I hope our friends in S. Texas are ok

[jr59]

Let us know when you can. God bless all

[Cicli]

Me too.
Check the Scuba Diving forums?:bike:

Seroiusly, hope your bikes are safe.

[KJMUNC]

Power out here in Austin since 3am. Heavy rain and winds still ongoing and worse that we expected. No trees down in our yard yet, but keeping fingers crossed.

[Seramount]

have friends in Pearland (south of HOU)...they've had 18 inches of rain in 24 hrs. not answering email or texts...not a good sign.

Austin is faring relatively well...intermittent rain and winds. periods of calm interspersed with drizzle and then horizontal sheets of water and 35 mph gusts.

only have 6 in showing on my rain gauge, but much more to come.

[weisan]

Like other pals said, compared to our pals in Houston area and the surrounding coastal towns, Austin is spared the brunt of the storm for the most part. The real concern now is flooding. The next few days will be crucial.

[cmg]

not as bad as predicted, more wind than rain, about 2" of rain. Austin, houston, galveston have gotten it worse. saw people riding bikes here yesterday and today.

[steelbikerider]

I'm in Pearland. Neighborhood streets are flooded but haven't heard of water in houses or power outages yet and haven't heard of any serious situations on hte local news. PM me. If they are cyclists I probably know them.

[cloudguy]

This article pretty much says it all. Surprised this is not the top story on the Paceline. Biblical.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/08/27/texas-flood-disaster-harvey-has-unloaded-9-trillion-tons-of-water/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_cwg-harvey-9a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.5b57b569094a

[jlwdm]

Sent a text to a friend in Houston, and he said no issues so far.

Jeff

[peanutgallery]

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/21078730_10155437802501839_4500900056553163486_n.j pg?oh=7f0343f28a248c0af46121b4ba3742ba&oe=5A5A5AF9



https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2017/08/27/a-photo-of-a-dog-carrying-a-bag-of-food-after-a-storm-hit-texas-went-viral-heres-his-story/?utm_term=.a30104a962cf

[Bentley]

I'm hearing it is epically bad in Houston and areas south along the coast. I lived for a year in Clear lake, it floods with heavy rain, this is way worse. I'm praying for them, the pics and video are not good.

Ray

[jlwdm]

My friend in Houston said 27" of rain so far and expecting up to 15" more.

Jeff

[tiretrax]

Sent a text to a friend in Houston, and he said no issues so far.

Jeff
He's fortunate. It really depends on where one lives. The street where I grew up would flood in the normal summer afternoon rains. I can only imagine how awful it would have been if half the city tried to evacuate. Large portions of the Gulf Freeway and other highways are submerged. If there were large traffic jams like in the past evacuations, it would be deadly. My prayers for those of you that live in a low lying areas, whether in Houston or other cities.

[Louis]

H If there were large traffic jams like in the past evacuations, it would be deadly.

There's a one word reminder for those who say that Houston should have tried to evacuate: Rita

[11.4]

My brother is on the west side of Bellaire. Late this afternoon he had four feet of water in the street, almost a foot of it on the floor of his home. He has two cars, including a vintage Alfa Romeo Spyder, that are toast. Much of Houston isn't eligible for flood insurance so for many this is out of their own pockets. The problem in Houston is that water can accumulate fast but there's nowhere to release it to -- Houston isn't on the coast and it takes a long time to drain all that water into adjacent swamps and marshland. One good summer storm can create a couple feet of flooding so this is simply unprecedented. FEMA simply doesn't know how to calculate what's happening here, especially since the storm may exit to the Gulf briefly and then turn back in again. The amount of water it's carrying is simply incredible:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/08/27/texas-flood-disaster-harvey-has-unloaded-9-trillion-tons-of-water/?utm_term=.a6f5aee07afe

[cloudguy]

And just think: a year ago a certain group of Texans were talking about succeeding (http://time.com/4329364/texas-secede-history/). Wonder the what the price tag for the Gubmint we'll be on this one?

