Thinking good thoughts for any and all in Texas floods. Hope you all got out safe, family, friends and of course Cougars.
My thoughts exactly. I hope all our Cougar buddy’s make it through safely. The amount of rain being dumped it the path of this storm is monumental.
Thanks guys. It’s bad but don’t buy in to some of the sensationalized national coverage - it’s compressed and doesn’t cover the really good things that are making the best of the situation. Ordinary Texans are helping out and a lot of other things are not getting much, if any, coverage. >>> I did get the car out of the repair garage even though the owner assured me it would be OK. Good decision as his shop is very close the the now flooding Buffalo Bayou which is getting more water as two big flood reservoirs are being relieved.
It is currently the worst storm in the past 800 years according to the Weather channel. Sure looks questionable to not order evacuation last week.
Easy way to donate $10 to Red Cross specific to Harvey:
Text Harvey to 90999. $10 will be directly billed to your cell phone bill.
I’d be trying to winch my Cougar on the roof… Cats don’t like water.
We tried that during Rita and thousands were stranded at night on the highways with no gasoline or shelter. (It made for an interesting view as I was flying into Houston on one of the last flights in.) Also, no one predicted Harvey was going to follow the weird pattern it did. >>> Generally, they’ll order a mandatory for storm surges which affect many fewer people and a recommended when it’s a question of waiting out the rain. >>> Evacuating even a small percentage of 4 - 6 million people in the metro area isn’t anything I’d want to do. >>> Here’s a link to a (rather long) news story that puts a fresh perspective on that choice. >>> https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-mayor-of-corpus-christi-knows-the-power-of-water-and-it-guides-his-decisions/2017/08/27/aa602602-8b8a-11e7-91d5-ab4e4bb76a3a_story.html?utm_term=.373c84843d4d
I have been hearing reports of all the people jumping in to help. The Cajin Navy was one name given to all the people who have taken out there boats to help. Firefighters from all over the Nation are on the way to help. It is going to take a lot of time to rebuild. Stay save all in the path of this and the next ones.
That’s why I keep the Cyclone and Cougars separate. Don’t need the wet cat smell in the garage.
Cats stayed dry so far, we fared much better than many in the area or even our neighborhood. Rains has stopped or tapered off significantly, the threat here is drainage from other areas into ours potentially flooding things. That is what did in the neighborhood houses that got water in them, fortunately only inches so far. Water levels have receded so barring inflow.
Given the mess in TX what really sucks is the people who came from East Texas and Western Louisiana to help (Cajun Navy) are now at risk of going home to a similar though possibly milder mess.
But all of this shows what a great country we live in with average people stepping up to help others in need irregardless of beliefs, appearances, or other various classifications they use to try to divide us.
Galen
"But all of this shows what a great country we live in with average people stepping up to help others in need irregardless of beliefs, appearances, or other various classifications they use to try to divide us.
Galen"
I’m really proud of my fellow Texans.
Keep the family of Officer Steve Perez in your prayers. His wife didn’t want him to report to work early Sunday during the storm but he was trying various routes to work. He apparently didn’t realize that an unfamiliar underpass had 16 feet of water.
The dive team recovered his body today.
I need to add that I’m also very proud and thankful for all the other folks from Louisiana and all over the country who are contributing and not getting publicity for their efforts.
Probably too many memories of Rita
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiQuN2h0v3VAhVX9mMKHRzkC-YQjRwIBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.hurricanescience.org%2Fhistory%2Fstorms%2F2000s%2Frita%2F&psig=AFQjCNHIPTROvNkE-B44m4uiV0Y9i9dkIw&ust=1504137308017046
That said, evacuation was the right call.
The mayor opened the city up to a lot of lawsuits for damage and from families of those that died.
Ultimately the individual can choose to do what they want either way. They must process the data and make a decision based on that. There was plenty of information around, In a theoretically free society you have the obligation to be aware of your surroundings, and understand impacts and make decisions. A successful free society requires individual responsibility. There have been enough rain events here that the data is available. So that being said evacuation is not a real option for some. The other issue is where do people go, San Antonio would be full from Corpus / Victoria and surrounding areas there they had to leave with wind / storm surge. That leaves Dallas / Fort Worth or Austin. Austin was in path of the storm for rain. The last place you want to be is one some of these roads in the rain they are designed to be water channels. Then add in some of the self centered idiots out there. They don’t think things through and put themselves and others in danger. Get off your FN social media look at me BS and think about your role in society and what you can do for you. Not what others can do to bail you out of stupid decisions.
If we were told to evacuate I wouldn’t have anyway. But that is my choice and I will live or die with that decision. The storm surge or wind was not a threat, Our neighborhood has good drainage and we have a large empty lake bed that things drain too. There is little reason to leave. 20 inches over several days is a lot but not for our area. Our threat is/was loss of electricity for an extended period of time as we are on a well, is that manageable yes it is.
It is easy to sit somewhere else and say what should or should not be but there is a lot at stake and the logistics are not clean or even always obvious. I know we will have family issues coming out of this as at least one close relative was in a river flood evac zone and chose not too. But as a person who works in an industry where mistakes can kill, you learn to evaluate risk to life and consequences, you also learn life does have a dollar value so do decisions, does your decisions put other lives at risk? What are the consequences of that?
It’s been a strange couple weeks in Houston. Thankfully, I did not have this in my garage.
My neighborhood was an island for about three days, but we didn’t have any damage. However, by the time we returned to work last Tuesday, we had 361 employees and their families displaced.
As for the evacuation discussion, there’s no way to evacuate Houston. We had 113 deaths in Rita, 107 of which were caused by the evacuation itself. I think we hit ~100 death in Ike and 70 in Harvey, both of which were MUCH worse storms. If people had been gridlocked on the roads trying to evacuate Harvey, they would have drowned in their cars.
The weather forecast was extremely clear, and city/county officials were knocking on doors telling people to evacuate certain neighborhoods 24 hours before the floods hit.
I’ve been working on volunteer teams gutting houses, and the first day there was just four of us working, but a church group was driving through mapping houses and handing out lunches. The next morning a team of about 20 volunteers showed up unsolicited and helped us finish that house. The outpouring of volunteerism and generosity has been amazing.
Traffic will probably remain a nightmare for another 3-6 weeks, but the Beltway finally opened yesterday.
City of Houston residents are up in arms about a property tax hike to pay for the infrastructure repairs, but it does look like we’ll get another reservoir in the near future.