I'm sending good wishes for all our members, and everyone else, in the path of Hurricane Harvey. This is predicted to be a big event. Houston Texas is being hit with heavy rain now, as are Corpus Christi and Rockport. The port of Corpus is closed, and voluntary evacuations are in progress from coastal areas. If the highway that runs past us becomes an evacuation route, we will put out our "food and water on the left" sign. I have stews, sandwich makings, cookies, and lots of water ready for those who need it. I just hope everyone doesn't want to use our bathroom and overload the septic!
Our oldest grandson and his sweetheart are in Houston and haven't decided if it is time to pack up the dog and cats and come north yet.
Toni, in the strongest way, urge them to come north! Better to regret evacuating, than regret not evacuating.
Hoping everyone keeps safe as this looks like a BIG ONE and could linger. Well done Jane,..lovely to see someone preparing to help those on the evacuation route,..you keep safe as well.
Having been through several hurricanes, the situation is nothing to take lightly. If the opportunity to evacuate is available take it. My earliest hurricane had houses under water with only the roof visible. Streets, usable in good weather, become traps for vehicles as small dips become unexpected streams. Nothing is more precious than life. I pray our stewbies in the area stay safe and remain so after this is over. Jerry
Harvey is now a category 4 hurricane, with mandatory evacuations in seven coastal counties. The sheriff in Matagorda county told residents to leave, and if they didn't, he wasn't risking his deputies' lives to rescue them. We haven't seen a lot of northbound traffic on the highway, but really didn't expect to see that until tomorrow morning. I told the hens to lay as many eggs as possible because we may be down to making omelettes and scrambled eggs by Sunday morning!
I hope everyone that can get to safer areas are on their way to safety now. There's no reason to gamble with your life. Prayers for all affected by this huge hurricane.
A lot of the north bound traffic is on Interstate 35 which goes north to the west of Houston, tomorrow will probably see an increase of traffic on Interstate 45 on the east. My grandson and his sweetie have packed up and left for Austin, her Uncle is connected with the emergency preparedness group in Austin and he told them to "bug out" So they are where they will be safer than in Houston.
Yikes that is quite the storm. Praying for safety for all our stewbies and their families in the path of Harvey. Toni-so glad your grandson and his sweetie took the advice and went to Austin.
Rockport and Victoria got hit hard by Harvey as the storm came to the coast. Lots of buildings damaged, flooding, and tornadic activity. We still don't have evacuation traffic on our nearby highway--but with parts of I-35 flooded near Austin it seems more likely we will have some evacuees heading north. If so, we are prepared to help with food and water.
Keeping up to date with Harvey on CNN,..it looks very bad,..strong winds and LOTS of rain plus flooding,..heaven knows how things will look afterwards seeing Harvey is going to hang around.
There are 5 or 6 evac centers opened in Dallas county and filled with refugees from the Houston area.... and plans are in the works to open at least 2 more during the week. We have only gotten a smidgen of rain since the storm isn't moving north because of weather systems holding it where it is.....High pressure systems on each side of it and the Jet Stream has apparently slipped far enough south to block the storm from heading north the way almost all hurricanes that hit on the coast typically do. They are still talking about it making a turnaround sometime this week, head south to the Gulf again, regain strength and head back inland into east Texas. This one just doesn't want to go away.
Harvey is now predicted to move up the coast and into East Texas. The first photos from Rockport and Port Aransas are appearing. There doesn't seem to be a single structure standing. Houston is pretty much underwater and there are neighborhoods that are completely cut off by the flooding. It will take years to recover from this.
Lots of the rescue operations are ordinary people with boats going through neighborhoods, knocking on doors or finding vehicles partially underwater and getting stranded motorists out of them as the water level rises inside the vehicle. Regular military, National Guard and trained water rescue members of police and fire departments around the state have been sent there too with more heading down soon. And some of you have probably seen the really large pickup trucks that stand way above regular vehicles, those are some of the only vehicles that can get through some flooded areas and there are several out driving around looking for people to help. There were shots of regular tow truck drivers out loading up flooded out cars with people in them taking them to higher ground. Coming back home from his folks house on Saturday, Randy drove under a formation of helicopters heading down there for rescue work and passed a long line of National Guard vehicles heading down there for the same purpose. There is an organization around here that has converted semi-trailers into shower units (each one has 14 showers installed), they have been putting them outside of the shelters here so the evacuees can use them. The Joint Naval Air Station in Fort Worth (many years ago known as the SAC base Carswell) has been receiving the military planes from south Texas and the pilots families have been brought up for safety also. On the animal side of the situation, an Owl with a damaged wing was found and taken to an animal rescue group....photos of a lost dog carrying a bag of dog food in his mouth was on the news last night and they said that his owner has been found and they are together again....and there was a herd of cattle moved to higher ground escorted by police cars. A group of 15 year old boys have been out in neighborhoods in a boat, rescuing anyone they can find.
