Hurricane Harvey Slamming Texas

[alansmith]

When I lived in Guam we had a monster with 160 mph winds. I was in a cinder block house above Agana at the naval housing. Scared shizzle less. Shrieking and moaning that I still can recall 40 plus years ago. Sunk military ships in Agana harbor.

Pray for these Texans. I have a feeling Harvey hasn't played his joker card yet. He has been very unpredicatable so far... ugly scary guy.

[deblen]

https://www.facebook.com/16680551916...5725872879169/

[Group9]

The longest ones I have ever been in only had five or six hours of really high winds, and by the time they died down, we were almost crazy from the sound of it. I can't imagine having one park on top of you and not moving, or barely moving.

[neilpride]

I pray for Smackdady , i hope im wrong and he move to another location, Florida or maybe the Caribbean.

[zeehag]

i am so glad patricia was a fast and strong.. get it over with kinda a storm. harvey is the invisible rabbit.
ye got me on bitch-- harvey is a bastid. yup true dat.
as for th e reliability of predicted word--i donot listen to the words much. i watch the sat shots and head to storm 2k where i find fairly reliable info.
depending on one source to figure the path for these is a fools errand. gotta use many. patricia was a little bit of a surprise, as she was spozed to go to la perula, just a few miles north of us. well, it did that and got us too, as eye was wobbling and storm intensifying on landfall---twice. we got the heavy end, la perula was only washed away a tad. the accuracy of the landfall with a huge storm is amazing. i enjoy watching these storms grow and develop. the more beautiful they are the more deadly. the track accuracy is excellent, but it is the third published track that is the one. if you go by early published tracks you will be in the wrong place. these are situations in which late weather reports are dangerous, and 4 hours can make a big difference.
way i figger it, the first predicted track is a generalization of direction of travel of storm. second one is the confirmation. third one is who is gonna die. err float away . err...drown.. err.. find the eye. hopefully none of tthe adverse items on the list occur.
the eye was good. cool experience. i was pumping my bilges of 8 or so inches rainwater and checking my still excellent lines and cleats.
as this one is sitting on teejass, there will be, beyond the wind damages, much flooding of the lowlying areas, and runoff from the high grounds. at least your runoffs donot contain buicks, refrigerators, mules, corpses of humans and everything else that used to live. your runoffs may contain trees and limbs and other wickedly dangerous items that must be avoided.
add runoff to surge. fun.
water is todays danger. wind was yesterdays. now the winds are 80 kts. much better than 130, agreed??
that bastid was intensifying as it made landfall, and took its sweet time to decrease windspeeds.
i hope those under it are well and fine and not homeless and pets are ok and cars not wetter than function allows.
i also hope harvey the invisible rabbit tires of your location and goes away. what i see is dissipation in the general location in which it arrived. he aint goin far.
hope your galoshes are adequate and that your spirit is not soaked.
those under--did you hear that intensifying wind?? wasnt it sick?? is an unforgettable sound. not a pleasant one as it means damage and danger.

[transmitterdan]

Harvey is a TS. So far the landfall area has about 1/2 meter of rainfall. Significant rain will continue for a while as far north as Austin and the hill country.

[zeehag]

took harvey a long time to decrease in intensity to ts. was a good cane for most of its damages. ts means great relief.
what i have seen so far looks like a pile of matchsticks and rubble

[Cormorant]

SSgtPitt, Sailmonkey, Cavalier -- we're thinking about you guys, and all Texas boaters.

When you're able to get to the docks, let us know how you fared.

[Sailmonkey]

Originally Posted by Cormorant

SSgtPitt, Sailmonkey, Cavalier -- we're thinking about you guys, and all Texas boaters.



When you're able to get to the docks, let us know how you fared.

We fared just fine in the Houston area....very little wind and light rain considering.

Corpus will be a whole other matter.

[RTB]

Originally Posted by neilpride

I pray for Smackdady , i hope im wrong and he move to another location, Florida or maybe the Caribbean.

No worries. His boat is on the west coast of Florida these days.


