I know it doesn't concern many but I live in houston and we are about to get our first of several rainbands. Expecting 2-5" of rain by Friday morning, more rain if Erin shifts a little to the North.
DeAnne
Daughter,Grand Daughter, Niece, and Cousin of Elk Countians :)
Deanne, it concerns me, we have been in Galveston for 5 days and got into Houston last night. We will head back to the desesrt in West Texas Saturday or sunday. I had seen estimates of rain for the Houston area of 5-10 inches. That is almost as much as our annual rain fall in West Texas. By the way Im knew Leanne well infact she graduated from Moline the same year I did from Howard. Jack and Mary were super people, they were so great at getting along with the young people that frequented toots in the early days.
Frank Winn
As long as we get an hour break between the bands, we shouldn't have much of a widespread flooding problem. Now the street I work on floods with every rainstorm, and there are some other streets that will do the same (they all drain within an hour of the rain stopping). These are the streets that you are going to see on the television, and the hype will start about us being underwater.
LeAnne is my aunt and is now retired and living in Salinas CA. She is taking is taking care of Grandma Toots. They are really neat people, and the stories they tell will make you laugh and cry. My favorite Toots story is about her coming across an alligator in Moline KS in the middle of the street and doing her alligator stomp to scare it.
Tell Leanne and Mary I said hello and wish them well from me.
Frank Winn
We've been so quiet and now it starts. From now to November we watch those storms pop off the African coast and wonder what they will do. You all have to keep an eye on the Gulf of Mexico too. I will be watching. DeAnne, how big was the alligator? How did it get there?
I am hoping Erin will throw some rain into Kansas. Keeping a close eye on that.
Yes, DeAnne, tell us about the alligator.
Toots tells the story much better than I ever can but I will try.
The way I heard the story was.....
It was either 1962 or 1963 and Grandma Toots was getting ready for the start of the new school year. She was walking across Plumb st on her way to the school, when something crawled out of the culvert. It scared her at first and she gave a little shout. Well the shout made this thing turn towards her, and upon turning it started to hiss at her. She had no clue what it was. The thing then turned and tried to get back into the culvert, but Toots didn't let it. She says that she knew she would have to walk that same route everyday and that she would be too scared to walk it knowing that the thing could come out to get her at any time. So she started hollering and doing a little stomping dance in circle around it to keep it in the street. (Now when she told us this story in 2002, this little 90 year old lady got up and started to demonstrate the little stomp she did and corrected us when we did it wrong). She continued her little dance until a neighbor came to save her (Ira Thomas?). It was then identified as an alligator.
The alligator was actually only about 2 ft long, Toots was convinced it was much bigger, and no one really knows what happened to it.
Rumor has it that the gator was either purchased on a senior skip trip or on a summer excursion by some high school kids and that it had escaped from whomever was keeping it.
I don't think it would have survived a Kansas winter. Perhaps it turned into a purse somewhere. :D
did I dream this or did I really hear a tale about an alligator in the Elk River south of Howard some years ago?
Florene, there were two of them, shot by Hottinger the Pharmicist, seems like in the 20s or 30s. I had always heard a travelling circus dumped them in the Elk River. The stuffed remains hung in the back of the drugstore until in the late 50s or early 60s. I used to go back there and look at them.
Frank
There is a post somewhere on this site about the Elk Co, alligator. Probably at least a month or more ago.
DeAnne, I am about 30 miles north of Houston at Cleveland and work at Porter so I will get the rain too, lots of fun to drive in. ha-ha. Parts of my yard still haven't dried completely from all the rain earlier and I don't think I will ever get it all mowed at one time again. I usually am okay driving to work until I pull of the freeway and try to go under the overpass, this seems to be where the worst high water is.
Pat
We are in the Briar Forest part of Houston and it is absolutely pouring buckets full and has been since in the wee hours of this A.M. It is dark as night out there right now.
mlw
I live in SW Houston (Alief) and yeah the lightning show this morning was awesome...The flashes actually woke me up
I found this site a couple of weeks ago...it gives rain measurements all over houston...
http://maps.hcoem.org/hcrainfall.php?step=1&drpIncrem=d
Your map is very interesting. It looks like some areas got more than 4 inches in 12 hours. That's a good bit. Does that cause flooding or will that run off?
we have a pretty good drainage system in most of the city. there are a few spots that do flood on a regular basis, but even they drain off within hours of the rain stopping. The worst flooding I have ever seen in Houston was with Tropical Storm Allison in 2001. The Northside of Houston received 32 inches of rain in a 24-30 hr period.
live streaming video of rain and some flooding at www.ktrk.com .. they are reporting that some areas received 4 inches in one hour
We'll be thinking of you. Keep your pant legs rolled up.
An observation from San Antonio.
According to NOAA radar Erin has just passed San Antonio - Heading West.
The rain just stopped at my apartment complex 5 minutes ago and the sky is clearing.
Good! Was the rain you got useful, or too much.
we are still receiving rain in the Houston area...3 freeways are closed due to flooding (not unusual). rain expected to continue throughout the evening and clear out tomorrow.
rain has mostly ended today...blue skies this morning but they are forecasting 1-3" more this afternoon. Downtown Houston received 9.57 inches of rain and 7.05 inches fell in the Texas Medical Center.
Now we wait for Hurricane Dean
Quote from: Diane Amberg on August 16, 2007, 03:46:53 PM
Good! Was the rain you got useful, or too much.
Diane: In a couple of words It's too much ::)
We were just starting to recover from 50 some odd days of rain from May through July when we
normally get only 4 or 5 days, This last contribution is a bit more than we need. We are currently 26 inches
above normal rainfall
San Antonio sits on top of aquifer that has never had a surface reading of higher 650 - 665 in the 13 years I've
been here. Now it is starting to stay above 670 and today it is at 697. The result has been that springs that
been dry for 20 years are starting flow again. San Antonio has been undergoing a population explosion and those
springs had been built over. After all it was just stories from old timers who kept insisting that the springs ever existed.
And everybody knows that those old geezers were just against developers getting their God given rights to make
money. Some impacts:
- The Natural Bridge Caverns has lost access to it's lower levels as the water has risen 51 feet inside the cave
- A South San Antonio school district has had the ground floor of a high school washed out.
- My shortest access to the local freeway system was washed out for ten days. And still is doubtful after a heavy rain
- Buyers, developers and planning commissions are all pointing fingers at each other as newer developments are getting
flooded when areas are not in the official "flood plain"
Sounds like your Texas government at work, Leonard.
;D
Too much cement and not enough soil to take on the water.
Wow, I thought I had read that the Houston area was having record rains this year. It sounds like a lot of the old recharge areas aren't there any longer, and the water is going where it can. It always seems to be not enough or too much. My area here is hilly and we have lots of springs too. Some will be quiet for a few years and then up they come.