Thread: Houston

Originally Posted by JDNSW

"Houston, we have a problem", or more accurately, Houston has a problem.

I have a brother has lived in Houston for the last forty years, hence I take a bit of an interest. His home is (so far) OK, the last time I talked to him, the water had been over the sidewalk in front of the house, but had gone down now until the kerb was showing. But it is still raining - there have been a few breaks in the rain, but none for more than half an hour or so.

The worry he has of course is that before it was a builtup area, his housing subdivision was used for growing rice, which may give some idea of the terrain. There is no realistic prospect of being able to safely go anywhere - you only have to travel no more than a few blocks at most in any direction before coming to a location where the water over the road is too deep. So far his power and phone remain working, and he expects this to continue - last hurricane they lost power for a couple of days, but this time they missed most of the winds, so there are no powerlines down in his area - and most of the local network is underground.

Yesterday he had a tornado warning for his area, but saw nothing, and the rain was so heavy that they could not hear even any thunder - tornadoes are associated with thunderstorms.

The director of Apollo 13, Ron Howard, changed it to "Houston we have a problem". At 02 07 55 35 into the journey Swigert actually said "Houston, we've had a problem". He was stating a fact, not an opinion, as he had a career as a test pilot. Hollywood rewrote history again.

so, did swigert **** up?

The rain is the problem. The storm has moved offshore, and is expected to move back onto the coast.

Flooded Houston Braces for More Rain as Harvey Rescues Continue - NBC News

Originally Posted by bob10

The rain is the problem. The storm has moved offshore, and is expected to move back onto the coast.

Flooded Houston Braces for More Rain as Harvey Rescues Continue - NBC News

Yes. My brother said this morning they have had around thirty inches (760mm) since Friday night (Saturday morning our time). And it is still raining, although not heavily. They are expecting somewhere near the same amount on top of this over the next few days. They have just started to release water from the flood control dam near his house to stop the water overtopping the dam. And this water will go into the already flooded bayou (creek) that runs through downtown.

Thanks for the update John.....

I'm assuming your brother has evacuated??

No - he is not expecting to get flooded, as he lives on what passes for a hill in Houston - probably about a metre above the general terrain over about a kilometre, and the general area is the highest point in the local drainage pattern. The worst was the very heavy rain, where the rate of rainfall meant that the water was above the footpath, but it has now dropped to below kerb level, and unless there is very heavy rain again, which is not expected, it should not get that high again. His area is not going to be flooded by water from anywhere else.

However, he now has his sister in law and her cat, as they had a compulsory evacuation from her house a few miles away. The sister in law's husband is in hospital recovering from pneumonia, and his hospital has been evacuated to another facility.

Got an email this morning - still not flooded, and still raining, but it is lighter. Alief, just west of him has had 34 inches or 864mm since Friday. League City, on the seaward side of Houston, where his other sister in law lives, has had 42 inches or 1067mm.

they're certainly big quantities of rain JD, at least he's still OK