Checking In
Ole Bubba and I lived through a night of constant lightning and thunder last night. Damnest thing I’ve ever seen. They say we got ten inches of rain in about 4 hours. And it’s only just begun.
We have power but no one else we know does. We have friends with 2 feet of water in their houses, a large oak tree on their roofs, or the Brazos River eating their property. Bubba just went up to check on his office.
We are waiting on Pat Robertson to blame all the ultra conservative actions of the state legislature for this act of a pissed off God.
Glad y’all are safe and sound! We did pretty well here in FBG with just a good (much needed) soaking rain. I’m sure we’ll be hearing nothing but *crickets* from Pat on this.
And, to whoever’s been praying for rain—y’all can stop now.
1I was watching the electric teevee last night, and the west side got hit hard. Over here on the southeast side, we got lots of thunder and lightning, and a good rain, but nothing unusual. I guess we’re a little more godly on this side. Or maybe it’s just coincidence.
2I have a son and family in Austin, so am sending all of you good wishes for a safe day. Monsoons are not the usual Texas fare, but I’m sure you need the rain. Take care, drive safely.
316.72 inches in 24 hours here in Austin. Broke a 120 year old record.
4Stay safe and sound.
5If at some point y’all could spare a barrel of mucky floodwater and a brave citizen to dump it over the head of Sen. Inhofe, that would be much appreciated. Not that he would make the connection to extreme weather conditions as a consequence of climate change…
Yes, glad you’re safe. Scary articles about that river that rose thirty feet in a few hours, with photos of foundations where houses used to be. Best of luck with whatever else is coming!
I don’t give a [cricket] what Pat Robertson says. The man should be in some kind of facility where his insane foamings don’t get out to the public.
6oh how terrible! I hope your roof is good and tight. I often think that all that praying for rain is done by roofers!
7Good Thing we Texans don’t have to deal with that “Global Warming” thing that our politicians don’t believe in. Otherwise, we might repair… or replace some drainage infrastructure, or something…. so freeways don’t flood.
Just think…… schools could be open…. buses could run, freeways wouldn’t be flooded, and closed… people could get to work… all that stuff… might happen.
However, since no real Texas politician thinks Global Warming is a “real” thing…. we just continue to muddle through. 🙂
People never fix what they don’t acknowledge is broken.
8Thank you Texas.
sounds like that praying thing the governor did back whenever it was worked. maybe it’s not so bad he’s running for pres. now. i’m sure he can pray us out of all sorts of other prediciments.
9A lot of people in California would love it if you could send your excess rains and floodwaters to them.
A-Butt will prolly argue that god sent all this rain to replenish fracking supplies because god loves greed and earthquakes. Unfortunately,not enough will collect in reservoirs or soak into the ground to do you alot of good.
10A-Butt offered to kiss Obama’s ass for some federal relief,yet?
11Thank you for letting us know you’re o.k.!
12Water got in my house and backyard looked like a raging river. Just about all houses on my block took on water, which is highly unusual.. Lots of trees uprooted and branches torn loose. This was worse than all other Memorial Day floods. Robertson et al consider Austin to be Sodom & Gommorah. Love the irony of massive amounts of water instead of hellfire & brimstone!
13Glad you’re OK. Funny how, when God gets mad at teh gayz, he smacks the red states. It’s like Moe beating Larry for Curly being too flamboyant. Reminds me of one of Uncle Jimmy Barstool’s favorite jokes:
Fodder Sullivan is playn golf, wit’ Sister Mary Holywater as his caddy. Well, da first hole, he yanks his drive inta da weeds, plays out, knocks it on da green in t’ree, but runs a fairly straight ten-foot putt past da hole.
“Goddammit I missed!” he fulminates.
“Oh, Fodder,” Sister Mary Holywater sez, “Ye should not take the Lord’s name in vain.”
But da Fodder ignores her, and proceeds to hack around several more holes, until a nice shot on number five leaves him 6 feet from birdie. Luckily for da purposes of dis joke, he missed, and wrot’fully shouted “Goddammit! I missed again!”
