After
hurricane Harvey in Houston/Carlos Pueblo
I must thank
to my friends to send their regards to me after hurricane
Harvey
passing through Houston. We’re alright indeed escaping both
wind and
flood damage except a minor inconvenience of driving through
flood water
on the street corner to purchase the grocery. It is because that
the
reservoir up stream is releasing water to avoid any damage.
We were in
Austin to help our daughter Michelle to manage her yard and inside
chore when
we noticed how severe of Harvey. We immediately decided to return
to Houston
to hold on at the house also be in company with our son Arthur as well
as two cats.
The wind started to blow after midnight Friday and rain a little bit
later. I
woke up and looked through the window under the street light that the
heavy rain
water flew through the curve into the main hole of the storm sewer. I
didn’t see
any sign of flooded street at all. I was relaxed for my long confidence of
the city
plan of the storm water disposal plus the Harris County flood plan under the
construction
of the U.S. Army Engineers Corp. I was very familiar with the flood basin
on the north
bank of Buffalo Bayou, a main water pass way through downtown Houston
to Galveston
Bay of the Houston Ship Channel. The basin is a regular green park and a
lake when
the Bayou overflow the excess water. I always proudly explain to people how
to design a
flood basin based on the maximum volume
of rain in a year and design how
big of the
park and draw a line to begin the construction. We used to live just north of
the bayou
for 32 years and never experience any of the scare of flood and furthermore,
the
subdivision residents forced the State to build a toll road freeway underground
with
several pump
stations in case of need to pump the stored water on the freeway which
passes
through the subdivision.
On the
second day of Harvey, Michelle sent us a photo from Facebook that a bridge over
the freeway
to connect both subdivision collapsed created a scenery of a water fall. Soon
after that
the almost 52 inches rain dumped to Houston filled up reservoirs and bayous to
the bank and
overflew to the flood basin and more to the street surface, etc. The county
authority decided to release the water in order to save the structure of the
dams. It’s like
a funnel
effect which I learned when I was in junior high school physics class, the
flood water
evolve to
our street corner almost everywhere. I watched an interview of a national news
program on
Sunday that our Mayor indicated the situation was improving and Houston was
indeed open for business. He also
mentioned that 28 houses were flooded in west Houston
on the north
bank of Buffalo Bayou and Kingwood area of the northeast of Cedar Bayou.
I must say
that we’re lucky no damage at all only slightly inconvenient from Harvey. I
also
appreciated that
Amy decided to sell the old house because the old subdivision was flooded
this time
due to several reason, collapse of a bridge and flooded flood basin, and most
of all
the release
of water from the reservoir.