[bironi]

And just think: a year ago a certain group of Texans were talking about succeeding (http://time.com/4329364/texas-secede-history/). Wonder the what the price tag for the Gubmint we'll be on this one?

yeah I get that too. The Lone Star State. Right.

[jlwdm]

That would be seceding. Not supporting seceding, but do realize that money from the federal government for disasters everywhere in the US is not free. We are all paying for these funds.

Brioni, you are coming from the perspective of a town, Olympia, that lives off of state government, tried to enact a city income tax not long ago and has lost control of its downtown.

Jeff

[ldamelio]

C'mon guys. Natural disaster, people are suffering. Show some decorum and hold the political discussions.

[Keith A]

C'mon guys. Natural disaster, people are suffering. Show some decorum and hold the political discussions.Thanks for posting this message. Let's not turn this into a political discussion.

[93legendti]

thanks for posting this message. Let's not turn this into a political discussion.

c'mon guys. Natural disaster, people are suffering. Show some decorum and hold the political discussions.



+1000.

[54ny77]

As the original post said, I too hope our paceline pals down in the affected area are ok. The devastation is massive, based on the photos and news reports. Very sad to see.

[11.4]

C'mon guys. Natural disaster, people are suffering. Show some decorum and hold the political discussions.

Yes. Good job.

[Matthew]

The devastation is unbelievable. Thoughts and prayers to all effected down there. This unfortunately will be felt for years. Stay strong!! Matthew

[HillDancer]

...hope your bikes are safe.
When the water came to the door, the bikes were first off the floor.

My brother is on the west side of Bellaire. Late this afternoon he had four feet of water in the street, almost a foot of it on the floor of his home. He has two cars...
I'm on the east/downhill side. My cars are history too. When the water rose enough to short the electrics, their windows rolled down.

[Louis]

When the water rose enough to short the electrics, their windows rolled down.

Not that this matters a lot to you now, but I think that's actually a safety feature, in case you accidentally drive into a lake or river.

Looks like your life is going to be a real pain for a while. That sncks. Sorry to see that.

Best of luck recovering.

[shovelhd]

Holy crap. That's almost a foot of water. My mother's house was wiped out by Sandy. Best to you.

I heard on the radio this morning that the flood zone in Texas has grown to the size (area) of Lake Michigan.

[Keith A]

HillDancer - So sorry to hear about this for you and your family. Having experienced some serve damage to our home and vehicles from hurricanes, I understand your pain. I hope all goes well with your recovery.

[54ny77]

wow. don't want to sound cliche, but what really matters is you're around to take a photo of that and post such a thing. stuff is just stuff.

best to you & yours and that you remain safe.

When the water came to the door, the bikes were first off the floor.


I'm on the east/downhill side. My cars are history too. When the water rose enough to short the electrics, their windows rolled down.

[dgauthier]

Holy crap. That's almost a foot of water. My mother's house was wiped out by Sandy. Best to you.

I heard on the radio this morning that the flood zone in Texas has grown to the size (area) of Lake Michigan.

I heard on the evening news one river was expected to rise 59 feet(!) above normal. Can that be correct? That's the height of a five or six story building!

You're in our hearts and prayers. Give to the Red Cross.

[weisan]

I heard on the evening news one river was expected to rise 59 feet(!) above normal. Can that be correct?


No, 59 feet total.
But still, this is unprecedented and historic. We are entering uncharted territories.

[shovelhd]

As more refineries shut down, economic damage estimates are approaching $100B. Yesterday, I was hearing $15B.

[steelbikerider]

It's the Brazos river at Richmond. Banks are full at 20, minor flood stage is 45
so only a 4 story building.
Normally the Brazos is at most 100 - 300 feet wide. At flood stage it spreads at for miles on either side.

https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=hgx&gage=rmot2

[ANAO]

I'm just posting to say that for all of our brothers affected, our thoughts and prayers are with you. Can not begin to imagine the mental anguish you are going through.

