Imelda leftovers......can we have a check-in??

[TheReader]

This loveliness is setting up to be Harvey deja vu for many.  How is everyone???

Personally, we're okay. Looks like we're going to miss the worst of it where I am, but watching "Flash Flood Emergency" alerts flying......prayers going out for all of you in the path of the worst of this. They are saying "If you don't have water wherever you are right now, just stay put, because if you get in your car, you very likely will get stuck." 

 

[TheReader]

Just now, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

I was just coming to post the same thing!

We got the worst (at least so far) 2 days ago and got just over 10". Yesterday was pretty uneventful. We are well south of Houston though. Poor Beaumont. I've been streaming the Houston news today and it's not looking great over in Kingwood either. Dh is in downtown Houston today for meeting today though, so that's not comforting. I called and told him maybe he should stay put and he said he'd take that under advisement. 🙄

Hope you guys are all okay. 

Oh, ugh. I hope your DH stays put until it is actually safe to do so. Metro just suspended ALL services. I mean....Metro. People, stay.put. 

We've got family in all kinds of areas and.....just, wow. Watching and praying....it's looking bad in lots of areas. And yes, poor Beaumont. I read where some of them out there hadn't finished rebuilding yet from Harvey....it's just so devastating. 

 

[mominco]

(((hugs))) to you all down south

We always end up having family/friends from Houston who come stay with us.So far everyone is staying put. My nephew used to live in Beaumont and moved just after Harvey hit .What a mess it was for them then and now again!

[Pawz4me]

Thinking about all who are affected. Some of the things I'm seeing on the news look pretty bad. 

[Rachel]

1 hour ago, TheReader said:

Oh, ugh. I hope your DH stays put until it is actually safe to do so. Metro just suspended ALL services. I mean....Metro. People, stay.put. 

We've got family in all kinds of areas and.....just, wow. Watching and praying....it's looking bad in lots of areas. And yes, poor Beaumont. I read where some of them out there hadn't finished rebuilding yet from Harvey....it's just so devastating. 

 

I have family in Beaumont and just east of there. The Beaumont family is fine. Those east of there have flooding, again. My aunt literally spent the first night back in her home in April and had it completely finished 6ish weeks ago. 

One of my cousins only has about 3” in his house as of this morning. They got back in their house about Christmas time. Another cousin with extensive damage from Harvey took on some water today too but I haven’t heard how much.

They are ok physically. It’s just emotionally draining to have lost almost everything two years ago and then be facing loss again. 

[TheReader]

31 minutes ago, Rachel said:

I have family in Beaumont and just east of there. The Beaumont family is fine. Those east of there have flooding, again. My aunt literally spent the first night back in her home in April and had it completely finished 6ish weeks ago. 

One of my cousins only has about 3” in his house as of this morning. They got back in their house about Christmas time. Another cousin with extensive damage from Harvey took on some water today too but I haven’t heard how much.

They are ok physically. It’s just emotionally draining to have lost almost everything two years ago and then be facing loss again. 

I'm so sorry; it's really overwhelming. Going to be the story for so many this time.....it's really awful. 

[TheReader]

16 minutes ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

Dh made it home! 

So glad! 

[TheReader]

My niece who was stranded/waiting it out at a gas station is attempting to get home now. 

DH's uncle who had water in his home in I think all of the last Houston floods has water again now, and lost his back fence to the weather earlier. We told him let us know when things calm down if he needs help. 

DH has 2 employees/co-workers who currently can't get home from work; I've instructed him to invite them here (thus far the route from work to us is clear/safe, and should hopefully remain so.....). We'll see if he does/if they accept the offer. 

Haven't heard anything from other family members in hard hit areas......hopefully that's good news. 

[chiguirre]

We got lots of street flooding and some buildings, including Kingwood High had minor flooded this morning. This seems to be our new normal, unfortunately. Ever since new housing developments and shopping centers were built in New Caney we've lost so much natural drainage that any severe rain causes street flooding. It doesn't help that we got 12" of rain in less than 24 hours.

[TheReader]

My niece got home, as did DH, and his employees/coworkers (or at least, they've not turned around and come back to our house yet...)

The College Moms FB group for my son's college is full of stressed out moms of commuter students -- Metro is still shut down, so any who use Park & Ride to/from campus have no way back to their cars. Those who drive in, depending on where home is, may or may not be able to get home due to still flooded roads, still crowded (parking lot) roads, etc. Dining services on campus are mostly closed or closing, 1 is staying open until midnight (but only 1....the next latest place is staying open only until 7 pm). But then with extra people on campus needing to eat there....I hope they have a plan for that. Egads. I'm so grateful my son lives on campus at least. 

ETA: The commuter kids on the college campus have been cared for/a plan announced, so that is very good. Yay!

 

Edited September 19, 2019 by TheReader

[Tree Frog]

1 hour ago, TheReader said:

My niece got home, as did DH, and his employees/coworkers (or at least, they've not turned around and come back to our house yet...)

The College Moms FB group for my son's college is full of stressed out moms of commuter students -- Metro is still shut down, so any who use Park & Ride to/from campus have no way back to their cars. Those who drive in, depending on where home is, may or may not be able to get home due to still flooded roads, still crowded (parking lot) roads, etc. Dining services on campus are mostly closed or closing, 1 is staying open until midnight (but only 1....the next latest place is staying open only until 7 pm). But then with extra people on campus needing to eat there....I hope they have a plan for that. Egads. I'm so grateful my son lives on campus at least. 

ETA: The commuter kids on the college campus have been cared for/a plan announced, so that is very good. Yay!

