Flooding, severe weather devastate Texas

[Lodestar]

Source: USA Today

Six people died and at least two others were missing Sunday after heavy rains in Texas and Kansas caused severe flooding. In one case near Austin, which received nine inches of rain this week, a vehicle with two people was swept off a flooded roadway.

Threats of floods prompted authorities to evacuate thousands of prisoners near Houston, and inmates in another prison on Saturday fought with correctional officers after flooding caused a power outage.

Most of the deaths took place in rural Washington County, Texas, between Austin and Houston, where more than 16.5 inches of rain fell in some places late last week, the Associated Press reported. The bodies of two other missing motorists were found Saturday in separate parts of the county, authorities said.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/05/29/flooding-severe-weather-devastate-texas/32634043/

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VIDEO HERE - http://www.cbsnews.com/news/death-toll-rising-from-flooding-in-texas/

BIZARRE WEATHER. Rained almost all of May and more heavy rain forecast for all of next week.
Most of the dams have been opened to release some of it. Texas is a big state and yet much of
it is experiencing flooding. I don't know if Houston will ever dry out.

[hobbit709]

1. A shower floods Houston, it was built in a swamp.

Here in Austin at 5:30 I was going to take the dogs to the park since it was dry. At 6 it started raining, 1/4 inch so far and it's still coming down.

[Igel]

13. That's a bit of an overstatement.

Still, it's certainly not wrong.

Friday had to leave work by an alternate route--the road I usually take was flooded, and the alternate route was close to being closed. Businesses on the side of the road had several inches of standing water in them. Several lanes of the freeway I usually take were closed. Then when we were just about home we had to detour to avoid high water.

The last detour was a new problem, and didn't happen until the county gave a variance to a developer saying he prep a site without having a water retention basin on the site. Huge site is now not at the same level as everything else but a foot higher. It was high and dry, no puddles, but the runoff of mud and water clogged the storm drain. There's a lawsuit against the county claiming it's too lax with water drainage regulations and gives too many variances. You have a neighborhood, then a large business or developer comes in and gets a variance to raise a large patch of ground a couple of feet to avoid flooding there but does nothing to mitigate flooding, and then covers it with cement; a neighborhood that didn't flood 5 years ago with 5" of rain now floods regularly with 4" of rain.

Saturday the bayous in the area crested. We didn't notice it going to services north of here, but a fair number of people couldn't figure out how to get out from their neighborhoods. On the way home traffic was truly miserable, and just before we broke free of the clog of traffic we noticed Spring Creek had crested at about 20 feet above its banks. I-45 was high enough to get over it, but all the surface streets for 10 or 15 miles west were closed; if it had crested 22 or 23 feet above its banks, I-45 would have closed as well. I don't think I've seen any river in Texas as wide, and that's a creek usually 2-3 wide in a deep gully.

[kentauros]

14. A -shower- doesn't, but a heavy rain does.

Having lived within sixty miles of the Gulf coast most of my life, I've paid attention to the weather norms.

It used to be that we'd get these little thunderstorms raining for about 5-10 minutes in the mid afternoon (in the Clear Lake area, it was literally at 3pm) and so regular that you could actually set your watch to them.

That doesn't happen any more. Now we see a build-up of moisture that then builds into these massive lines of thunderstorms much further inland which then dump a quarter of our annual rainfall on us at one time.

So yeah, the flood plain here floods.

[TexasTowelie]

2. I used to live in Brenham

which is in Washington County. They received 18 inches of rain on Thursday going into Friday. The major intersection in town on the US 290 bypass (one of the primary routes between Houston and Austin) had about two feet of water standing in it.

One of the individuals that died took pictures from inside his pickup truck which he shared online. The photo showed that the water was less than one foot from the top of the cab of the truck. He climbed out of the truck but was stranded in the pickup bed so he reentered the vehicle. A few minutes later the force of the water completely overturned the truck and it was submerged.

There were also tornadoes near Brenham and Bryan-College Station.

I saw numerous pictures where roads were completely washed out and the traffic along US 290 was completely stalled because of high water and cattle that escaped pastures.

[metroins]

4. I drove on 290 Friday morning

Saw the cows on the road and the cops reining them in.

It was rough on traffic because it was on the bridge at the Washington County line, so nobody could go around.

[rurallib]

3. wasn't it only a couple years ago that Texas was in a super drought?

Didn't Rick Perry make a big production out of praying for rain?

[Ezlivin]

5. We didn't know how powerful Perry's prayers were

Now we desperately need him to unpray the rains away.

[Feeling the Bern]

6. Curious if Ted Cruz will whine for FEMA money after he told NY/NJ to fuck themselves after Sandy.

[Dopers_Greed]

12. I'm pretty sure...

...that him or another one of our crackpot "elected" officials begged for FEMA money during last year's flooding. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[Gothmog]

7. Texas has had three one-hundred year floods in the last year

Climate change is real

[Sam_Fields]

8. Climate Change Doesn't Exist!

Na na na Na! I can't hear you.

[TBF]

9. Some sad stories w/the flooding -

there are floods and hour north of me and an hour south along the coast.

[kentauros]

16. Expect a repeat this coming week:

[font size="5"]More Locally Heavy Rain For Flood-Weary Texas This Week[/font]
By Tom Moore
May 30, 2016

It seems that there is no rest for the rain-weary over parts of Texas. Several significant rain events have produced flooding across the region in recent months and more rain is on the way.

Another round of heavy rain inundated the Lone Star State over the past several days, resulting in even more flooding. After a brief break, more significant rain is expected again this week.

[font size="4"]More Rain Ahead This Week[/font]

[font size="2"]Dip in the jet stream will pull more moisture into beleaguered Texas[/font]

Early this week, a dip in the jet stream, or trough, will move into the southwestern U.S. This pattern has repeated itself several times in recent months resulting in many heavy rain and flooding events for parts of Texas.

By midweek, the trough will slide into western Texas. Plenty of moisture will once more be transported into Texas from the Pacific Ocean aloft and from the Gulf of Mexico at the surface. The result will be more locally heavy rain and thunderstorms for a significant portion of the Lone Star State.

(more at linked headline)

[Soxfan58]

11. Gods Wrath

For opposing gay marriage.

[WhiteHat]

15. Since we all "know" climate change is a myth

I wonder how Texans come to grips with extreme weather events.

Most I've met assume "climate change is real but it's not our fault."

Ahem. Who cares whose "fault" it is if scientists say we can do something about it?

[TBF]

17. Well I am a progressive Texan -

and like others I welcome the scientists.