The rain in Texas getting serious

[bigpete]

Hoping all of our Southern peers are safe. As with many things, precipitation just a'int spread around in a fair and equitable manner. Less than 1/2" in five weeks in Southern Delaware. 70 miles to the North and 70 to the South, things are normal.

Send an inch our way and we'll send you some dry fill...

 

[GlennT]

This is the first morning without rain in a week! We wound up with a grand total of about 18 inches for the week. According to a San Antonio TV station last night, the greatest amount of rain fell just west of San Antonio--38 inches in 11 days. There was some rather spectacular footage of flood damage. In one instance a retiree was interviewed standing in front of his home. A house had come floating along and bumped into his neighbor's house which in turn was pushed off its foundation and floated along until it bumped into his house--three houses resting against each other. In another case a retired lady had lost her home in the flood of 1998. The flood waters had lifted the home off it's foundation and taken it downstream. She rebuilt and this time used pier and beam construction so the house in essence stood on stilts. Didn't make any difference; the flood again waters again took her house. The TV crew took footage of her house floating by and it was unusual because the house was floating so high out of the water. The porch furniture still stood in place as the house sailed by. It almost looked like a houseboat passing. The biggest [censored] on record was the gentleman in San Antonio who early in the week drove around a barricade and wound up stalled in the middle of a low-water crossing with water almost up to the window. Naturally he couldn't swim. The fire department rescued him but not before one of their boats capsized and the firemen in it had to be rescued themselves. After everyone was safe the man who caused all of this commotion was presented with a bill of $400; this is standard procedure. He became incensed and now is threatening a lawsuit against the city. Anyway, I see that clouds are moving in again; maybe we'll get some more rain.

 

[RanchMan]

Here's a link to a San Antonio TV station's web site. They have lots of info (including audio/video clips) from the highlights of their newscast. They also have some slideshow still photos....

http://www.kens-tv.com/

 

[Ozarker]

Thanks for the link.

I got concerned about this while listening to WOAI AM 1200 out of San Antonio. It is one of the few AM stations I can get here in Missouri at night. They have had great coverage about the dam in that county that may give way. Last night I heard that they evacuated everyone down stream and within one mile of the river on either side.

Hope that dam holds...................

 

[RanchMan]

No problem - happy you found it useful. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Yep, the Medina dam has been a big concern. For now things are looking ok for it, but who knows for sure.

There are actually some other dams that are of concern now, Medina is just the biggest that they're worried about. One small one has already failed and dumped its contents in to a second one, which they are worried about. Not good..../w3tcompact/icons/sad.gif

Abilene, TX (~225 mi north) just got hit with the same storm system - 12". Flooding there too, but nothing like the Hill Country.

For you baseball fans, they just showed part of Nolan Ryan's heard being moved to higher ground as they had been stranded earlier. Just proves that nobody has a "Get out of Jail Free" card when it comes to the weather....

 

[DavidInNH]

We just got back from a week's vacation in the Hill Country. My brother and mom both have places in Bandera on Medina Lake. They are on pretty high ground, but they weren't able to get out most of this week. It could have been worse - my brother's old place was under a lot of water, as were lots of his neighbors. Our family reunion wasn't complete without them, but we still had a great time.

We ended up staying in Kerrville at a friend's place right on the Guadalupe river. We saw a cow floating by, legs up, on Friday. Seeing the river flowing like this was pretty impressive. My sister-in-law said they saw a dock with the boat still attached and all the lawn furniture still on it. She said that folks were snagging boats before they went over the dam.

At least it was cooler in Texas than it was here in NH.

-david

 

[brewerbob]

My mom lives in Mission, down in the Rio Grande Valley. It's popcorn dry down there, and Falcon dam is as low as it's been in history. I'm hoping some of this water gets over to Falcon or down to the valley. I see on the National Weather Service that there's a disturbance in the Central Gulf that could hit Southern Texas or Northern Mexico. Sure would be nice if it would go in about Brownsville.
Bob

 

[DavidInNH]

We spent some of the vacation visiting friends in Corpus Christi. We kept extending the stay because it was nice and sunny down there and there were 13 people at my sister's house in Kerrville with a flooded septic system.

Your mom lives in Mission, eh? My mom grew up next door in San Juan. My dad grew up in Mercedes, just a little further down 83. I lived in Brownsville until the old age of 3. Its a very small world.

-david

 

[mikim]

<font color=blue>Sure would be nice if it would go in about Brownsville</font color=blue>
I'll second that - I live just south of Houston and my house is lower than I'd like - I got burned out in '88 - wouldn't care to be flooded out - I sure feel for the folks that have lost their homes to fire & flood this year.
mike

 

[GlennT]

Just an update on the rain in the Texas Hill Country. The greatest amount of rain that I had heard of was 38 inches plus in Leon Springs, just west of San Antonio. Yesterday we received our local paper (Fredericksburg) and the feature article announced that Cain City, near Luckenbach, had reported a total of 40.17 inches. Luckenbach itself had 32 inches; there was 8 feet of water flowing through the post office and dance hall that Willie made famous.