It took little more than a weekend for Hurricane Harvey to drop an unbelievable 50 inches of rain on the Houston area. This smashed all records. In fact, it’s the kind of rain event the city would expect to see once or twice in a thousand years.
When the hurricane made landfall, we all watched nervously even if we didn’t have friends or loved ones in Texas. Weather forecasters were warning of massive amounts of rain and catastrophic, life-threatening flooding over a wide area. For anyone who did have friends or family in Texas, to say nothing of Texans themselves, the impending disaster was heart-wrenching.
Known as the Bayou City, Houston has rivers and creeks that normally provide adequate drainage when heavy rainfall hits. Some of the major roads can also serve as emergency storm drains. Unfortunately, the incredible amount of rain dropped by Harvey was far more than the system could cope with. Floodwaters rose quickly and kept rising, even after the storm blew through.
It’s one thing to hear that flood waters in Houston rose to this or that depth. But it’s the before-and-after photos that really show what this meant for the people of the city and surrounding areas. These images vividly show the real impact on homes, businesses, roads, and rivers. It’s shocking to see an entire neighborhood of green lawns turned into a sea of brown floodwaters with only the roofs of houses poking above the surface. It becomes easier to imagine a family’s home literally filled floor-to-ceiling with water. These terrible scenes also get you thinking about the effect on entire communities. But it’s still hard to picture what residents went through during the storm as well as the enormous challenges they face in its aftermath. Lives have been upended and unfortunately, lives were also lost.
What are your thoughts about the terrible flooding in Houston? Let us know in the comments at Facebook. Be sure to share this story so your friends will know more about a tragedy that has profoundly affected the lives of so many people in Houston.
