To my cousin in New York, who today sent his best wishes to us in Houston

Hey kids,

It’s been very different.  We’ve all been through hurricanes before but this isn’t the same.  Everybody is fine right now, some still in town and some not, but everybody wants the rain to stop.

I’ve lost track of what’s going on in Rockport.  A Category 4 hurricane hit there less than three days ago and I saw video of terrible wind damage and lots of flooding, but that dissolved off my radar because of the rain right here; I hope they’re doing OK.  The good news is that there have been a few to several hours in a row with no rain, but it always comes back, more intense, and for hours at a time.  I read somewhere that the part of Texas that’s now underwater is about the size of the area between New York and Boston, and our new body of water is still getting bigger.  The most recent National Hurricane Center projection thinks we may still have another 36 hours of rain in front of us, as the center of the storm (which has moved back out over the Gulf) meanders eventually to the northeast and goes on shore between Galveston and the Louisiana state line.

When it was just rain it was annoying, but bearable…Ed even went to Mom’s house Saturday afternoon to install a new lock on her back door; later that afternoon an apparent tornado spun out of the thunderstorm bands and punched a hole in the roof of his house in Stafford (check his Facebook for a picture).  Kathy and Van tried to bring him a generator to use at his in-laws house next door, where the power was out, but high water got in their way.  Sunday morning it was worse, and by then Van’s parents were reporting water rising around their apartment in southwest Houston; Kathy told us that her in-laws had six inches of water in their apartment, and had talked to the Houston fire department about evacuation to a shelter.  Meanwhile, Ed got in touch with FEMA State Farm and it arranged hotel rooms a few miles away, where he and his family went after he and a neighbor installed one of those oh-so-fashionable tarps to cover the damaged area.  (Tip: they don’t keep all the water out, apparently…)

So far, no high water threatens at Elsie’s, or at Danny’s in Katy, or our house in Pearland (Kevin, in San Antonio, is even getting rained on by Harvey!), but the rain continues.  For example, they reported more than 24 inches of rain in Pearland in the first 48 hours of the “event,” which is about half of the total rainfall we get in a full year…same thing all over the area.  If you were lucky and the rain let up for a while the flooded areas could recede, but the next rain pumped ’em right back up.  Sunday night the local flood control authorities let everyone know they were planning to release water from two large dams on far the west side of town: even though that would put more flood water into the streams heading east into Houston and worsen things for everyone along the route of already-over-engorged Buffalo Bayou, it was necessary to make sure the dams didn’t fail which would cause an “uncontrolled release” that would make things even worse.

It’s not just the rain falling directly on our heads that’s responsible.  This storm has still been pulling moisture in from the Gulf and spreading it over hundreds and hundreds of miles, areas that for the most part drain toward and through the Houston area.  The rain falling a hundred miles away is running off into streams that feed other streams that feed into Houston, so there’s not as much room for our runoff and the local floodwaters can’t go down.  Some areas are coping, but places where the rain doesn’t let up are not.

Van’s parents never did get evacuated by the fire department, but he was able to get into Houston this morning and get them and bring them back to his house in Richmond.  But the Brazos River has been rising and rising, and areas of Richmond have been called to evacuate.  About noon today Kathy and Van’s neighborhood, where their daughter Karie and her husband and newborn also live, was put on the mandatory evacuation list.  They wisely decided to put the center of the storm in their rear view mirror and drive off; a little before 4:00 this afternoon my sister tweeted a greeting that only a Texan could really appreciate: “Made it to Bucees!!”  Ah yes, Luling and Buc-ees as ultimate refuge!

The Johnson Space Center has been closed to all but mission critical personnel since Sunday and will be again tomorrow, and since I am not even close to being mission critical I’m at home relaxing, trying not to stare constantly at the TV; Frances is here too but working, as her company fights the floods to keep their hospitals supplied.  The Astros won’t make it home as planned from Anaheim–their Tue-Wed-Thu series with the Rangers has been moved to St. Petersburg.  The Texans never got home from Saturday’s game in New Orleans, and they’ll play the last exhibition game against the Cowboys as a home game in Jerry World–proving that there’s always someone who has it worse than you do.

This is where you’d think to say something like “but I’m sure it’ll all be fine in the end” and that’s probably true; on the other hand, I always thought a “biblical flood” as just a figure of speech.

Thanks for thinking of us…

Pat