[colbyh]

Addicks and Barker dams started overflowing this morning, the two main feeds into Buffalo Bayou (main river running through downtown Houston). One of the levees in Brazoria county south of Houston/Ft Bend broke this morning as well...gonna be a rough few days.

[makoti]

It's the Brazos river at Richmond. Banks are full at 20, minor flood stage is 45
so only a 4 story building.
Normally the Brazos is at most 100 - 300 feet wide. At flood stage it spreads at for miles on either side.

https://water.weather.gov/ahps2/hydrograph.php?wfo=hgx&gage=rmot2

3 of the 5 historic crests (now 4 of 6) are in the last couple of years. That's worrisome.

[11.4]

My kid brother runs a company on the ship canal, and says it looks like Pearl Harbor. It'll be months to clear and then will have to be completely re-dredged. Until then, not much happens. So I rather suspect gas prices and the economy itself are going to be hurt for a good while.

There's nowhere for the water to go once the rain has gone. Remember, Houston isn't really on the water and there's no altitude that allows the water to run off. Most of the land between Houston and the sea is already saturated marshland, and Houston doesn't absorb much water at all. So it'll be very slow to dry out. And remember all the contaminants from fuel to sewage to toxic metals from industrial sites, and on and on. Plus all the mold that will grow everywhere. Plus the mosquitoes, the West Nile virus, the Zika, ... it doesn't stop. I worked a couple big tsunamis that killed thousands, and garnered a huge respect for what it takes to get rid of the water and restore the land health. This storm is like nothing anyone has dealt with before and it's in possibly the worst possible city in terms of adverse effects.

[jr59]

Like I said at first, god bless all of you. You have a long long way to go to recovery, I'd guess five years or so. Try not to give up hope, all of us are pulling for you guys


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[cadence90]

I'm just posting to say that for all of our brothers affected, our thoughts and prayers are with you. Can not begin to imagine the mental anguish you are going through.

Like I said at first, god bless all of you. You have a long long way to go to recovery, I'd guess five years or so. Try not to give up hope, all of us are pulling for you guys

Indeed.
The overhead images especially are shocking and heartbreaking, and the scale of devastation is incredible.

In addition to prayers I am looking for real ways, however small, to try to help in some way.

[11.4]

It's interesting how there's so much criticism of Houston -- they didn't maintain building codes, they didn't build drainage systems, whatever. But the problem is that the underlying soil has very poor absorption, between a fifth and an eighth of what farmland in Kansas would absorb. The terrain is also flat and Houston isn't right next to any big waterway, so the water basically only has evaporation and slow drainage to remove it.

But here's the rub. Nobody wanted to build there. It started as a mosquito-filled marsh and that's basically what it is today. It had only one purpose, and that was to serve as a loading point for West Texas Intermediate Crude to take it to the other states and abroad. If Texas was going to use the oil itself, it wouldn't have needed Houston. So the people who are saying that the secessionist Texans shouldn't get Federal aid are missing the point that that city existed only to ship them Texan crude. And there was nowhere on the coast with better drainage, so they just got the best that could be found. Building codes could have been better, but that wouldn't have stopped the flooding here. Only drainage would have, and a drainage grid would never have coped with more than a small percentage of this rainfall. It was basically all over before it started. So I feel very bad for Houston, and yet I'm very proud of all the cities in Texas that are supporting Houston. Texas takes care of its own. It's a good thing to see.

[cadence90]

^
Certainly Houston's zoning laws (more accurately, lack of zoning laws) and their relationship to infrastructure will come under even more severe criticism now.

While the lack of strict zoning policies and regulations have some appealing aspects, primarily on sociological levels, on physical levels the lack of overall cohesive systems come with little accountability and enormous risks.

The debate is going to rage even more wildly following this tragedy, but unfortunately the damage has been done.

[steelbikerider]

I measured about 33 inches on my gauge for the 4 days of rain in Pearland.
My aunt 30 miles SW had 7 inches. 10 miles east had 50+. Even though predictions had 20+ inches leaving wasn't really a good option. West would be the evacuees from landfall going to Austin, San Antonio. East would be Lake Charles and New Orleans. North would be Dallas/Fort Worth and only 2 interstates to get there. You would have had thousands of vehicles on the roads still when the rains came.

