Irma

It looks like we'll just get the NE corner of tropical storm reduced, Irma. Yesterday, I went around and made sure all of our downspouts were well anchored and screwed 2x4s to the diverters. The diverters tend to blow away in high winds and the winds are really picking up. The worst is expected here in a couple of hours.

Work was cancelled for the day, so we're just kinda hanging out. I don't anticipate any major problems this far inland but those in Florida are going to have a long week, many worse. The islands are going to have it really rough. It's going to be hard getting food and water to them.

Where are you located? I would imagine any think inland will mostly be affected by the rain and possible tornadoes.

Its 1:29PM CDT and we are almost out of the rain shield (just south of Mont gomery, Al.). We are getting a light rain and a bit of wind, but not anyth ing more than we would get if a front went through. It seems that once Irm a made landfall, it started to fall apart, which was a huge blessing to tho se in its path. But that path has already caused a lot of pain, suffering, property damage and death, especially in the islands.

Leon, how are folks around you recovering?

Deb

Houston and the surrounding areas are getting it's mobility back, Some major north/south thoroughfares were opened back up this weekend and literally cut the commuting on the west half side of Houston and the out lying areas in half or more. Most freeways were taking 2 hours to get into down town and that shortened to about 1 hour last week. This week school started and the commutes have dropped to about 1/2 hour.

BUT the homes that were flooded are in terrible condition, whether that be $50K homes or $1 Mil + homes. My wife and I rode our bikes into one of the subdivisions about a mile north of us, inside the Barker reservoir. The streets were bumper to bumper on both sides with contractors trucks and debris was every where. You could hardly see the front yards because of the removal of the contents of the down stairs. Out of respect, I did not take any pictures. These were probably 3 to 4 hundred thousand dollar homes.

It shocks me that few had flood insurance. The word was that because they were in the 500 year flood plane they did not need flood insurance, meaning the mortgage companies did not require flood insurance. I do not care where you are, if your storm drains clog for any reason your street can flood. We are located in an categorized flood plane, meaning we are the least likely to flood, I have flood insurance.

As far as business goes, most gas stations, grocery stores, etc. are back to normal in the areas that did not flood. I think most all flood waters have reseeded except those in the Barker and Adicks reservoirs. For the most part both of these reservoirs have no neighborhoods except on the high perimeters. The homes that flooded in the reservoirs were those below 98' above sea level in this general area. The reservoirs are expected to continue to drain for the next 3~4 months.

Just SW of Atlanta. Mostly wind and rain. Not a huge amount of rain (4" or so) but over 36 hours, made for some really soggy ground and lots of trees uprooted. It really wasn't any worse than a good thunderstorm but it lasted a lot longer. We lost power from 2:00PM yesterday until about noon today. I had a couple of movies downloaded on my phone, so we watched Netflix on the little-screen TV last night. ;-)

Ironically, a friend runs an electronics sales representative company. Four of his guys live in FL, two in the Tampa area and two in the Orlando area. None lost power but he was out (in Atlanta proper) for several hours. It really wasn't that bad here.

Glad to hear you fared well! 4" LOL and you are soggy? I'm told we got more, but I measured 33" in 4 days. 17" in a 24 hour period Sunday. And 3 days later there is no mush anywhere in my yard. I began watering my yard again a few days ago.

Good to hear. This was my 6th hurricane/tropical storm of any magnitude. I would like to request no more in my life time. ;~)

Any more just runs of. Georgia red clay, you know. Yeah, anytime we get a lot of rain and wind, lots of trees get uprooted around town.

Understood. I decided I didn't like shoveling snow (or leftist politicians and their taxes), so left Vermont. I once considered a job in Wilmington NC, but took one look at the map of the US, then looked at a topographical map of the area and decided that I couldn't swim well enough to live there (it's flatter than Florida).