John E

Best wishes to all of our southeast Texas members. I have walked a few centimeters in your cycling shoes, having been flooded out twice with water and twice with mud while growing up in west Los Angeles. However, ours were relatively isolated incidents, with business-as-usual in the rest of the city and a mostly intact and properly functioning infrastructure. It must be much more difficult when the entire metro area is so severly impacted.

My younger son evidently brought the family flooding curse with him from his native southern California. He chose Houston as the location of the second internship of his Doctor of Physical Therapy program, since his girlfriend is doing her MS in bioengineering at Rice. He arrived about four days ahead of Harvey -- the things we do for love.

Houston area BFers -- stay safe and, when you can, let us know how you are doing.

berner

10 Wheels is down in Galveston I believe. Hope those folks come through alright.

canklecat

Some cycling friends down that way report they're safe, surrounded by flood water but not flooded out of their homes.

Reportedly Port Aransas/Aransas Pass are in a bad way. Haven't been down there in years but it was always my favorite part of the funky Gulf coast.

Up here in the DFW area we just got some moderately heavy wind and rain Saturday, a little rain Sunday minus the wind, and cool overcast weather for a few days.

Iride01 

Been drizzly all day so far around here. If I get to ride it will be short. But I did get a 53 mile ride in yesterday on my newest bike which was also my first ride on it. Looks like more rain during the week.

Nothing like Texas though. It won't be a quick recovery for them.

qcpmsame 

There are several Houston/Galveston/Corpus Christi and other towns, members here. @rpenmanparker is the first that comes to mind. Hopefully someone will prairie dawg shortly. I imagine that with the continued flooding and the opening of those flood gates on the two rainfall holding areas this afternoon, things are still hairy for now. Keeping everyone there in our thoughts and prayers.

Bill

doctor j

We've had a good bit of rain in central Louisiana, but we've had no problems of any significance compared to what has happened in Texas and southwest Louisiana. According to the Natl. Weather Service, Harvey will come our way in a couple of days with more rain and with wind.

Currently, it's not raining here. We actually got a ride in this morning. Roads were sopping wet and we had a light rain for portions of the ride. I should have waited an hour or so. Per the forecast, that ride may have been the last one for August.

Monoborracho

The caring thoughts here are encouraging. Over in P&R and Foo it's different. Just had a message from a friend, he and his wife were rescued about an hour ago with one back pack each. The tragedy of what is unfolding is unimaginable for most of us. The area affected is three times the size of Delaware and four times the population of Manhattan.

John E

That's one of this group's endearing qualities -- people who actually give a damn about others and what they are going through.

qcpmsame 

Amen John, well said. You have to consider the forum being posted in big time before taking what is said in a post about someone's plight into consideration.

P&R aside, it looks like the biggest threat is the two major reservoirs that are being slowly allowed to bleed off some of the excess water built up to historical levels in them. The thread in C&V is pretty informative and civil in the best tradition of that forum. I queried a member living in Houston by PM and it depends on where you are at in Houston's Metroplex as to how bad it is. From news reports the communities around the reservoirs are still being flooded even though rain had stopped yesterday. This one is going to be many years in recovery and rebuilding, Katrina damage is still being chipped away at today, herein NW Florida and SW Alabama 13 years later Ivan's damage is present, and 12 years we still have Dennis' and Katrina's effects still visible.

Bill

George

I left Alabama after Ivan and 3 more after Ivan. Now I'm in Katy, just west of Houston and I wish I stayed up north. We still have all of Sept. to deal with and Sept. is usually more active. We'll just have to see what happens.The water here is pretty much gone now, but all around me is flooded. I least we can get to the store, which is a mad house of course, but none the less we can get food. The water here has never been shut down.
Over in Alabama we didn't have electricity for 3 weeks. I got so tired of listing to generators running I left and came over to Katy until it settled down a bit. I Moved over here and got out of Alabama just in time. I was here for 3 years and there were still houses on the market over where I sold 3 years ago. There are still houses for sale over there, half the price that I got for mine.
Anyway, it going to take years for this recovery .
I really don't know what I'll do next. The housing has died down, so I'll have time to think about it. I really can't see myself in a few more years and 80 years old, running around putting plywood up. Time will tell.
Later.

