High Folks Lethal here coming to you from onboard the CLS (Curmudgeonly Leprechaun’s Ship) Grace O’Malley standing safely off Houston’s Ship Channel in the Gulf of Mexico.

I’m writing this because I have been fielding numerous messages from concerned readers regarding Molly’s and my safety fearing that the near record breaking Bayou flooding brought on by the heavy rains (11 inches in 3 to 4 hours in some places) had gotten us. Not with out good reason either I might add as there have been seven confirmed deaths and two missing as a result of historic flooding in the area. A city official noted that they responded to 968 incidents overnight (Monday to Tuesday), 531 of which were water-related.

We’re good, safe, secure & dry. At one point we were ready to load the car and to leave because of reports of a Bayou near us getting close to flooding which would have basically cut off our sole still viable escape route away from the storms but then we started seeing end of the storms on radar.

We’re fortunate in that the work done on the foundation of the building our apartment is in while cracking many walls and making doors stick seems to have fixed any issue with our apartment flooding during heavy rains or at least so far anyway.

The closest serious flooding is about 5 or 10 miles from us and throughout the entire thing we never lost power which I’ll admit was a bit of a surprise to me considering of often and easily the power does go down hereabouts.

We’re quite happy now that our planned move last November fell through since if it had not I’d be posting quite a different message here today. While we would have been on the second floor high and dry, we’d have been searching for our car’s roof top on the flood waters had we moved.

Molly worked from home yesterday after talking with her boss and telling him she would be late because she was unwilling to travel until the sun was up and she could clearly see what she was up against  as downtown is impassable and most highways thru it
were either flooded or full of debris /or abandoned cars. Since we no longer have the Yukon or Tahoe with the high ground clearance Molly is no longer fearless about picking her way through minor flooding. Most of her company didn’t make it in until almost noon, several people with low sitting cars gave up, turned around and went back home. Many businesses and a lot of the schools were closed either due to their flooding , parking lots being flooded or the impassibility of streets.

Despite the weather guessers having studied their pretty computer pictures, their divining of entrails and what ever else they do to consistently wind up with the wrong forecast claims that all signs indicated we were done with the heavy rains with the exception of the usual afternoon showers when the sun started setting and the heat pump switch off we endured about 2.3 to 3 hours of a serious window rattler early this morning. Despite it dumping another 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch of rain it hasn’t really effected things too badly and the flooded highways and roads continue to drain and be cleared.

They expect the bayous to be flooded for quite some time as yet, the NWS warning being in effect until next Monday or until canceled.

Thanks for checking on us to those who did. Here are a few photos of the flooded areas yesterday for all you cyber-rubberneckers.

This before, during and after shots of I-45 Northbound @ N. Main St. Molly passes through here everyday on way to work.

Bad day to be an Insurance Claims adjuster!

This is a bridge over Bray’s Bayou downtown. This is the one that got all the news attention because it went form 3 feet to just over 30 feet in a single hour before cresting at 44 feet. This is the one in which lives were lost during a rescue. IT’s currently down to 21 feet but still flowing at over 2000 cubic feet a minute which is in the lethal range if you’re in the water.

Brays Bayou water levels rising. The bridge in the distance appears to be the same one as the previous shot with the truck.

Here it is an hour after the last shot.

That white line on the left  side middle way up the photo is a concrete lane divider that stands 42 inches high.

Grand Parkway @ HWY 90. Rear hatches are open because people couldn’t open doors against water pressure holding them closes so the escaped through the rear hatches. Open hatches make rescue workers lives easier because they know those cars are empty. One car was recovered with a body inside.

Allen Parkway @ Memorial Drive

Another shot taken somewhere along Allen Parkway

No data on where this was taken as it was reposted so many times and shot with a Drone.

See idiot in red canoe just left of center photo? Bad idea. that water is teeming with chemicals and disease. Sewage processing plants were flooded and over flowed, one spilling over 100K Gallons of unprocessed effluent. That’s not even addressing the fact if something happened he’d be screaming for  Emergency Services people to rescue his dumb ass from his own dipshidiosity!

{Word for the Day: Dipshidiot (n.) – A person who is not only a dipshit but an idiot all rolled into one.]

Underground parking lots while a secure place to park normally become underground reservoirs during severe rains.

Galleria lower parking level is FULL- of water. Not cars.

The Galleria is one of the most expensive high class neighborhoods in Houston. This is a photo of a property called Galleria Townhomes. A 1BD/1BA, 820 SF apartment here will run you between $1065 & $1497/mo.  The full submersion car wash is complementary. The structure to the left side is a 2 level parking area with the light reflecting on the flooding in the lower level.

River Oaks Area proving it was names correctly, That Buffalo Bayou on the other side of the tree line well over its banks. Oh btw, River Oaks is the wealthiest and most expensive community in Texas and among the top ten in the United States. Real estate values in the community range from $1 million to over $20 million.

Important thing to know in Houston – Never live in a property that is lower than the street in front of it. This is why.

Another Dipshidiot, this one in the Braeswood- Maplewood South area of Meyerland section of Houston.

Need more proof of why playing in flood waters is a bad idea? These guys have been forced out of the bayous by the flooding &/or washing away of their homes too. This one is downtown in the Energy Corridor outside a major office building. How’d you like to meet up with him in the flood waters while bring a Dipshidiot?

Patio/Pool area of the Omni Hotel on Riverway in the Galleria Houston. Who’s up for a swim?

Visualized: How the insane amount of rain in Texas could turn Rhode Island into a lake

Quite a bit, isn’t it? Just eyeballing, it looks like enough water to completely fill up a good-sized house. According to the EPA, the average American family can expect to go through about half an acre-foot of water per year.

But this is just one acre-foot, and in Texas we’re talking about millions. So let’s bump up the scale.

In this view I’ve multiplied that cube by 1,000. Now we’re looking at an enormous block of water 351 feet long on any side. By comparison, the Statue of Liberty is only about 305 feet tall from ground to torch. A person is barely visible in this view. With 1,000 acre-feet of water, you could fulfill the water needs of a 2,000 household town for a year, or fill up about 500 Olympic size swimming pools.

But we’re still not at the right scale to understand Texas. Let’s cube it again:

Now we’re getting somewhere. Each one of these cubes is 1,000 acre-feet in size, for a total of 1 million acre-feet. The Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building at 2,700 feet, is dwarfed by this massive brick of water. The Statue of Liberty is just a speck at this scale.

This 3,500 foot tall block of water could supply the needs of a city of 8 million people for one year. The crazy thing? This all flowed into Texas reservoirs in just the past 48 hours.

But those 48 hours are still just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the rain that’s fallen in the past month. Finally, here’s the full block of 8,000,000 acre-feet of water that’s accumulated in the past 30 days.

So you can start to see the magnitude of crisis that Texas is facing. But even this is just a fraction of the total amount of rain that’s fallen. After all, much of the rain doesn’t end up in reservoirs, but soaks into the ground or runs off from rivers to the sea. And this doesn’t even count the amount of water that’s fallen in Oklahoma.

And most troubling for people on the ground in those areas: there’s more rain in the forecast:

FYI: It was “60% for Scatter Thunderstorms” that caused the current situation too. It’s not unlike New England getting 14” of “Partly Cloudy with a slight chance of flurries.”