Harvey pretty much devastated Rockport, Tx. We spent a couple of weeks at Hooking Bull Yard to do repairs and a bottom job, and spent the summer of 2015 at Cove Harbor Marina. The video shows the yard, and the dry stack at the marina today. I have friends with a boat in a slip there, but no word how the boats in their slips faired as yet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_k8K7A0yHI

Ralph

[SSgtPitt]

According to what I can gleen from the Marina guys, only one boat sunk a little and there's pictures of that on the web. A few boats lost their sails but for the most part there seems to be little damage. The bay cams are still down.
I'll be down next weekend and will post some aftermath marina pics.....and any bruises obtained by my boat.
Lessons learned -
All flappy things need to come off.
2 bilge pumps are better than one.
Glad I cleaned my cockpit drains.
Happy I got new dock lines and tie the crap out of my boat.
Also glad I only tie off to the floating dock and not that big stationary concrete post that seperates the slips.
I really need to find that rain water leak that fills my engine sump with rain water all the time.

Rockport it seems didn't fair so well, my heart goes out to them.

[LEOCAT66]

Our friend in Ingleside did better than expected. He feels that his location, 18 miles west of Rockport, was the key, as he was on the west side of the eye wall. The marina was nearly destroyed but his house is fine as the primary storm surge was to the east of his location. His boat, which was in the marina suffered cosmetic damage from pilings, according to a friend, who is now there. Approximately 14 boats left the marina and anchored in Corpus Bay to ride out the storm. None have been found as of this post. He feels that they either dragged, suffered equipment failure, or were sunk.

[pbmaise]

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said at a news conference Sunday that the additional boats and vehicles that Texas is sending to the Houston area are not able to get to the area due to flooded roadways. He adds that vehicles the state previously sent are already being used to help rescue individuals.
Emmett, who oversees government operations in Harris County, where Houston is located, says, "We desperately need boats and high water vehicles ... We can't wait for assets to come from outside."

One river I have been monitoring, Brays Bayou, has exceeded the range of the level guage.

Last measurement was 33 ft above normal level and flowrate 200 times normal.

Again that was 8 hours ago.

700,000 people live in the 31 mile stretch of Brays Bayou and this is just one of many rivers where people may need rescue.

[pbmaise]

Here is a link to current data you can view.

https://www.harriscountyfws.org/#main

Currently as I post this rain has stopped in much of lower Houston but continues North of it.

If you click menu you can get totals for past two days and see many guages are above 24"

If you click directly on map some river guages should come up.

Some rivers and bayous have already exceeded record levels during Allison.

Compounding the problem is most of the reservoirs are full unlike what media reported prior to the storm. There is still about 7 feet of capacity in San Jacinto River Basin (Lake Houston) before that dam will have to spill.

One big dam that feeds into Lake Houston was within 6" of max before the hurricane hit and begin to spill just a few hours into the rain. That one dam has a watershed of 445 square miles, and it is still raining in that area.

I am not saying the SJRB will fail, rather I am saying the San Jacinto River below the dam is likely to rise much higher if and when Lake Houston reaches design maximum level.

Here is a direct link to the Lake Houston level guage.

https://waterdatafortexas.org/reserv...vidual/houston

At time of post level was 46 ft and maximum is 53 ft.

I can see a problem with this dam design. The way the Corp configured the spillway the lowest the lake can be drained is to 41 ft. It does look like this was done before arrival.

If this dam reaches 53 ft and begins to help flood Houston even more, then a siphon should be installed so it can be drawn down before an event.

The managers who failed to drain down other reservoirs need to be put on clean up duty.

Note: In MHO all damaged homes should be rebuilt on post and pier construction. This business of building slab on grade has to stop.

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by pbmaise

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said at a news conference Sunday that the additional boats and vehicles that Texas is sending to the Houston area are not able to get to the area due to flooded roadways

Is this the same Harris county official that countermanded the state governor's warning that people should evacuate to the north? On Thursday and Friday there was huge confusion when the state government called for people to evacuate the area around Houston. They turned all southbound interstate lanes to northbound. Then city and/or county officials came out and said no, the storm would go west and people should not evacuate. The governor is pi$$ed as I understand it. And Harris county officials are on TV this afternoon blaming the governor for a lack of rescue boats.

It is still raining hard in the area and looks to keep raining all night into tomorrow. Harvey is a big vacuum cleaner sucking huge amounts of water out of the gulf and dumping it on Harris county. The situation is extremely bad for many thousands of people.