Water is down but we lost Internet and cable. Posting from my iPhone.
I note the telemarketers do not have the day off.
Edited: I should have remained skeptical. The Fakebook thread was false, and I also relied on a friend who was likewise fooled by it. The report of the bridge collapse is false.
I’d gotten a report on social media last night, but I didn’t believe it. However, the HC Sherrif’s office confirmed it today; the Woodforest bridge west of Normandy has collapsed. I’ve appended more to the prior message, but I wanted to make an extra post to show this:
Hard right turn? Water can't do that.
From the map and the pictures I posted, you can see that Greens Bayou takes a hard westerly turn, not once, but twice in a short span. The second time is just south of the bridge (I was facing south when taking the pictures). Millions of tons of water can NOT just change course and avoid the neighborhood. It piles up and tries to go over
, following the blue arrows into my neighborhood and into the small bayou (which I now know is named Jordan’s Gully). Eventually it rejoins the main channel just East of Normandy, near where I took this picture, back when I could get off my street.
Sorry, it's one of those flippng pictures from the iPhone.
But it was close.
Remember this bridge? Picture taken 8/27...
(Edit: Report of bridge collapse was FAKE.)
Well
, that bridge isn’t there anymore. My brother said he felt it moving when we stopped to take pictures, but I thought he mean vibration from the truck that passed us (also taking pictures). It was a big rig’s cab (only), and it’s normal for bridges to flex a bit under load. I didn’t notice anything, but I’m still having very minor issues with dizziness
, so maybe I was too “off” to notice.
In other news, the San Jacinto has overtopped I-10, the Addicks reservoir has overtopped the spillway (NEVER happened before, and it dates to the 1930’s or 40’s, and we have only light rain here. Baytown and Galveston are getting hammered, and it’s moving east.
UPDATE: Here’s a thread on the bridge collapse. It has a google maps pic of it from above; here’s the street view (don’t know when it was taken), and the last photo I took again.
Google View. It's actually up a bit in this picture.
Pictures mostly taken on my last walk about before dark, about 5pm.
Compare these two, about two hours apart:
Notice the rope? People got tired of the pickup-truck tourists blasting water up to their houses. And cutting through their yards. Fuck’em.
Volunteer rescuers, with no one to rescue… yet. I heard (and still hear) plenty of helicopters working this area.
However… the master of the house is terribly unconcerned.
Harvey? What Harvey?
This is the DRY side?
I'm such an old fogey, I can remember the last 100-year flood...
UPDATE: The lower Greens Bayou still hasn’t peaked. And it’s still raining.
I live on a cul-de-sac. Here’s the end of it.
That is WORSE than it was in Allison.
During the height of Allison’s flooding, I could walk down to the end of the street and see a foot-wide, three-inch deep stream of water that had meandered through the neighborhood to flow into the storm drain that took it into that little bayou. From there, I could walk to the Kroger’s, and see their single line of sandbags keeping the water from their flooded parking lot out of the building.
Don’t think I’m doing that this time.
On the bright side
, I estimate it will take another two to three feet before we’re in danger of flooding
, and the upper Greens Bayou is slowly dropping.
On the dark side
, it’s still raining.
A couple of trucks made it through. I'm not in a truck.
The good news is that we should be on the “dry side” of Harvey before long. The bad news is it started raining while we were out. Hard. All over the city.