 

My DD was stuck in the med center area at school when they stopped Metro services. She stayed until about 4 decided to walk home about 3 or 4 miles.

[prairiewindmomma]

Do you  hear chatter among friends and family about what their plans are after this flooding?

I have had friends who have been flooded out four or five times now....and every heavy rainfall event is super stressful for them. Our extended family decided to move out of the Houston area, but do you think there is growing consensus among people that this is the new normal? I'm getting really mixed messaging, and I'm wondering what others in the area think. 

[Rachel]

58 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Do you  hear chatter among friends and family about what their plans are after this flooding?

I have had friends who have been flooded out four or five times now....and every heavy rainfall event is super stressful for them. Our extended family decided to move out of the Houston area, but do you think there is growing consensus among people that this is the new normal? I'm getting really mixed messaging, and I'm wondering what others in the area think. 

I was just talking about this with my husband. My grandparents won’t leave. They were born and raised in Beaumont, they have weathered many hurricanes and storms. 

My cousins are young and have young families. With Harvey they were told it was 1000 year event. Two of my cousins married high school sweethearts, parents on all sides are divorced and remarried. So extended families are huge and all live in a 15 mile radius. Everyone is super tight knit so I think it would be a struggle for any of them to leave the area unless they all left the area. 

I would at least want to get to a higher ground. If you look at the neighborhoods where my great grandparents lived, all the homes were on piers, not super high piers but definitely off the ground. The houses in the last 40 years seem to be built on slabs, at least from the observation of someone who doesn’t live there. My grandparents street is at least built up so their front door is about 2-3’ higher than the street. My aunt and three cousins though all have homes on slabs that are at or barely above street level. I mean 40” of rain anywhere in two days is going to cause issues, so I’m not sure how much piers would help across the board, but I would think it would help some. 

My husband pointed out that even if they did want to move, selling a house that flooded out twice in two years is going to be very difficult. 

[prairiewindmomma]

I think part of the challenge for my friends is that they thought they were high enough up—and then these catastrophic rains + overbuilding (covering up natural drainage) in other parts of the neighborhood have been bad for them.

I understand not all metro is the same. I still have friends in Katy, Cypress, the Woodlands, mostly NW metro areas.... 

I think my greater concern is that even for those with flood insurance—how many claims can they make before they are dropped? What happens when parts of the metro become uninsurable?

[prairiewindmomma]

And, yes, serious Midwest flooding this year. Some small towns probably aren’t going to rebuild. Site location is really important, but flood maps haven’t been updated to reflect new realities, iykwim. 

[chiguirre]

2 hours ago, Æthelthryth the Texan said:

It's complicated.  Also, I will say upfront- when I say "Houston" I mean the huge general area that is considered Houston and that is far, far outside of the tiny loop of the "City of Houston" proper. I consider Katy, Sugarland, Kingwood, The Woodlands, and even almost down south to where I am, sort of general "Houston". That makes it complicated for people from out of here to understand- but those bedroom communities, or suburbs are all part of the "Greater Houston Area" because it's the hub where most people work. 

I personally think it has a ton to do with really crappy and poorly planned expansion than anything else with the recent flooding. It's not like the rainfall that has happened of late never happened before. It's has. For decades, probably centuries people lived here- but there were more places for run off, and less concentration of housing in bad spots. Less concrete. More farmland. Eaiser ways for the water to get where it wants to get, out to the bay. And as land has gotten more expensive, people have developed land they really shouldn't have-and that's on County and City Zoning Commissions for valuing that tax revenue over the fallout that would happen when you do that.  They have really messed up in a lot of cities as far as planning because this area has grown so fast- and they want that tax income so they seem like they green light things they shouldn't. Well, and Houston proper has no zoning, or well, interesting zoning to say the least, so it's even weirder there. Like it said- Houston is complicated. 🙂 Although I guess all cities are. 

 

 

28 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

I think my greater concern is that even for those with flood insurance—how many claims can they make before they are dropped? What happens when parts of the metro become uninsurable?

Houston is a weird agglomeration that includes many suburbs. My area of Kingwood is about 25 miles from the skyscrapers of down town, but we're part of the City of Houston. Sylvester Turner is our mayor. We have HPD and HFD. Oddly, Humble is it's own city with it's own mayor and police. Atascocita is unincorporated Harris County. All three go hit with a ton of street flooding yesterday, so our different local government structures didn't make a big difference.

What does make a huge difference is development. Many of the hundreds of houses that flooded in Kingwood are in one subdivision, Elm Grove. They didn't flood during Harvey but they flooded in May and again yesterday. Their specific problem is an incompetent (or unscrupulous?) developer that clear cut a large area in the neighboring county (Porter, unincorporated Montgomery County) and didn't create proper drainage while they work constructing houses. They were sued in May and that case is working through the courts. I imagine they'll sue again. The frustrating thing is that the people of Elm Grove in Houston, Harris County can't really pressure the politicians in Montgomery County to control their sprawl and enforce construction standards.

The other major area of flooding is in Woodstream where Caney Creek flows into Lake Houston. Those people probably need to raise their houses because of their location. They were flooded in Harvey and again yesterday.

Flood insurance is a federal program so repeat flooders aren't dropped and their rates are capped. This clearly needs to be revisited because it encourages people to build and stay in unsustainable areas. 

Street flooding is a pain, but it doesn't flood houses or kill anyone who doesn't drive into it. It can flood cars if you're caught unaware and parked on low ground which happened yesterday. 9" in 90 minutes is just not an amount that can drain down storm sewers. We have to learn to live with that and, unfortunately, so will many other places.