My thoughts and prayers to all affected by this nightmare. I lived through several hurricanes in my 65 years here on Long Island, but nothing nearly as bad as this one. Very sad indeed 
We’re about 2 hours inland from the Coast, been getting pics and stories from friends that live down in the H-town area saying it’s over 22” of rain and still going, streets are flooded, all major highways are flooded, and days to go yet.
Rockport and Aransas, as well as multiple small towns on the Bay, were hit hard by the eyewall, with schools destroyed, 3 story hotels leveled like a bomb went off, all sorts of metal building damage. It’s gonna take a while to sort it all out, for sure.
So far, I’ve only heard of 2 deaths. One man caught in a flooded house that burned from the transformer exploding and a woman that apparently stepped out of a flooded car on the street and was swept away.
I’m just mind boggled at the sheer size of the area impacted here. It’s never happened like this, I don’t think. Two high pressure systems have the tropical storm sandwiched…stalled, but close enough to shore to continue pulling in moisture from the Gulf so rain just keeps on coming. They’re indicating the H system to the East will drop out and the storm will shift Towards Houston and slowly die out, but not for the next 4 or 5 days yet.
They’re also saying that all the overflow here is feeding an Invest on the W side of Florida that will rain across Florida, turn into a tropical storm on the other side, then grow into another Hurricane as it heads possibly to South Carolina. Crazy!
A friend posted this picture near downtown Houston earlier today.
Absolutely staggering.
It has been said for years now, Houston floods easily due to all the pavement and concrete, little to nowhere for the water to go. The drainage systems that were designed years ago can get overwhelmed and then you see results like this.
Global warming? Or just part of a 4.5 Billion yr old system that only has 200 (2000, does it matter?) some odd years of record keeping? We have altered the landscape, the earth’s systems carry on and we see, sometimes, an extreme effect. Too late to get rid of all the concrete and vast numbers of people? Sounds illogical, but the Earth’s system of checks and balances will do what it must…
Sometimes our planet is hostile, we’ve known that forever. Those of us that have seen a F5 Tornado sure understand it… and I dang sure wouldn’t want to be in any of the Earthquake zones, much less below an active Volcano system.
Edit: Not buying into the Global Warming system side of it…
Tropical Cyclones Strikes By The Decade
. Decade Hurricanes Tropical Storms Total
.1850’s………3……………………1……………4
.1860’s……… 4…………………… 1…………. 5
.1870’s……… 2…………………… 4…………. 6
.1880’s……… 8…………………… 3………… 11
.1890’s……… 3…………………… 3…………. 6
.1900’s……… 4…………………… 2…………. 6
.1910’s……… 7…………………… 1…………. 8
.1920’s………2…………………… 3…………. 5
.1930’s……… 5…………………… 4…………. 9
.1940’s……… 8…………………… 6………… 14
.1950’s………2…………………… 5…………. 7
.1960’s……… 3…………………… 3…………. 6
.1970’s……… 2…………………… 7…………. 9
.1980’s……… 5…………………… 4…………. 9
.1990’s……… 1…………………… 4…………. 5
.2000’s……… 5……………………5………… 10
.Total……… 64………………… 56………… 120
.Annual average 0.4 0.4 0.8
This is to say nothing of the Tornado’s over the years.
Obviously, with the highest concentration of cylonic storms occuring in the 1880’s (as far as Texas in concerned) there’s nothing to support the Global Warming scare tactics.
Ironically, it would normally be 100+ degrees today… it’s been 72 all day and now dropping into the upper 60’s tonight. Quite chill for us, new records for this time of the year for a LOW high temperature.
The above data was from a report on Texas Weather in which it is stated that extensive studies in the 1950’s found a correlation to sunspots, which we have been coming out of a solar season this year and of course the eclipse. 
At any rate, the system is far larger than anything we are in control of.
