Hey peeps,
Been a wild 18 hours in Central Texas with this weather, y'all. Honestly I had no idea it was coming. I went to sleep last night thinking about work and woke up to booming rain. Just thought it was a nice break from having not a lot of it since July. Then my phone buzzed with the first of several alerts that would come today. Flash floods in your area. For Austin, that's not anything uncommon with heavy rains. Time to bring the kids to school, hit the coffee shop, read some email then head in early to knock it out for the weekend. Bad timing on the roof repair for my neighbors, I though as we drove out.
But the roads were pretty nasty and the traffic sucked. Blinking traffic lights suck for sure when folks don't know a four-way stop from a free-for-all. We lost KTU from the radio a couple times. Then big lightning put out the neighborhood for a minute. "Wow," my son said calmly. "That was a big one." Scared the shit out of me!
And so it went till the final drop off. Today was definitely not good.
I was still clueless.
Over the floating fire ant mat to the details.
The we heard about the tornado down in San Marcos that was sighted near the High School. Talking about 30 mph track north, be in Kyle by 9:15 if it lasts that long. Then Travis County (Austin) got put on watch.
Hitting the coffee shop I sat with my work email and focused on the day ahead. But it's hard to focus when watches turn to warnings and your phone says
"Shelter".
It was wild for a sec and in checking local news we were clearly in for a doozie again. (That funnel was sighted ovr downtown later but it never touched.) When work put out a safety alert saying make good travel choices I decided to work from home. My wife asked me later why they didn't close. It's a dicey subject in some ways. The safety warnings say stay home if it isn't safe to travel, for both students and employees. There's no penalty for not showing as long as you call and aren't essential. But there is pressure to show, so I dunno. I know it's expensive to close such a big campus. Above my pay grade.
On the way back home I had to turn off of S. 1st at Oltorf. Police tape kept us all from making this mistake. Much appreciated, whoever did that. Much appreciated.
On the way home it was like, Woah! Big water on the everything surface! Hydroplane city on Ben White, I took it way easy then stopped at Torchy's for a damn good taco, then promptly took my clothes off and worked in bed for the remainder. And while for me this time was productive, it didn't turn out so well for a whole lot of folks in the area.
One person has died after being swept away by flood waters in southeast Travis County, Texas, early Friday evening, the Travis County Sheriff's Office reports. Roger Wade, Travis County public information officer, said the individual, a male in his 40s or 50s, was found on the 10300 block of FM 1625 around 4 p.m. local time.
Eyewitnesses said they saw the man sitting on top of a stranded car in the midst of flood waters, and sheriff's officers believe he was swept away. The man has not been identified pending notification of relatives.
An elderly man and woman also went missing at 8320 Citation. The man was found alive, but the woman is still missing.
In addition, the Sheriff’s Office is working a house collapse and gas leak at 10600 Ruidosa. The Austin Fire Department has also responded to the location.
After months of dry weather, it only took a few hours to put south-central Texas back in the nightmare of extreme flooding experienced by so many towns in May.
That southeast area is the area around Onion Creek. It's a major flood zone and is largely poor folks. Last year's flood left folks dead and the City of Austin has been asking people to move and hedging on the need to make relocation mandatory. That's not really possible when your property is worthless for sale because flood and the city doesn't want to pay you to leave. If something needs to give on that issue, it hasn't happened yet. Evacuations, but not permanent ones for the people of the area. But that's another diary.
Here are some images from that area.
And then there is further south toward San Marcos and San Antonio.
In the San Antonio area, four special needs students and two adults were rescued from a bus that became trapped in floodwaters just after 7 a.m., the Bexar County Sheriff's Office said.
Another bus with three students and two adults on board became trapped by high water, and five vehicles flooded in other parts of the county, the sheriff's office said. There were no injuries.
A possible tornado was reported in Hays County on Friday afternoon, and authorities in other towns said they had spotted twisters and the damaging effects of high winds.
Medina County Sheriff Randy Brown said a tornado touched down in D'Hanis, 50 miles west of San Antonio, destroying a bank and damaging other buildings in the tiny town of about 550 residents, reported NBC affiliate WOAI.
Residents in the San Marcos area, northeast of San Antonio, who live on the Blanco River or San Marcos River, were told to evacuate Friday afternoon as the Blanco River crested. "Authorities anticipate high volumes of water to flow downstream from the Blanco River around 1 p.m.," said the Hays County Office of Emergency Management.
Here are images from that area in case you haven't already seen them. These are actually mild compared to what you can find more recently. I put this all together much earlier today when I knew I'd have time.
We've had our share of this in the last year, for sure, but it's the new norm. I'd say "apparently" but there's no apparent about it. This is our new reality, whether fires or flood or drought or melt, whatever extreme the Earth is bringing your way. It's all I have folks. No words of wisdom or deep analysis. Just a reflection on the day from my very privileged vantage.
Be safe everybody. And take good care or each other.
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