Just touching in, we have been busy watching the news and hunkering down. This has been an event. While this is nothing to take lightly there are some of us that are doing just fine.
I have personally emptied our rain gauge of 31.25" since Saturday morning. This link shows my house and Tundra from a neighbors house just about an hour ago.
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So far we have no friends or relatives that have gotten any water in their homes. There is a lot of luck involved in that but before building our home I studied the flood plane maps before choosing a lot and even then I chose a lot on the high point of the street.
I just heard on NBC nightly news that we can expect 20+ more inches. I seriously doubt that wee will get even close to half that. We have received 6" since 10:00 last night and local forecasters expect this to mostly be done by early tomorrow evening, at least in the immediate Houston area. The areas you are mostly seeing on the news are the south east side of Houston. That area got rain at a rate of 5" per hour.
This is a tragic event for millions of Houstonians and it will take years to recover. I have lived through events like this and it is life changing.
Anyway, thank you to all that have called and texted, I appreciate your concerns but this time around I believe my wife and I, our relatives, and friends have dodged the bullet.
A mile north of our neighborhood and a mile east of our neighborhood we have been listening to air boats, yesterday and most all of today, evacuating residents from their neighborhoods. This hit close.
Our town was severely flooded in the hurricane of 1955, long before I moved here. One thing that helped me decide when I bought this house is the street in back of me is 20 feet lower than my house, the river another 20 feet below that.
My house is about 120' above a bay connected to one of the Great Lakes. From the end of my street I can look almost straight down on the roofs of the houses on the water. A bunch of years ago I got a letter from the company that held our mortgage informing us that our property is in a FEMA designated flood zone and that if I didn't show proof of flood insurance, they were going to buy the insurance for me.
I tried to imagine what it would be like if my property ever got flooded. You say that you heard air boats a mile away? Less than a mile from me the houses would be 100' under water! We're talking a flood of biblical proportions.
I called them the next day and found out that they had made a minor administrative error. They had sent the letter to every customer that had a mortgage with them. They told me to ignore it, but it took them 3 months to send a follow-up letter admitting their mistake. That makes me wonder how many of their customers believed them and actually went out and got flood insurance. I wonder if they reimbursed them.
It's good to hear you and your neighbors remain pretty much unscathed! Looking back, do you think a mandatory evacuation should have been issued by Houston's mayor before Harvey made landfall?
I've not heard _anything_ on the news as to metro Houston's tap water, is it safe to drink or bottled water only?
Storm chaser, Jeff Piotrowski live-streamed the most incredible video from the eye-wall - briefly in Fulton:
I grew up in Houston and was there during some of the worst storms they hav e had. They have decades of experience in how to handle this type of situa tion, from hurricanes, tropical storms, and their attendant wind and flood damage.
This has been explained carefully to the people of Texas, addressed by our governor and the mayor of Houston. They have had evacuations before, and th at added more trauma, deaths, and impossible rescue situations. Houston an d the surrounding areas have a lot of low lying areas and constantly flowin g waterways.
When they flood, they the people fleeing are in panic. It isn't a controll ed classroom evacuation where each child waits their turn to exit. It is f ull blown panic with everyone trying to save themselves and their families. So an evacuation order would have put literally MILLIONS of people on the road (pop. Houston metropolitan are 3 million, Houston proper 2.4) causing a complete deadlock of traffic. Millions would be trapped in their vehicle s. Now add the people fleeing our coastlines that travel through Houston t o get away; some fleeing due to their good sense, and others from mandatory orders to evacuate.
Next, add all the rest of the people fleeing all the surrounding cities and counties. What they are missing in the national news feed is that the flo oding extended 150 miles around Houston. 30 minutes from my house, one of the rivers is 10' out of its "flood stage mark. 125 miles from Houston, th e Colorado river is some unbelievable number of feet out of its bank, and h as not risen to this height in over 100 years. People that have never seen flooding are leaving their houses and businesses as they have several feet of water in them, adding to more highway jams.
If you notice, since so many rescues were required during the last catastro phic flooding, there are very few vehicles on the streets this time. The hi ghways are vacant. The advice to Houstonians was to "shelter in place". Th is has allowed not only professionals to have access to roadways (now servi ng as boatways) without worrying about people trapped in their vehicles in miles long traffic jams.
