How Deep is the Water Houston... ?

[74-911]

Here we go again, 9.5" of rain here at the house in the last 12 hours and more in the forecast for the next couple of days. Lots of flooding, Many major roads including portions of the interstates are closed. Some areas reporting up to 15". Starting to look like a repeat of the Memorial day floods of last year...

[impactbumper]

It is not too far back here in San Antonio either.

[Pazuzu]

Not as bad as Memorial Day for us...then, the water lapped at the front door, while this time it stayed 6 inches away

We are in Bellaire, the water gets higher every block south of us. Last year we had some rains a few days before, so the ground was saturated and everything went right into filling the bayous, while this time the same amount of water fell, but the ground took the first 2 or 3 inches.

[Jolly Amaranto]

Only 7.5 inches here at my house so far. A tree fell in the street in front of the house. The City had to come drag it off. The roots gave way in the soft ground. The green belt behind the house is knee deep in run off.

[Tom '74 911]

Watch This Annoyed Reporter Rescue A Man From A Sinking Car On Live TV

[masraum]

We had vacation scheduled. We drove to the airport in the boxster, no problem. We did have to change routes twice to get around deep water. We then had 3 different flights canceled, and finally just said "screw it" and drove back home. Leaving the airport, we had to leave via the route we cam in instead of the route that we usually take, despite in practically being sunny and dry. Near home, we live near a bayou and couldn't take either of the roads that run along side, but made it home no problem.

I did come out to find that one of the rear tires on the boxster was down from it's usual 39psi to 24 so I had to get cash, then change, then air. It's still leaking. We'll get that fixed in the morning. That's kind of a pain in the ass that I'm not happy about.

Apparently, there was some serious water around town though.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Tom '74 911

Watch This Annoyed Reporter Rescue A Man From A Sinking Car On Live TV

That was less than a mile from my place.

This is 1/4 - 1/2 mile from my place.

[bivenator]

I am in the Addicks area, Bear Creek. We got nearly 15 inches in 12 hours. I was most amazed by the constant lightning last night.

[ckelly78z]

Cue the climate change crazies pushing thier agendas.

[oldE]

Climates change. Deal with it.
What I don't get is building infrastructure and housing on flood plains.

I realize the land is cheap, but eventually we all pay for allowing people and companies to build in places which flood from time to time.

We're not immune from that kind of stupidity up here. In April '2003 a spring flood closed 8 of 11 crossings of the Annapolis River for most of the day. The infrastructure just wasn't designed to handle that kind of run off. In addition many bridges acted like choke points, backing up the rived upstream.
Expediency is not always a smart policy.

Best
Les

[Tobra]

This is really not much of a change.

Cities on the Gulf Coast get hurricanes and tropical storms that lead to flooding. Like a red hot skillet with high humidity in the Summer, ice storms in the winter. That is why there were no Yankees living there until they perfected air conditioning.

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by oldE

Climates change. Deal with it.
What I don't get is building infrastructure and housing on flood plains.

I realize the land is cheap, but eventually we all pay for allowing people and companies to build in places which flood from time to time.

We're not immune from that kind of stupidity up here. In April '2003 a spring flood closed 8 of 11 crossings of the Annapolis River for most of the day. The infrastructure just wasn't designed to handle that kind of run off. In addition many bridges acted like choke points, backing up the rived upstream.
Expediency is not always a smart policy.

Best
Les

My house is currently in the 100 year flood plain. When it was built (1960s) and when it was updated (1990s) it was NOT in the floodplain. They redrew it a few years ago (new level is about 3 FEET above my floor). So, is my house a stupid one or not?

[Jolly Amaranto]

One of the changes has been the rapid development of the relatively flat terrain. Where enormous amounts of rain used to just pond up and drain off slowly, the new streets and storm drains route the water directly to the creeks and bayous where flood now occur where historically they did not. Very old neighborhoods that never used to flood are now subjected to frequent inundations.

[red-beard]

I circled where we live. We have a bayou that separates us from the rest of the neighborhood. Normally, it is a trickle about 5-6 feet wide and a few inches deep. Yesterday it was 10-12 feet deep and 50-60 feet wide. We have "lakes" in all new subdivisions. They are for flood control. They all flooded out of their banks, highest I've ever witnessed.

Normal size of the ponds are about 35 acres of water. They expanded by 100% in the last foot, as they exceeded their banks. I expect we had around 250 acre-feet of water. That is about 80M gallons of water, just in part of our neighborhood. The stream when it was full would have added another 75 acre feet or about 25M gallons of water.

Estimated total for the whole storm was 250 Billion Gallons.



Here is Allison by comparison. That was MUCH more rain.