Well, there's floodin' down in Texas...

1837 Views 19 Replies 10 Participants Last post by CampCreekTexas, Jul 6, 2007

CampCreekTexas

Discussion Starter · Jun 27, 2007

Anybody else a Stevie Ray fan? That song's been going through my head all night. I was up 'til 7:30 this morning and it had rained hard ALL night long without a letup. Found out this morning that Marble Falls, about fifteen miles away from me, got 14 inches of rain overnight. Yes, that's right ~ I said fourteen inches. And some reports say over 18 inches. CNN Headline News weather guy just had a graphic on the screen that said 19.something.

Living in Central Texas I'm used to floods, but even this is a bit surprising. We woke up to some friends out of the area calling us to make sure we were fine Tom and I are watching the news. So far we've found it on CNN, MSNBC and The Weather Channel, with video from Marble Falls on CNN. Most stories say that Lampasas, Williamson and Burnet counties have gotten the worst of it ~ I'm in Burnet county and the other two are immediately north and northeast respectively of Burnet.

Here are some links if you want to read more:
Local news story

~ we made the front page of the US section
Some pictures from around the area

This has been a strange spring. This past two weeks it's been raining more than it's been sunny. I have satellite internet, so my connection's been hit and miss this entire past couple weeks ~ more miss than hit. This morning I've been connected for an hour solid and I can't believe it! :icon_lol: Usually, it only goes out for a few minutes when there's a massive thunderstorm cell going overhead ~ no problem when it's just the clouds surrounding the center cells. I'm betting the clouds surrounding the storms we've been having lately are just so much more dense than normal.

But I'm not complaining! Being a rancher who depends on the rain to grow the grass I'm loving this. Of course I'd rather have the water without the flooding that's causing so much destruction.

Everybody else in Texas okay? Oklahoma, you guys allright?

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JenThePlantGeek

· #2 · Jun 27, 2007

We haven't had any rain for the past month at all until this weekend. My lawn was brown and crispy and a lot of my flowers died. There were even warnings about low water supplies and people were asked not to run sprinklers on their lawns.

Isn't it funny how that works out? If we could just make it nice and even, you guys wouldn't flood and we wouldn't drought!

CampCreekTexas

Discussion Starter · #3 · Jun 27, 2007

No kidding! And we wouldn't have drought either. THAT would be nice. The drought this past two years has driven up hay prices from $50 for a 1000+lb. round bale to $125, IF you can find it at all. *sigh* I spent $6900 last winter on hay, so this year we'll be finishing off the savings account by buying an irrigation system. One big enough to do all my pastures costs as much as a new luxury car, so we'll be calling it "The Lexus". :icon_lol: But it should pay for itself in hay sales alone in three more years of drought, or eight more years of normal rainfall. Add in how much I'll be saving on hay and you can almost halve those time estimates. Wild, huh? I should have done this years ago.

But there are some other bright spots in all this rain ~ I finished The Winter King! LOL! (Along with a few others.) What a FABULOUS book! You were right! I'll be ordering the rest of the series soon.

JenThePlantGeek

· #4 · Jun 27, 2007

Oooh just wait - I didn't REALLY fall in love with that series till it was over and I sat back with the third book on my lap and just went "Wow..."

soundtweakers

· #5 · Jun 28, 2007

I'm a huge Stevie Ray fan and really sorry for your bad weather, I hope it's not doin that much damage.

I shouldn't complain, but here in NYC we've been having strangely hot weather for these couple of days. We even had a blackout today, which is rare and serious for Manhattan. Funny how ten years ago I first heard the term "global warming" and now in 2007 everyone is going "green" for the sake of following the trend.

CampCreekTexas

Discussion Starter · #6 · Jun 28, 2007

Oh, man! Now I can't wait to get the others in, Jen. I'm already jonesin' for them. I absolutely loved the realism in TWK. The author portraying some characters so differently than they are usually portrayed was refreshing as well ~ Lancelot as such a selfish prat, Mordred as Arthur's infant nephew instead of his son, Merlin still a bit kooky but in a different more "heartful" or "patriotic" way, etc. Great stuff. And it gets even better?! Awesome! Can't wait.