Da Sister rolled her eyes and said “Oh, Fodder. Da Lord will be displeased.” And sure enough, clouds started rolling in, as da good Fodder missed easy putts on 8, 10, 13 and 15, “Goddammit! I missed agains” fell like da t’reatened rain, along wit’ a few well-placed “sunuvabitches.”
Wit’ wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, fortitude, piety and a great deal of Fear of da Lord, Caddie Mary Holywater became increasingly timid, not even correcting da Fodder at all on da back nine, but standing back a little more from him after each blasphemy.
Predictably, on da 18th hole, da Fodder missed his final putt. Raising his arms to da dark skies, he let loose a string of oat’s enough to make Bill O’Reilly blush. Da lowering skies rumbled ominously, a blinding flash-CRACK seared da green, an’ all dat was left of Sister Mary Holywater was her black Converse hightops an’ a couple, two, t’ree dozen rosary beads, scattered.
“DAMMIT!” t’undered a celestial voice. “I MISSED AGAIN.”
14Thanks for the update. I have been worried about you and Bubba.
My theory is that God got so far behind trying to deal with all the prayers for sportsball and race events that S/He’s just now catching up to all those prayers pRicky had people pray during the drought. The Religionists do remind us of “God’s Time” quite a lot.
15Maybe Gov Perry shouldn’t have gotten so many Texans to pray for rain.
16Yeah, well God told me this morning that he’s just about had it with the GOP in Texas — all that militia stuff and craziness, and using His name as an excuse to act mean with their neighbors, sully up His beautiful property, scaring little children. He said He figured sending another Deluge might set them Republicans on a better path.
So glad you’re okay. Awaiting word from out daughter in Houston, so far, nothing.
17I still keep a link to the HCFCD site with the stream gage(sic) readings and it’s like no one has learned anything since TS Allison. So far no one has the 20+ inches that hit NE Houston back then but it doesn’t look good. I think that Houston should be treated the way that Grafton, IL was — they didn’t replace the flooded houses, just moved everyone up the bluff to higher ground. Of course, there isn’t a lot of higher ground in Harris County unless you count some of those Brio-tracks that support some of the highways.
18e platypus onion @# 9,
“Unfortunately,not enough will collect in reservoirs or soak into the ground to do you alot of good.”
epo,
The scale of the storms in Central and South Texas this year have been more than enough to break our years long drought. The NOAA WFO’s have been issuing multiple storm and records set reports for the last two months.
In fact, most places have had record numbers of storms and rainfall, and it has been going on all year so far. We surpassed our normal “Total yearly” rainfall amounts weeks ago in most places.
If the expected major El Nino cranks up later, and we start getting hurricanes coming in, we are going to be really screwed.
Last I heard, around 8-12 people (3+ killed) were still missing from a storm days ago in Wimberly, just West of Austin (and the area has been hit multiple times since).
I have never seen a year of consistent (extreme too) storms like this one. We have been under almost constant severe, flash flood, tornado, or whatever, watches and warnings since April. It’s getting old, I’ve had numerous power failures and electronic equipment failures due to lightning (even with protective devices, I’m up high and the EMP’s from lightning can just “reach out and touch something” pretty well no matter what, short of a complete “ring ground/faraday” system).
There have been a number of tornadoes, high wind, and hail events this year down here, from the Valley to Waco.
It’s a very weird weather year.
The really heavy stuff started around here in early April and has continued several times a week since.
All of our reservoirs and aquifers have risen a great degree, many are now approaching full, coming from extremely (even record) low levels.
As far as Californians whining about drought, I’m a little cynical. I had TDY out there around ’80, after hearing of the really bad drought conditions back then. I rolled into Southern Cali and the thing that most impressed me was the amount of water running down the streets from out of control sprinkler systems. I figured that if they saved even a little bit of what they wasted on decorative plants they wouldn’t have had a problem.
daChipster says @# 13,
19Very funny one.
