Good Morning Guys. 67° and clear this morning. Still raining in Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana. It hasn't yet been as heavy as feared in most places, except in the area around Houston, which has received 24"-35". Galveston which is 50 miles south of Houston and is on the coast itself, has only had 11". Further east in Beaumont there has been about 18". There will be far more damage from flooding than from the wind that came with the initial impact over near Corpus Christi. There is a reason that geologists call those areas "flood plains". The city of Houston's lack of zoning clarity and other factors over the last 40 years allowed developers to do just about anything that they wanted; and many people are suffering now because of it. This is the third major flood that they have had since 2015. On a personal note, I have had to cancel a planned vacation in Port Aransas that I had scheduled for mid-October because while the condo I had booked is still standing, most of the rest of the town was destroyed. The portion of my deposit that is being refunded is being directed to the Red Cross. I certainly did not want to be in the way of salvage/recovery efforts.
Closer to home, I mowed and stacked firewood to keep busy yesterday. Noted a flat tire on my car, aired it up and it lasted less than ten hours. It was already my full-sized spare as my regular tire had an unrepairable puncture in July. I reluctantly put the donut spare on and will head out today to have them fixed. I do have an extra used tire to replace the original. Should have done this before now, but I rarely use that car since retirement. Pre-retirement = 500 mi/wk, post-retirement = 2000 mi/2 years.
In the train shed, I continued with the barbed wire fence. I strung all of the wires (like threading 87 needles), drilled 18 (out of 29) post holes and installed the first 10 posts into position. Should finish that today and get a picture or two. Ballasted another 18" of main line to break the monotony.
Chet - No problem with "high & dry" here, as the bands of rain never got this far north. The heavy stuff stayed at least 150 miles south. While people were warned, most did not leave. When they evacuated for Hurricane Rita (by then a tropical storm) in 2005, there were over 100 deaths in car accidents associated with the evacuation. Forty were the result of one bus accident. It was later determined to be unnecessary. Houston gets hit by rain and flooding all of the time, but many didn't realize the magnitude of this event and stayed behind like they usually do. It is not the only area with issues this time, but it's getting all of the publicity. There are still over 40,000 displaced Katrina refugees from New Orleans living in Houston according to the IRS statistics.
Sherrel - Be careful in that heat and stay hydrated. Get naked and run through your sprinklers with the dogs; in your backyard of course.
Dave - You're welcome. Do you have family or friends in that area?
Curt - What I hear is "You're retired and don't have anything else to do". They don't realize that it takes longer to do some of the things that we used to take for granted, like reading the tiny directions on pill bottles!
Garry - Even though I am not a boater, that is a fine looking boat to me. I might even consider getting on it. No kayaks or canoes for me!
Jerry - Did the playa dry out enough for them to use this year? I saw pictures in early June where it was still covered in water.
Johnny - "...oval on the floor..." That is a real misconception of folks when they see my train shed for the first time. I chuckle silently!
OK, Let's all go and get the day started. Everybody have a great Tuesday. Looks like we'll be in the new Coffee Shop by Thursday morning unless
Louis gets on a roll.
Kidding of course.
Willie
