Hurricane Harvey

[Kevin Seitzer]

[Kevin Seitzer]

[Hornsby]

Good Lord...that's incredible. Here in Minnesota, which is not exactly a desert climate, we get roughly 30 inches of rain per year...you guys are getting that, and more, in less than a week. I can't even imagine...again, stay safe.

[Kevin Seitzer]

This is the river near where I live. It's five feet out of its banks already and projected to rise another eight feet. My house is at 75 feet elevation, so it's not threatened, but this would flood thousands of homes in my community.

[Sour Masher]

That is crazy. I grew up in South Florida, so have been through a fair number of storms, but none had that kind of unrelenting rain fall after the storm did its wind damage. Hope everyone there stays safe and the utilities get back online as fast as possible. Hard to imagine any drainage system can handle that kind of rain fall.

[Kevin Seitzer]

Since I posted earlier, we've had 2.5 more inches of rain. I have never seen a rainstorm like this. We had a little break yesterday, but it's been raining for 15 straight hours now, peak rainfall rates of an inch an hour, with periodic breaks where the rainfall rate is only a quarter inch an hour.

[Kevin Seitzer]

[Kevin Seitzer]

Downtown Houston

[Kevin Seitzer]

It continues to rain. This time across north and east Houston, 4-7" over the last six hours. They are predicting another 4-10" overnight tonight.

We did have about a half hour without rain, which was the longest break we've had in the last 20 hours. That allowed everything to drain from my street.

Area schools have announced closures until after Labor Day. Flooding across the metro area is so widespread it is unbelievable. They are evacuating much of Brazoria County (southwest of Houston) now due to flooding concerns on the Brazos River and San Bernard River. The San Bernard River is expected to crest 10 feet above the previous record.

[hacko]

Downtown Houston

Wow - thanks for the updates. Watching it on TV - glad that you and your family are not in the low region.

[johnnya24]

This seems nuts ... and more to come. I thought the care home video was photoshopped at first.

[Mithrandir]

I heard on a talk show this morning that the floods in Houston are due in large part to man made issues and the politicians won't fix the problems.

[Kevin Seitzer]

I heard on a talk show this morning that the floods in Houston are due in large part to man made issues and the politicians won't fix the problems.

While that has some truth to it, that's a distortion of the facts. It is due to a lot of growth in the Houston metro area, and the fact that while planning has adapted to that, it hasn't been able to keep up.

This Twitter thread is a good place to get more info:

https://twitter.com/CorbettMatt/status/901959336850804737

Also, this is the most flooding rain that has fallen anywhere in recorded U.S. history, so maybe it's not fair to blame politicians and planners for that?

[Kevin Seitzer]

Last night was the best night we've had in a while. Heavy rain stopped around 1am, and we've only had light and sporadic rain since then, which has allowed standing water to recede in my neighborhood. There is more rain on the way today, and rivers and bayous are at their peak in many places today, but it's starting to look like we've come through the worst of it.

[TranaGreg]

Last night was the best night we've had in a while. Heavy rain stopped around 1am, and we've only had light and sporadic rain since then, which has allowed standing water to recede in my neighborhood. There is more rain on the way today, and rivers and bayous are at their peak in many places today, but it's starting to look like we've come through the worst of it.

that's very good to hear; there sure are some crazy stories/pics ... with the storm heading back over the gulf hopefully it doesn't strengthen.