This small farming community in North central Texas faced down ferocious storms on Monday, but it was nothing compared to Dallas. Our Old Adversary, the Weather, changed with a vengeance and flooded the Metrosprawl.
Like no kidding. Torrential rain turned suburban streets into raging torrents and shut down the Mix Master, an insane highway complex in the center of town which is a nightmare at the best of times. A woman died in Mesquite, caught in her car as it was carried under by the current. May she rest in peace.
Even the world famous Margaret Hunt bridge was threatened with disaster as the waters rose with primal, apocalyptic fury. Yes, the levees hold, for now. And it's a here and now issue because, apparently, that's not some kind of God-given thing. Work it out, Dallas.
In the meanwhile, Ma LSP's house rests on high ground and I'll be sure to swing by and make sure all's well, safe from marauding hordes of waterborne looters. On that note, smart people are investing in BOATS.
LSP
15 inches in five hours is a LOT of rain... and it apparently 'camped out' over DFW for a while!
ReplyDeleteI remember, as a child, my great's talking about making sure your domicile location was, "high dry, and windy".
ReplyDeleteBack in the day my soon to be bride had an apartment on Lincoln Street next to I-25 in Denver. One of the 1" in one hour rain/hail storms hit and I-25 under the Lincoln Street bridge flooded. The water was windowsill high on a semi truck stalled under the bridge.
Amazing how things can go from a fine Spring morning to disaster in less than two hours.
WoW! That's a whole lotta rain! We've been getting rain about every 10 days, sometimes sprinkles, sometimes an inch. And we're thankful for it because DROUGHT!
ReplyDeleteBe safe, Parson!
Praise God your mother is okay. Praying for all.
ReplyDeleteYou all be safe and God bless.
@WSF - My wife wondered why they had all these bone-dry "ditches" out here until the first time we got a good rain in the Spring. Combined with all the runoff from snow melt the ditches were about 3/4 full.
ReplyDeleteHave you thought of paying LESS weather tax? The money you're dumping into the global warming fund has paid off as water falls to globally cool the metroplex.
ReplyDeleteOr were you praying for rain in church?
Cause and effect, LSP
For comparison, what it usually looks like under that bridge--
ReplyDeletehttps://static.greatbigcanvas.com/images/singlecanvas_thick_none/getty-images/margaret-hunt-hill-bridge-dallas-,1116369.jpg?max=1000
Surprising, the intelligence of elected leaders who do not know what happens when they approve miles of concrete rivers, aka streets and highways, and then put in concrete safety barriers, aka river banks. Several years ago Arkansas DOT commissioned a study to determine why a stretch of I-30 west of Little Rock flooded so much during mid-level rain storms. My wife and I knew an answer, the combination of: access road several feet higher than the interstate lanes and sloped toward the interstate, and those concrete barriers, which channeled rain onto the interstate. It's a nation-wide problem. Engineers who can do math and stuff but who know nothing about Texas dry washes, especially man-made ones not in Texas.
ReplyDeleteNFO, it was a wipeout! No kiddn.
ReplyDeleteOh my, WSF, things can get... extreme, and that's just the weather. Coming from England, where things are more gradual/gentle etc (deeply corrupt), everything here seems to have a more extreme frontier spirit. Does that make sense?
ReplyDeleteLinda, be careful!
ReplyDeleteBless you.
It roars down, drjim.
ReplyDelete