstate 45 near Wilmer.[41] The bus erupted into flames after the vehicle's rear axle overheated, due to insufficient lubrication, and ignited therapeutic oxygen tanks on board.[59] According to a resident near the site of the accident, there were three explosions.[60] Many of the passengers were mobility-impaired making escape difficult or impossible.[61] In June 2009, nearly four years after the fire, families of those who died in the accident won an $80 million settlement against the manufacturer of the bus and the company that provided the nursing home with it.[59]

 

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12 minutes ago, BuffJim said:

 

That's a good point. The hurricane landed just north of Corpus, about 200 miles from Houston. The models seemed to pinpoint areas South and West of Houston to be in the biggest bullseye, in relatively unpopulated areas, while Houston was still in line for major flooding.

People in Houston remember Hurricane Rita which hit a couple weeks after Katrina. Houston evacuated en masse, but didn't get the Hurricane. The evacuation experience made current Houstonians very reluctant to consider a mass evacuation:

As an estimated 2.5 – 3.7 million people evacuated the Texas coastline, a significant heat wave affected the region. The combination of severe gridlock and excessive heat led to between 90 and 118 deaths even before the storm arrived.[40][41] Reports from the Houston Chronicle indicated 107 evacuation-related fatalities. Texas Representative Garnet Coleman criticized the downplay of the deaths in the evacuation and questioned whether the storm would be deadlier than the preparations.[58] According to local officials, the traffic reached a point where residents felt safer riding out the storm at home rather than being stuck in traffic when Rita struck.[40] Many evacuees periodically turned off their air conditioning to reduce fuel consumption as well as drank less water to limit the number of "restroom stops." According to a post-storm study, which reported 90 evacuation-related deaths, nine people perished solely as a result of hyperthermia. However, it was suspected that most of the 67 deaths attributed to heat stress were a combination of hyperthermia and chronic health conditions.[41] In addition to the heat-related deaths, 23 nursing home evacuees were killed after a bus caught fire on Interstate 45 near Wilmer.[41] The bus erupted into flames after the vehicle's rear axle overheated, due to insufficient lubrication, and ignited therapeutic oxygen tanks on board.[59] According to a resident near the site of the accident, there were three explosions.[60] Many of the passengers were mobility-impaired making escape difficult or impossible.[61] In June 2009, nearly four years after the fire, families of those who died in the accident won an $80 million settlement against the manufacturer of the bus and the company that provided the nursing home with it.[59]

 

THIS!  And Houston proper is 2.3 million.  If you consider the area flooded, you would double or trip that number possibly.  Imagine evacuating 6 million people.  

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A FB group I'm in someone made this post, it's pretty cool.           

DISCLAIMER: Non-tri related update from Houston.

So lemme tell you what a bad ass place Texas is (as if you didn't already know). We have been pulling people out of rescue boats in and around our neighborhood and taking them to shelters for the last 48 hours.
Today we decided to expand our scope. 

In total, we drove to 4 different places today through deep water with our 4x4 trucks, 2 kayaks and a 25" bay boat in tow to help evacuate people.  The first 3 places were already totally clear from all the people rescuing others for the last 2 days.
The last place we went to launch the boat, We were actually TURNED AWAY because.... wait for it.....VOLUNTEER BOAT TRAFFIC WAS TOO CROWDED. 

That's right - SOOOO many regular people rushed to the help of complete strangers that the volunteers were causing a water traffic jam!! 
Every place told us that they had evacuated everyone who wanted to leave (yes some people were choosing to stay in their homes - thats a whole different topic).
Damn I love this state and these people!!!
Everyone stay safe and keep those prayers coming - we are not out of the woods yet by any stretch.

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