Texas Tried To Kill Me. Anyone Else?
 

Picked up a car in Phoenix AZ on Monday afternoon for a friend that lives near Jacksonville, FL. Told him I'd have it there Wed afternoon- really had little choice since I had a ticket back to Atlanta already in hand. Driving through Texas on Tuesday around noon, my ears perked a bit when the DJs started getting serious while talking about the weather. DJs are never serious.

"If you're on interstate ten heading east towards San Antonio, stop now and get a room. Get off the road. This weather is going to be severe."

I happened to be on I-10 E outside of San Antonio.

"It's about to hit Junction right now, so if you're in that area GET OFF THE ROAD!!"

I was 10 miles outside of Junction. A few minutes later I drove through the town with a slightly about-average dose of rain coming down, but nothing special. That waited until I got into San Antonio and had to work overtime to avoid the idiots playing spin-the-automobile all over the interstate. Three cars in front of me went into some concrete dividers and another (new Infiniti) was just straightening himself up with his hazards on when I passed. Two different trucks into bridge pillars. Madness.

I happened to be in an X5 and will go so far as to say it performed above and beyond; even hit a large patch of runoff (probably 12" deep) at 40+ and came through without issue . . . and, yes, I probably should not have gone 40+ in blinding rain but the truth is the windshield had been treated with RainX and I didn't even turn the wipers on until we slowed to a crawl so that cars could get themselves pointed in the right direction again. RainX is dangerous in that regard. I kept running into the rain all day but made it to FL in time to catch my flight. 43 hours/2100 miles. I drove the speed limit all the way . . . not my car . . .

You drove through a tropical storm. What did you expect?

Yeah, I heard something about some storm heading over there- no one said ANYTHING about there being rain involved. It's T-E-X-A-S! Deserts! Goats! Where the heck did all that water come from!?

Pretty awesome rain. I think we got about 10 inches at my place. This afternoon we got at least a couple more and it was like a small river flowing down my street!

The wind was intense too. A bunch of big green highway signs got blown over and there were tree debris all over the place at home too.

Texans, least the one's round these parts can't drive for chit.

Garaunfuchinted they were all on their cell phones as well.

You outa see them when it snows, whooohooo that's a good time.

Everything's bigger in Texas....


Cept their brains!

And this coming from an Okie?

Your point is?

That was hardly a storm. I have seen much worse rain. There is something to be said for a torrential downpour. I could sit on a porch with a mason jar full of sweat tea and just watch it.

You baby, I have two words for you

Ice Storm

That would have shut you down and had you sleeping in that BMW tonight.

There was a tropical storm back in the summer of 2001 when there was like 2 feet of rain in Houston in 12 hours. Second hundred year flood in the span of a decade. I don't think they named that hundred year flood thing right, or the calendar is messed up maybe. It is still 12 months in a year, right?

They had two Hundred year floods this summer in OKC....


Something doesn't add up....

ever heard "Texas Flood" from Stevie Ray Vaughan???
it's floodin' down in texas...
...all the telephone lines are down....

if you are lucky, you may graduate to the Llano Estacado -- even the Indians hated that area

and the cell phone did not work either

Tropical Storm Allison. Don't diss tropical storms. They can be dangerous in their own right. If they are slow moving, they dump a lot of rain in a short time.

rain can get crazy in those parts.

hated it when i lived there. only time i had to pull over, ever was in texas. my wipers couldnt keep up.

Hehe, those damn 4wd german cars will get ya in trouble.
I got caught in a nasty little storm a few weeks ago on I95. Everybody else slowed down to 40ish with their hazards on in the right hand lane, I looked down and I was doing 80 without a problem in the left hand. To be a freaking station wagon, it handles like a dream.

It is not so much the going as the stopping. I remember seeing a nice shiny 4x4 kiss the center divider, thinking he could go fast because of the 4WD

During Allison in 2001, I drove over to my in law's house, started to rain, wipers on, rain harder, wipers on high(only time I ever had wipers on high) and still could barely see, thought to myself, "I better slow down," speedo said 20 mph, oops.

Okies. Rejects from Texas! ;-)



Yep, never snows or ices in Texas, so the times it does every year are a wonder! Natives never learn to drive on it and the transplants have all forgotten how.

Here in Indiana I love seeing all the Yanks on the sides of the road where they slid off in the snow. Worse in Michigan! I think they wait for the bad weather so they can increase their speed and rush even more to get where they think they are going.

I remember in '72 and '74 the snow falls in Houston. Shut it down for days. People all over the roads. Wrecks, mayhem. My folks (drove in snow in Europe and Kentucky) stayed home and watched it all unfold on the telly. I learned hard in Wyoming! Now that is some snow up there! Little Texas boy did NOT know how to drive! But I only ended up in one ditch in the years I was there.


Wasn't there some little tropical storm behind Alicia in '83 that dumped so much extra rain that Pearland and places south were 10 feet under water? Fun times in The Bayou City.

I remember the 1972 storm. School was cancelled and we had to go in on Saturday. 6 months later, we moved to upstate NY, where I saw real snow...

And funny to mention Alicia, I returned to Texas for college and was greeted by Alicia.