Jim Cantore from The Weather Channel was just on the screen reporting live from Lakeside Park in Marble Falls!!! Man, we're big news! I'm tempted to hop in the truck and go get a closer look of that sexy thang Mr. Cantore. :icon_lol: But I'm not going ANYWHERE today. Doesn't take a warning from gov't officials to make me stay put. They're telling everyone to stay away. Not a problem for us ~ we've got plenty of groceries/supplies (I buy three months' worth at a time), new well rope set up in case we have to dip water if the power goes out, extra food out for the chickens to keep them from being bored (have to leave them cooped there's so much heavy rain) and plenty of batteries for the flashlights.

There's a curfew for residents of Marble ~ after dark, they have to stay inside their homes. National Guard just arrived to help with rescues, clean up and security. Man, this is wild.

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CampCreekTexas

Discussion Starter · #7 · Jun 28, 2007

Hey, SoundTweakers, I just heard on the news about y'all's blackout! Glad it didn't last too long. So, have you been to Austin to see the Stevie Ray statue on Town Lake? It's a nice representation of him. I love it.

Yeah, this is just crazy. Floods around here are a common thing, but ones that do this much damage only come about once every ten or twenty years. And I don't remember ever getting that many inches in that short of a time. One good thing though ~ no one in my area has died. For the first five years or so of the boom here, when people were moving here from all over the country, there would be atleast half a dozen people dead from drowning during every storm of any consequence. They simply didn't know any better than to drive into flooded low water crossings or get a bit too close to rushing water. I'm glad that apparently they've learned.

And I'm even more glad that I'm not really affected negatively with this. We're on high ground, and like I just mentioned, plenty ready for having to stay in and not be able to get to the grocery store for a while. I'm surprised that my internet's stayed connected a lot today ~ since that's about all I'm having to deal with, life is good for me. We might have a water gap wash out, but that's not a biggie either ~ we've got all the livestock in the main pasture away from the creeks so they don't get into trouble with the rushing water or loose in case a fence washes out. So we can deal with downed gaps later. I just feel bad for all those people out there flooded out of their homes.

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A Hill

· #8 · Jun 28, 2007

Hey I've been watching the news and wondering about you guys. Especially you and the other TX residents on TPT. Its great to hear you're all livin the high life so to speak, and haven't got washed out:thumbsup:

Now it's a waiting game, The Lt. Governor was on Fox News this morning saying to stay put and listen to Govt officials. It seems like this has been handled really well though..

-Andrew

CampCreekTexas

Discussion Starter · #9 · Jun 28, 2007

3

Thanks for the well wishes, Andrew. :biggrin: I'm hoping everyone from the forum from this area are okay, too. I still haven't heard of any deaths from this area and only a couple elsewhere. That's really lucky since anytime a bad flood happens, we usually hear of atleast half a dozen deaths.

Yeah, this area is extremely prone to flooding, so Central Texans have plenty of practice at this. :icon_lol: Usually though it's a bit more expected. Since it's been raining for the past two weeks or so, the ground is saturated and it's all running off. I figured there'd be a flood if we got more rain, and I'm sure everyone else expected the same. But we didn't expect 19 inches in six hours!:icon_eek: And it's raining again, right now as I type this.

I wanted to get pics of the clouds night before last, but the big bad ones were gone by daylight. Just before dark yesterday, they started gearing back up, so here are some pics from then:

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kath

· #10 · Jun 29, 2007

2

glad to hear you are ok linda

it got pretty nasty around here also
luckily our house is kinda on a hill for we are ok....

here are some pics that i managed to snap a few days ago... i have more but they are on the camera still......

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eklikewhoa

· #11 · Jun 29, 2007

It's been pretty calm down here in south tx.......maybe we have paid our dues already.

tazcrash69

· #12 · Jun 29, 2007

Glad to hear you are all OK.