Doohickie

No direct affect here in the DFW area, unless you count increased gas prices and isolated gas shortages.

rhm

@David Newton is in Beaumont....

John E

Latest report from my son:
His internship employer, a small physical therapy and podiatry practice about 20 miles from downtown Houston, reopened today, and he was able to drive to work without encountering serious evidence of flooding. His coworkers all live in newer houses, which were built on raised crawl spaces atop raised building pads, which protected them from the fate suffered by slab-on-grade houses (not a great idea if you live in a floodplain). The zoo is reopening tomorrow, and Rice U. is reopening for classes on Tuesday, after the Labor Day holiday weekend.

The city's ability to resume normal operations will be helpful to those who have suffered tremendous losses, people who will be needing assistance for years to come. Let us not forget those for whom Harvey is really NOT over.

revchuck 

I'm near Lake Charles, and we were pretty lucky for the most part around here. We got incredible amounts of rain when the bands hit us, then a pause to let it drain off, rinse, repeat. Areas near rivers and bayous had it worst, with most of them overflowing their banks and spreading out to engulf nearby houses. The drainage system in Lake Charles was at its max capacity.

I got out to ride last Saturday before the rain hit, and the first chance I had to ride again was yesterday afternoon. I had to modify my normal route due to one bridge still being underwater, with the approaches about 2-3 feet under. It's an inconvenience for me. It's much more for the folks who lost their houses.

berner

I read today about a chemical plant explosion about 25 miles from Houston. This was said to be due to cooling water flow being interupted due to flooding. Fukushima again? The news item I read said no one knew what the plant produced or if is might be toxic.

qcpmsame 

The plant had organic compounds for use by manufacturers. The flooding knocked out the primary power feed to the plant, and both of their back up power systems. The skeleton crew left to man the plant notified the fire department about the potential for a reaction between the warming organic peroxides, and then moved to a safe location. The materials became warm enough to react and an explosion resulted. I cannot recall the exact organic peroxide compounds involved.

Not a radioactive release and the area was evacuated in a 1-1/2 mile radius of the plant, according to thr NPR broadcast yesterday.The law enforcement officers were taken to a hospital for examination as a precaution. It was not involving nuclear materials, organic anhydrides of some kind that must be kept refrigerated caused the explosion.

Bill

Edit: The news this evening identified the compounds as organic peroxides, I misunderstood what was said on the radio. The resulting fire is being allowed to burn out so no responders are endangered. 19 were sent to the hospital with several different complaints. No word on their conditions. The Crosby law enforcement is saying the smoke plume is potentially hazardous and moving people back and out of the wind.

ctpres

Looks like my retirement funds may shrink. As COB for small SE TX Houston based company, I expect serious revenue shortfalls for at least a year or two. To protect my income in future years I am going to forgo salary for at least six months . No known damage to any family or business property - just a very long recovery.

John E

Keep us posted. These stories about individuals and small businesses are not going to make the headlines, and you risk being among the forgotten victims of this tragedy. Not all of the economic damage is visible, particularly to the reporters.

berner

I lived on the Mississippi gulf coast For bout 10 years but moved back to New England just before a major hurricane. Looking at Google Earth, I was able to see the damage, or rather, places where building I knew well were missing. There was not much on national news about this area. For Mobile Bay there was even less news. One community, Bayou La Batrie, I know is or was about 5 feet above see level. I can't imagine anything or anyone there survived. It is a very poor community so the residents had few options.

I'm sure there will be many areas, small communities such as Rosharon, south of Houston that get drowned with ordinary heavy rains causing the Brazos River to flood and drown the surrounding region. Small communities and small business will have to be champion scramblers to get a share of recovery dollars.