Even though forecasts were fairly accurate about the storm path, there was no way to predict the flooding that has occurred. Areas that have never been close to flooding in 100 years have feet of water. The flooding also has not discriminated. Some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the Houston area were hit hard. Even the former mayor who decided to let 200,000 Katrina evacuees come to Houston had to wade out of his elevated house in waist deep water. It is every bit as bad or worse than what you see on TV.

Rockport where the 2nd landfall occurred is about 180 miles from here, Beaumont/Port Arthur is another 100 miles east and the storm keeps dropping double digit rainfall totals. The total storm track is unbelievably huge. The true heroes are the everyday people who pulled out fishing boats, 4 wheelers and jacked up trucks that made trip after trip to get people out and the thousands of military and first responders working round the clock.

Two more are JJ Watt raising millions already and mobilizing an armada to deliver relief supplies and "Mattress Mack" a local furniture store owner who has opened up his showrooms to evacuees, set up new mattresses on the warehouse floor and has hundreds of people sleeping on $2000 sofas, beds and chairs. He will probably have a hurricane sale when its over selling lightly used furniture at 1/2 price and sell even more houses of furniture after that.

It was tough being trapped for 3 days and not able to do anything but we were lucky and no water reached the house. I was able to get out today and help a couple of co-workers tear out walls and move furniture. Riding this weekend doesn't seem very important right now so I'm trying to turn our usual Saturday ride into a work group. For those of you that ride this weekend, take note of how privileged we are that we can ride.

[shovelhd]

It's interesting how there's so much criticism of Houston -- they didn't maintain building codes, they didn't build drainage systems, whatever.

I'm not hearing any of this political noise, and I'm glad I'm not. Now is not the time.

I heard this morning that economic damage estimates are now at $160B.

[54ny77]

Damn. Be safe out there. I was looking at some images last night online and they are staggering.



I measured about 33 inches on my gauge for the 4 days of rain in Pearland.
My aunt 30 miles SW had 7 inches. 10 miles east had 50+. Even though predictions had 20+ inches leaving wasn't really a good option. West would be the evacuees from landfall going to Austin, San Antonio. East would be Lake Charles and New Orleans. North would be Dallas/Fort Worth and only 2 interstates to get there. You would have had thousands of vehicles on the roads still when the rains came.

Even though forecasts were fairly accurate about the storm path, there was no way to predict the flooding that has occurred. Areas that have never been close to flooding in 100 years have feet of water. The flooding also has not discriminated. Some of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the Houston area were hit hard. Even the former mayor who decided to let 200,000 Katrina evacuees come to Houston had to wade out of his elevated house in waist deep water. It is every bit as bad or worse than what you see on TV.

Rockport where the 2nd landfall occurred is about 180 miles from here, Beaumont/Port Arthur is another 100 miles east and the storm keeps dropping double digit rainfall totals. The total storm track is unbelievably huge. The true heroes are the everyday people who pulled out fishing boats, 4 wheelers and jacked up trucks that made trip after trip to get people out and the thousands of military and first responders working round the clock.

Two more are JJ Watt raising millions already and mobilizing an armada to deliver relief supplies and "Mattress Mack" a local furniture store owner who has opened up his showrooms to evacuees, set up new mattresses on the warehouse floor and has hundreds of people sleeping on $2000 sofas, beds and chairs. He will probably have a hurricane sale when its over selling lightly used furniture at 1/2 price and sell even more houses of furniture after that.

It was tough being trapped for 3 days and not able to do anything but we were lucky and no water reached the house. I was able to get out today and help a couple of co-workers tear out walls and move furniture. Riding this weekend doesn't seem very important right now so I'm trying to turn our usual Saturday ride into a work group. For those of you that ride this weekend, take note of how privileged we are that we can ride.

[Bruce K]

This is not the place, or thread for political discussion

BK