A Sea Of Red

I can't speak for others, but my crew is surviving these storms thus far. I know several of the family members of those who were swept down the river in Wimberley and remain lost. And there is flooding all over the place here in Houston. The dam that has been in the news about possibly breaching is near my cabin and the in-law's house. Thankfully they are on an Alaskan cruise with my parents.

The devastation down here is worse than a hurricane and I have been through several big ones. Please pray for all of those impacted.

It is kind of crazy how it has come so fast after years of drought down there. Prayers for you and your family and the rest of Texas.

Praying. It is ironic that History channel started a series last night called Texas Rising. And we are watching Texas sinking before our eyes

The Trinity River is still 20 feet below the top of the levees in downtown Dallas (although it has recently crested at moderate flood stage) but there have been calls for swiftwater rescues due to flash flooding and many roads/streets have been closed at times in the Metroplex. We heard tornado sirens going off at 2:30am the other morning and our phones were constantly chirping about the flash flood warnings.

It was really bad further north around Witchita Falls and there was one dam on the TX/OK border where the water was actually topping the dam.

Much worse in South Texas, Central Texas and Southeast Texas. For the Stevie Ray Vaughn fans, the irony in this pic from Austin this morning is epic ...



I had a bunch of friends trapped with Dwight Howard in Toyota Center after the game last night. Most had to drive through 3-4 feet of water to get out of downtown. And the runoff has made it worse this morning. Keep in mind that Houston is right at sea level and the ground is saturated after weeks of heavy rain daily. There is nowhere for the water to go.

What's really bad is that my wife is from Oklahoma and her hometown (Lexington) is underwater as well.

Yeah, y'all definitely have it worse with the flooding. Hopefully the tornado situation isn't worse down there. Small towns that surround the Metroplex have been getting hard by the twisters, especially in Collin and Denton counties. I think I've seen a tornado warning for those two on a daily basis for the past week.

I totally hear you about being at sea level and the water not having anywhere to go. That was an issue in VA Beach during heavy rains.

praying for y'all.

Sly Fox wrote:Much worse in South Texas, Central Texas and Southeast Texas. For the Stevie Ray Vaughn fans, the irony in this pic from Austin this morning is epic ...



I had a bunch of friends trapped with Dwight Howard in Toyota Center after the game last night. Most had to drive through 3-4 feet of water to get out of downtown. And the runoff has made it worse this morning. Keep in mind that Houston is right at sea level and the ground is saturated after weeks of heavy rain daily. There is nowhere for the water to go.

The sky is crying.

My family lived in Wimberley for a few years. We have been keeping up with old friends via facebook and text and so far all are safe. Richard Mason, a photographer from Wimberley, has some pretty incredible pictures on his facebook page. It is hard to imagine the devastation and destruction, but those pictures helped put some things in perspective (picnic tables in tree tops, cars on roofs, etc.).

I thought of you all and the Askews when word first came out of the Wimberley disaster. What you remember of the town is basically destroyed. The house swept down the river with the families inside included brothers & sisters of friends of ours. Truly devastating.

Sadly there are more storms on the way later today so the devastation could get worse. Places like Wimberley & San Marcos were still in a drought until this past week. So the rain couldn't soak into the hard ground making a bad situation even worse. While just a couple of hours drive east, we have had a record-setting rainfall this spring long before these bands of storms hit. So we are already saturated.

I'm not sure if you were there when Ron Howard shot the Alamo movie there in Wimberley years ago, but it seems odd that History Channel's "Texas Rising" would premiere at the time of all of this disaster in Wimberley.

Is there any country on earth that has it worse when it comes to natural disasters? Hurricanes, earthquakes, severe drought, flooding, tornadoes, severe snow storms, derechos. Am I forgetting anything?

lynchburgwildcats wrote:Is there any country on earth that has it worse when it comes to natural disasters? Hurricanes, earthquakes, severe drought, flooding, tornadoes, severe snow storms, derechos. Am I forgetting anything?

Nope, we have it all. Though other countries are at a higher risk for tsunamis, but generally, we're #1 for natural disasters due to being located between two oceans plust the Gulf of Mexico.

ATrain wrote:

lynchburgwildcats wrote:Is there any country on earth that has it worse when it comes to natural disasters? Hurricanes, earthquakes, severe drought, flooding, tornadoes, severe snow storms, derechos. Am I forgetting anything?

Nope, we have it all. Though other countries are at a higher risk for tsunamis, but generally, we're #1 for natural disasters due to being located between two oceans plust the Gulf of Mexico.

Haiti called. The Philppines are on hold on line 2

lynchburgwildcats wrote:Is there any country on earth that has it worse when it comes to natural disasters?

How many other countries have a populated land mass as large as the US? How much news do we get from those locals?

alabama24 wrote:

lynchburgwildcats wrote:Is there any country on earth that has it worse when it comes to natural disasters?

How many other countries have a populated land mass as large as the US? How much news do we get from those locals?

This is also an important point, but if you took the whole of Europe as one country, we still face far greater risks from natural disasters.

As for PH's comment, yes the Phillipines had severe typhoons recently and Haiti did have its earthquake, but that doesn't change the fact that year-in, year-out we have some of the world's worst...and best...weather.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/communit ... breach.ece

Looks like the flooding and dam breaches are getting closer to the DFW metroplex.

ATrain wrote:

alabama24 wrote:

lynchburgwildcats wrote:Is there any country on earth that has it worse when it comes to natural disasters?

How many other countries have a populated land mass as large as the US? How much news do we get from those locals?

This is also an important point, but if you took the whole of Europe as one country, we still face far greater risks from natural disasters.

As for PH's comment, yes the Phillipines had severe typhoons recently and Haiti did have its earthquake, but that doesn't change the fact that year-in, year-out we have some of the world's worst...and best...weather.

Haiti also has hurricanes and floods

The biggest difference is that we have the infrastructure to mitigate the impact of a lot of the disasters we face.

Yacht Rock wrote:The biggest difference is that we have the infrastructure to mitigate the impact of a lot of the disasters we face.

Very true. Most of the deaths from major disasters in recent years... a la Katrina and Sandy... could have been prevented had the authorities been more competent and the people less stupid.

3" more this morning at my house. But the drainage on this side of Houston is doing a terrific job. All the dams seem to be holding as well.

Our phones are buzzing nightly with flash flood warnings. The storms that were supposed to hit around 10:00PM last night slowed to a crawl and didn't get to downtown Dallas until after 2 this AM.

http://www.weather.com/safety/floods/ne ... s-flooding

Good news is the tornado sirens have been silent in our area since they went off at 2:30AM Sunday morning.

Yeah, that band of storms that hit Dallas in the middle of the night turned out to be not much by the time it hit Houston this morning. The only flooding on our side of town are a few rural roads that cross creeks. Nothing significant.

Rescue and recovery teams in Central Texas are posting devastating pictures of the destruction of the floods this past week.

Most of Dallas got 4-5 inches last night, and the Trinity is expected to now crest at 43 feet, which is still 19 feet below the top of the levees that protect downtown. Some of my coworkers had a lot of trouble getting in this AM due to the closure of the I-30, Loop 12 interchange.

And we're about to be back in the news again:

http://thescoopblog.dallasnews.com/2015 ... sday.html/