They are preparing to open the Adicks and Barker flood control dams, this will increase the water levels in the already flooded neighborhoods downstream over the next day or so, prayers to those affected…
Please hold on to your torches and leave none behind 
We’ve got friends in the Houston area showing 5’ of water covering their driveway. She’s a RN, no way to get out.
I don’t buy into the global warming thing. BTW, where’s the Ice Age scientists were predicting back in the 1970’s?
My wife’s Aunt lives just North of Houston and had to be rescued this evening. On her way out, officials were moving through the neighborhood directing people to evacuate. Her home is in the vicinity of the Addicks reservoir, so she stands to be affected by the release.
In that link I provided above, on page 27 there is a long story about a Hurricane that hit Galveston in 1900 and killed an estimated 8,000 people. There were 30,000 living there at the time, 20,000 were convinced to leave, but of the 10,000 that stayed the results were catastrophic. A large portion of the survivors were crammed into a lighthouse, with the door in eventually 30’ under water! Early day storms like these, including a record back in the 1500’s of ships being sunk and some 1700 people drowned, wreaked havoc on unsuspecting settler’s new to the country from Germany, France, Switzerland…. the construction was wood frame and on the ground with virtually every building destroyed.
We have come a long way, with seawalls and storm drains, but still, Mother Nature prevails…
That study is a good read, the length and detail is difficult to absorb due to the lives and progress virtually eliminated by these storms.
Posted this in the other thread...
Rain that has already fallen in the past 48 hours
ADDITIONAL rain expected through Thursday
Right now it's raining hard again in the Houston area...
Climate change is one those things that Americans are almost unique in viewing as controversial, science and the rest of the world have been pretty much in agreement for a very long time.
I remember that. The winters were indeed colder with more snow in the 60:ies, when I was a child. But the Ice Age they predicted didn’t happen.
The weather does change in cycles, we know that. But don’t call it man made, the forces at play are much bigger than what humanity can muster.
I regard (man made) Global Warming a hoax.
Stay safe in Texas, my thoughts are with you.
Not sure where you got your info from but I’d agree to disagree on your comment about the rest of the world.
Its against forum rules to talk politics so I’ll leave it there.
Stay safe, Texans!
I don’t want to get into a whole debate here, but you have missed the point. Nobody is claiming that man created the forces, the forces are created by the sun. A larger percentage of those forces are being trapped in the atmosphere, due to all the stuff we have been pumping into it since the dawn of the industrial age.
Best illustration I have seen of how the greenhouse effect works is an empty aquarium and a candle. Put the candle on one side of the empty tank and point an infra red camera at it from the other side. Candle heat is clearly visible. Pour invisible carbon dioxide into the tank and watch the candle disappear on the camera, as all the radiating heat is trapped instead of passing through.
Basically industrialisation is doing the equivalent of painting the atmosphere black on the infra-red scale, so it absorbs heat better.
Ollie, if you’ll read the link I supplied you’ll see this is not something special, it’s been happening since the 1500’s in recorded history and probably forever before that. According to the report, no less than 11 of 22 storms have alleviated drought conditions. Galveston has been rebuilt multiple times. Rockport too. A week, 10 days, of flooding from a storm, it’s all happened before, 100 years and more ago.
You cannot create a “History” from a short time frame, it’ll invariably be inaccurate.
It’s not necessarily politics that are the problem here on the BLF, it is DIVISIVE issues. Let’s leave the climate change issue for discussion on other boards and keep this topic for well wishes for those in the path of this storm.
Stay safe down there.
We can spend plenty of time arguing over the best cell for any given light, button top vs flat top, protected vs unprotected, thrower vs flooder and so on for those who wish to practice debate skills.
Let’s just agree to disagree and leave it at that.
Coming back to the original topic, thank God the heavy rains that flooded Houston are moving East, still raining and there are lots and lots of flooded neighborhoods, streets and highways but still is a good sign. Let’s extend the prayers for the people towards the East that are about to endure what we went through…