Updated
June 12, 2001
It's
all about the water, the H2O . . . and boy did we get more
than our fair share here in Houston over the weekend. The long and
short of it is that much of the city is and was under water from 32
+ inches of rain over a two day period. The tropical storm named Allison
really did a job on the city, but our little family survived with
no real problems.
I guess it all
started on Wednesday afternoon -- that's when the storm kicked up
and really made afternoon traffic a problem. My office is about a
15 minute ride from the house on a normal day, but with all the heavy
rain from Allison on her first pass, it made my normal trip into an
hour, plus.
Basically, I
thought it was just heavy rain -- not much unlike what we would usually
get in Houston in the summer. The next day, things were overcast and
rain threatened, but some of us got together anyway and went to Little
Woodrows for some after work beer and burritos from Mission Burritos
next door.
It actually stayed
dry that night, and we all just got up and went to work on Friday
like normal. I don't really even remember what we did Friday night
-- it was just another normal start to the weekend around our house.
But then the rain started.
I remember going
to bed around 10:30 thinking that the rain was coming down pretty
hard -- but I still didn't think much of the storm. Nor did I really
associate the rain with TROPICAL STORM ALLISON. But around 1:15 in
the morning on Saturday, I found out how bad things were getting.
Katie had gotten
up with Porter and I figured I'd get up and check the weather on the
computer. Things looked pretty bad. I looked out the window into the
front yard and saw the initial signs that the street was going to
be full of water soon -- and start coming up into the yard. I turned
on the TV and channel 2 was in full coverage mode, with arguably the
best local coverage of the storm and forcasts for the flooding.
Katie decided
to stay up with me for most of the flood watch, and she really freaked
out when the power went out around 2:30. It was so dark that I had
a difficult time finding my way to the kitchen for candles or a flashlight
-- but as I was passing my desk, I grabbed my Palm m505 and turned
it on. The backlight on it was so bright it lit up the room and I
easialy worked my way to the candles on the console in the hall. I
never did find a flashlight, though. Thankfully, by 2:45 or so the
lights, and the weather coverage, were back on.
I went outside
about that time and woke some of our neighbors so they could move
their cars off the street and out of the flooding, and I moved our
cars up further in the dirveway so they would be as far away from
the water as possible.
By about 5 am,
though, the storm had lessened and the street started clearing and
the water started running off. I decided that we had dodged the bullet,
and since I was pretty tired at that point, went to bed.
In the daylight,
you could really tell how lucky we were in it all -- most of the shops
in the Village were ripping out carpet and the streets were full of
flood debris. Neighbors reported getting some water in their houses
-- and we found out that Tom and Laura's gameroom / TV room had gotten
water in it.
Saturday morning
I went through all of Jackson's toys and we set aside a large box
full to take to the Red Cross. We also took about 8 containers of
powdered infant formula, plus two bags of newborn clothes. The Red
Cross was packed with people all having the same idea, so it took
a while to drop it all off -- but I'm just glad to be able to drop
things off, instead of needing the help ourselves.
So now it's just
trying to get back to normal -- helping where we can in terms of donations,
or support. Tropical storm Allison -- the A storm -- was not a nice
way to start the hurricane season, but hopefully since we had this
one, we'll be spared more for this year.
And now
I must confess,
I could use some rest.
I can't run at this pace very long.
Yes, it's quite insane,
I think it hurts my brain.
But it cleans me out and then I can go on.