I have to steal it for my ex, a now devout believer (odd because when we met she had more ‘blue jokes’ than a Marine). She often gets mad at me now for using profanity, and gives me that ol’ “you’re going to hell” routine.
Clearly this ferocious weather in Texas is a result of God’s anger because Ireland overwhelmingly approved gay marriage.
I realize that makes no sense whatsoever, but we are talking about Texas. And the religious right’s version of God.
20Hollyanna (#5) has a good idea.
If all those global warming denying Republicans in DC wanna come down to help, they can go around & collect all the fire ants floating around the area. There’s also some snakes looking for dry land, but I’d understand if the Repubs confuse them with their friends.
We also got a displaced alligator nearby who’s kinda hungry, so we could actually solve two problems in one shot.
Hey, Inhofe and fellow Koch dupes…. come on down!
21Hope everyone in the affected states has a roof over their head, dry feet and a good dinner tonight!
22A few minutes ago, Pres. Obama expressed concern and condolences to Texas families who are suffering. He phoned Gov. Abbott and pledged federal assistance in coordination with the state. Do you think:
… Abbott will accept the help?
… Say thanks for the offer?
… Even acknowledge that Obama called him?
… Would have ever called Obama on his own?
Which leads one to wonder how well the state would cope with this had it seceded.
23Please stay safe.
We finally got rain last night and had a frost Fri-Sat.!
We have not been having rain but wind very, very windy.
Yes I would like to see how many of these republican Gov. who hate POTUS Obama and the government will be asking for federal aid.
I think it’s safe to get my flip flops out, I can send you my boots!!!
24The Texas weather is headed somewhat east and then north. Its really odd how that weather from the west makes a sharp turn at Huntsville, Alabama and heads through Tennessee and the Carolinas like it can’t wait to hit Washington, D.C., where you might occasionally find Inhofe from time to time. It is even predicted to get as far as the Big Apple. Have stopped all my gardening projects and battened down my elephants. Now if y’all will excuse me I have to go down to the basement and continue waterproofing my walls. Everyone stay safe. Maybe even find out where you left your water wings.
25We had a lot of rain in San Antonio and some people still have no power, but noting as bad as Austin or Houston.
26Let us all learn the lesson of Sister Mary Holywater: Run far and fast from anyone who tempts God’s wrath, ’cause His aim ain’t so good. So step away from the Republicans who regularly use Him to justify their hateful spew. That thunderbolt is coming.
27Glad to hear you are safe JJ and Bubba. The pictures coming over my TV are simply beyond belief! I wonder what it will take for the politicians to accept that climate change is true and that it is caused by all their corporate-sucking-up decisions?
My prayers are with everyone in the path of these storms.
28Droughts. Floods. Is it time to talk water management in this country? Guess not. Benghazi!
29Susan, we’re high n dry in central Fort Bend County. Glad you and Bubba are well. Thanks to all for the good thoughts.
30Glad you are OK….sort of. Hope things get better for all Texans soon, even those who think our government (you know the one run by that black democrat) is out to get them. They will receive federal aid….just like the sane ones.
31Thanks for updating us, Susan. I was getting worried. Although the irony is thick around the Texas Republicans needing help from the the National Government, I sincerely hope President Obama pushes hard to get help to Texas as quick as humanly possible. There’s a whole lot of innocent bystanders getting smacked with all that karma looking for Former Gov Perry and friends. You people putting up with floods and assorted other disasters, I’m sending you prayers and good weather vibes. Stay safe, please.
32One good thing about storms is I finally learned how to drive into and out of the garage.
33It’s a good thing there’s no such thing as global warming. I don’t know WHAT would happen then.
It’s also a good thing Texas didn’t secede from the union back when so many people wanted to. Your governor is getting ready to go, hat in hand, to the Fed’ral Gubbmint to ask for a pot full of money for flood relief!
34To many good people in TX have had their lives totally devastated. Federal assistance may not be available to many because it will get buried in political greed. And remember this is not climate change- it’s biblical!
35