After trashing the Rockport area, Hurricane Harvey has only just begun to wreak its havoc on the Texas Gulf Coast. It’s already clear that the most widespread damage from Harvey is going to be the flooding — it’s scary when meteorologist start talking about rainfall in feet, and they are. 1-3 feet (that’s 30.48-91.44 cm of rainfall for the metric crowd). Harvey’s one-two punch is not just the flooding caused by rain on the coast, but it’s bringing torrential rains hundreds of miles inland into east Texas, which is going to put an ungodly amount of water into the rivers in that area, so right about the time the rain flooding is subsiding, the rivers are going to flood.
Last I heard 300,000 people are without power. Here are some of the rainfall totals (multiply these number by 2.5 for cm) measured between Thursday evening and 10 a.m. this (Sunday) morning. (These are small towns in the Houston/Gulf Coast area)
SANTA FE 27.42
SOUTH HOUSTON 24.54
LEAGUE CITY 22.08
BACLIFF 21.62
PEARLAND 20.84
LA GRANGE 18.89
SUGAR LAND 17.97
CLEAR CREEK AT BAY AREA BLVD 17.84
MAGNOLIA 17.80
PASADENA 17.72
HOUSTON NE 17.22
CLEVELAND 16.43
NEW ULM 16.14
PECAN GROVE 15.80
SMITHVILLE 15.77
ALVIN 3 SW 15.16
I have relatives in Galveston, Pearland, Santa Fe, Alvin, and a blog friend in League City.
I’ve talked/texted with one cousin, EJ, in Pearland. They were OK as of this afternoon, as are her son and his wife and baby in Galveston. But her brother, my cousin BJ, is in the hospital with double pneumonia, and has been there for several weeks now, and the hospital he’s in is in that area. Still no word about how my cousin WM (and her cows!) is doing. My cousin DJ lives in Santa Fe, and as you can see, they’ve gotten 27+ inches of rain already. No word from him yet either.
I’ve quit watching the news. It’s breaking my heart. I’ve done all I can do. Donate to the American Red Cross, people. Donate money. Any amount. Whatever you can. Even if it’s just $5.
The Owl Underground 
Well. The current number w/out power is 98,661, so that’s good. And the water outside my place went down by about 3′, although of course in other places it’s come up. A friend’s son and his family in Pearland are up on their second floor, but so far the water hasn’t reached the house. They have three kids, and decided to make the move upward early, so they didn’t have a bunch of panic-stricken kids on their hands. I don’t know exactly where they are.
The river flooding’s going to be just as bad. I’m going to post a few photos in a bit — but a very few, since it hasn’t stopped raining, and I can’t go out and about anyway. The last lull we’ve had actually was the gull-lull, so there aren’t too many photos to cull. 🙂
I lost power yesterday, but it came back relatively soon, and it’s still on. I have my coffee, my AC, and charged-up devices. It is a luxurious life I lead.
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I hope there’s good news soon from your silent relatives.
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My sister-in-law in Pearland came out okay; didn’t have any water in her house which was a relief. Other relatives in Beaumont/Port Arthur didn’t fare so well. We’re not sure how much water DH’s mom got in her house since she can’t get back into the neighborhood to see.
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