CampCreekTexas

Discussion Starter · #13 · Jun 29, 2007

Wow, Kath! Those are awesome pictures. It's amazing what Mom Nature can do when she gets a mind to, huh? Glad to hear you're okay, too.

All that water from up here is headed your way via the Colorado, Eklike. Are you anywhere near it? I don't know how many days it'd take to flow all the way down to the coast. Maybe it's already made it there? Dunno. Hope y'all don't get this much rain any time soon.

Thanks, Taz.

tropicalfish

· #14 · Jun 29, 2007

Hey CampCreekTexas, did you have to evacuate or did you get high waters? Collin County here didn't really get flooded, just LOTS AND LOTS of rain.

CampCreekTexas

Discussion Starter · #15 · Jun 29, 2007

Tom, Levi and I didn't have to evacuate, thank GOD. We're in a bit of a valley, but we're still a mile from the river ~ high ground relatively speaking. We just got lots of runoff from the pastures into the creeks. The creeks did get up quite a bit though. I did hear of many others in the area being evac'ed. Marble Falls and the surrounding areas have a lot of people who live right on the water's edge, so they all got evac'ed. Onion Creek in Austin is notorious for flooding and I listened to one man on the news talk about being evac'ed at 3am from his house right next to it ~ people going door to door in his neighborhood to wake people up and get them out.

You're in Plano ~ the direct path the storms took from here went right over you, didn't they?! I'm glad you didn't get flooding like we did!! We get it so bad because it's all hills down here, and the water runs off so quickly instead of puddling. So, how much rain did you get? DH and I never did find out exactly how many inches we got here on the ranch. With this heavy rain in the forecast, we covered the chicken coop with a giant tarp and the gauge was stuck on the end of the coop. Dummies us. Should have moved the rain gauge! :icon_lol: Though fat lot of good it would have done us anyway ~ it only measures to seven inches. LOL!

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Nikki

· #16 · Jun 30, 2007

I've been really lucky here south of Ft. Worth. Haven't had nearly as much rain as other areas of D/FW--many of the storms split and went east and west of us as they headed north. It is a sea of mud around my barn, though, so twice a day I have to pull on the rubber boots, hope they don't get sucked right off my feet by the mud, and feed those horses of mine. But I am dry and comfortable in my house, unlike so many in this area who are losing everything to rising water--I really count my blessings!

eklikewhoa

· #17 · Jun 30, 2007

It hasn't really rained much..it comes in spurts but nothing to get excited about.

CampCreekTexas

Discussion Starter · #18 · Jul 5, 2007

Well, we're still getting rain and sometimes hard rain. We've spent most of the day so far today chasing cows and mending fence in the rain. There was a 6' wide section of crossfence down that led into the northwest pasture where a water gap was washed completely out (100' wide or so). We hadn't seen the small section that was down since it's surrounded by thick brush. Thank GOD for cattle dogs! Nellie, my little heeler, moved the herd through the brush so I could circle around it and not have to get caught up in it myself. I love my dog. :biggrin:

Went through town (Marble Falls) yesterday to visit family north of there and we saw the damage. It's pretty bad in places, but only in those small places. The Red Cross was still set up at the middle school (the temporary shelter). There was a fire call (house fire I think) out here in Spicewood last night and my buddy who owns a wrecker service was kept busy for hours pulling six fire trucks, an ambulance and a cop car out of the mud. Forecast says we're in for more rain ~ maybe a foot more.

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RoseHawke

· #19 · Jul 5, 2007

I think you're getting some of our rain

.

US Drought Monitor

Although even so I don't think I'd want quite that much!

CampCreekTexas

Discussion Starter · #20 · Jul 6, 2007

What a nifty website, Cindy! Thanks for the link to it. Your situation at the moment looks a lot like ours was last summer. I'm surprised that website didn't list the drought here as worse.

I'd gladly share some of this rain if I could. Here's hoping you get some soon.

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