It is REMARKABLE that this strategy has worked so well. The people in Hous ton and the surrounding areas have banded together to rescue as many as pos sible. I have the local news on now, and they just said from the Houston a ffiliate that they are now receiving 1,000 calls an hour for emergency resc ues.
Just as remarkable, and for those doubting the strategy, think about this:
No one saw this storm turning around three times. It is the worst tropical storm/hurricane in history at this point, and it is far from finished. Ye t, it has claimed to this point only 3 deaths. It is awful to have any, bu t considering the circumstances it is incredible to have single digit loss of life.
My sister lives in the area of Houston that was the hardest hit. She has o ne of the highest elevation houses in the higher elevation area of the floo ds. They had about 4' of water in their front yard/street, and about 2' in their house. Down the street, there are houses with 6-8' of water in them . The water us receding, and some areas of Houston are opening up, despite the rain.
They have no power, no food, most people have no way to cook or heat anythi ng,no fresh water, and there is a "boil" order in effect for any water you get that doesn't come from a sealed container. I would like to take them s ome supplies, but they have advised that the city wants to keep the highway s clear for the traffic that NEEDS to go in and out of the city. I am hopin g to be able to make it there by the weekend.
Here in San Antonio (they are three hours away, in Texas terms "down the ro ad"), they have mounted a fleet of buses and are going to bring about 12,00
0 refugees to our shelters from Houston to add to the 4,000 we have from th e coastal communities. That will take some time and highway, as we are sti ll getting refugees from areas that were destroyed by high winds.
The State and Federal workers with the aid stations, hot kitchens, supplies , clothing and equipment need the roadways to be as clear as possible so th ey can perform their tasks. There are 6,000 State/Federal workers staging out of San Antonio now to work the coast/Houston/outlying areas as needed.
Absolutely not. In 2005 just weeks after the Katrina disaster that hit New Orleans Houston was faced with hurricane Rita. Needless to say images of Katrina were still on all of us Hustonians minds. Evacuations might be ok if you have a few weeks to do so. A certain Dr. Neil Frank weather guy on TV indicated that this storm was going to be worst than Katrina and the Houston was going to be a direct target. Houston would be "devastated", get out NOW.
IIRC some two million residents began evacuation 3 days before expected land fall. The highways were so over loaded that most people sat in a bumper to bumper parking lot that probably stretched 100 miles in some places. Vehicles ran out of gas on the highway while sitting 24-48 hours waiting to get no where. Many people died in their vehicles as a result. Unnecessary deaths that today I point the finger at the good Dr. Yo do not flee winds. If you have time you flee rising water. We did not have time.
With the exception of a very few cases the water is good. A couple of days before Harvey hit here our MUD president informed me that they had a back up generator for drinking water and one for the waste water plant.
All well said but the death toll has added a police officer that left to do his duty despite his wife's suggestion to not go into work today. His answer to her was that he had a job to do. His patrol car stalled in a swift water crossing and he drwoned.
A true HERO in every sense of the word. Our prayers go to his wife and family.
In a similar situation a van with grand parents and several children that were evacuating was swept away. An uncle the driver was able to escape and cling to a tree for an hour before being rescued. The van has not been found.
Unfortunately there will probably be countless more deaths.
Again our prayers go out to those families that are affected.
Actually in the west Houston area the sun has been out most of this afternoon. We believe the rain event is over for the western Houston area. This rain event is now being called an 800 year rain event. To understand how much water has been dropped, 9 Trillion gallons that is how much water goes over Niagra Falls in two weeks, would cover the entire United States with just over 1/8" of water.
Thank you, Leon and Robert for your detailed reply. Clearly, the logistics of evacuating that many people in such a short period of time would be imposable.
It's also clear reporters need to stop this crap with pushing a microphone in the face of victims of this disaster.
A few reporters are doing a good job but most are just taking up space on the boats and are of no help at all. This is an extremely bad time for the people being evacuated and they don't need to be asked what they think.
Good to hear you and yours are safe and unflooded. Hope it stays that way and rain clears out soon.
My neighbor left early yesterday morning to assist down there. He works with one of the organizations that provides support in areas requiring relief. Supposed to be there at least two weeks depending on need and supplies. I give him credit for jumping to anywhere in the world help is needed, although for his group, it's more frequently in the USA as of the last few years.
We're all hoping to see a little less of this drastic stuff for a while. Been too much these last several years.
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