I'm a not-far-away neighbor. I live less than a mile from the official Harris County rain/flood gauge at Horsepen Creek at Trailside Drive, which recorded 15.6 inches for the 24-hour period. Our neighborhood, by God's will, fared well; water over the sidewalks, but none near the doors of the houses.bcooper wrote:thank you for the prayers gentlemen! Water got to the door of my house and by the grace of the Lord himself it receded before it went any further. Unfortunately others in my neighborhood were not so lucky. We had 16 inches of rain in the Cypress Area and in all of my 31 yrs I have never personally experienced something like this.
The Addicks Reservoir/Bear Creek area is a couple of miles south of me. Addicks is managed Corps of Engineers land and designed as, essentially, a massive retention pond. Both major north/south roads that run through or by it, Eldridge Parkway and Highway 6, have been closed since the 18th, and Hwy 6, at least, is expected to remain closed not for days, but weeks. A flood warning has been issued for Addicks for the first time ever. It's receiving much of the runoff from creeks and bayous to the west and north, and its levels are not going done...they're actually rising. The previous record height was during Tropical Storm Allison at just over 96 feet; the reservoir is just over 100 feet right now and rising. Another shot of 1+ inches of rain coming today.
During Allison, we got about three feet of rain...but it was over a three-day period. That Horsepen Creek gauge near me recorded almost 14 inches of rain in the six-hour period between 10:00 p.m. last Sunday to 4:00 a.m. Monday. By official measurement, this is the second worst flooding event in the Houston area, second to TS Allison. But in the northern and western areas, it's the worst ever. This event happened over a very short period of time, and it covered over 3,000 square miles and nine counties. To put it in perspective, it was the equivalent of receiving 88 straight days of the flow of Niagara Falls in the span of 12 or 14 hours. And if you've ever been to Niagara Falls, that boggles the imagination. The physics of clouds even being to hold so many billions of gallons of water is also boggling.
Hang in there, southeast Texas. We're almost done with this.