Thanks for the thoughts folks. We appreciate it!
Lets remember the good folks associated with the Old Rocketeers #724 club in the Katy area, and the good folks over at the NASA/Houston Rocket Club (NHRC) down in the Clear Lake area. That's all some pretty low, swampy ground and lots of development-- concrete and parking lots doesn't allow much infiltration of water...
We're currently in San Antonio. My mom, who lives at Shiner in a mobile home up on a hill out on the farm there, decided that she'd rather get out of town for the storm, and so we drove her up to Junction Friday before the storm arrived, and we stayed there Saturday and Sunday. My uncle drove up from Victoria, as he's got health problems and didn't care to sit it out in the city of Victoria, since it's an hour closer to the coast (next town south is basically Rockport, where the storm made landfall). Good call because Victoria is a complete mess from what I've heard. He has health problems and wasn't feeling well, so we came back down to San Antonio Sunday afternoon, and by that evening he was feeling bad enough he went in to the hospital. He's doing alright, but not good enough to get out. Of course my mom doesn't want to leave San Antonio while he's in the hospital.
Betty and I drove back to Shiner (about 2 hours east of here, halfway back to Needville, basically) and checked out the farm, fed the dogs, etc. Everything at the farm was fine-- ponds are busting full of course, got about 15-17 inches of rain or thereabouts, so that's to be expected. Four trees on the farm went over in the wind, but nothing major. Her mobile home is fine, power is on, so all is well. Cows were fat and happy. In driving around the farm on the tractor checking fences and things, I saw a cow had a new calf this morning-- think I'll call him "Harvey"... LOL
My brother and sister-in-law both work for the county drainage district-- they couldn't leave because they're on call, but he told me that while the Needville farm has about a foot of standing water on pretty much the whole thing, the cows are riding it out on the creek levees and his house is still well above water. When we bought our mobile home, I built a pile of dirt about 2-3 feet high before they moved it in, so we're high and dry. SO far they have power and all is well there.
My sister and brother-in-law and her boys rode it out in their home in Needville... lots of water but no flooding. Things are much worse in Rosenberg/Richmond, where a roadway washed out (it was on the weather channel) and now the Brazos River is about to crest with record-breaking flooding. My wife's friend Lena and her family were confident that in 17 years their house had never flooded-- they were forced to evacuate earlier today, due to the Pecan Grove levee and retention pond becoming unsound and it's not going to hold, releasing several feet of water into the area. Hopefully their house won't flood, but I wouldn't necessarily count on it. That entire area is awfully close to the Brazos River, and it's some pretty low ground out there; of course they've built 100,000 homes out there in the last 20 years, in and area that had historically been farmland and grazing land and swamp bottom with VERY few inhabitants before, and for good reason. Of course the school Betty teaches at and Keira attends as a seventh grader is over in that area as well. School is closed until next week at least... they announced Thursday evening that they would close Friday and Monday, and then announced over the weekend they're closed all next week. School had just started last Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Julie is a band director at the next school up the road and of course her boys go to Needville-- not sure when Needville intends to start school-- they were supposed to Monday but that's questionable IMHO... our district has a LOT of low ground on the southern/eastern side of the school district.
Anyway, I'll post some pics here ASAP.
Later and thanks again and God bless to all who are still (and will be) dealing with this huge mess for quite some time!
Later!
Jeff