Richard Jernigan -> RE: Re: John Shelton "tempus fugit" (Aug. 26 2017 3:23:18)
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ORIGINAL: BarkellWH I've been following the hurricane, which is going to be a bear for the Gulf region of Texas. I've heard it may affect Austin as well. Heard anything more about that? Bill We had one fairly hard but brief shower late this afternoon. Weather radar shows that the continuous extent of rain extending to Hurricane Harvey's eye has reached the next county southeast of Austin. NOAA forecasts several days of continual rain, increasing in intensity. The total amount of expected rain increases sharply as you look further southeast of Austin, toward Houston. To me it implies that the expected amount of rain is uncertain. I was planning to start on a road trip on Wednesday. It would have passed through Houston, but Houston is predicted to be largely under water on Wednesday. The last time a hurricane dumped a significant amount or rain on Austin was about this time of year in 2010. I was in Kingsland Georgia, enjoying taking a friend out for a steak dinner, when my cellphone rang. It was my next door neighbor. He said he noticed my lawn sprinklers running while it was raining. Would I like him to shut them off? I asked how hard it was raining. "Not very hard right now, but last night it rained 11 inches (28 cm)." "Sounds like you ought to shut off those sprinklers." I got home a couple of weeks later. To get downtown from my house I have two customary routes. One is on the freeway, the other is over a winding two lane road that parallels a spring fed creek. The road runs through a forested area. Where the road dips into the small creek canyon, it crosses the stream on low water bridges. The road surface is only a few feet above the normal water surface. There are channels below to allow the ordinary flow to pass underneath, but the bridges are built to sustain flood water passing over them. The two lane road was closed for several days after I got home. When I finally drove over it, it was clear that in places the normally friendly trickle had been at least 50 meters wide and 15 meters deep. The raging torrent had ripped out dozens of centuries old trees, destroyed three of the seven bridges, and rearranged house sized boulders. Today's rain predictions indicate there is some chance of it happening again. My house is on high ground, I have plenty of food. When I was at the grocery store this afternoon on my regular Friday visit, they were out of gallon jugs of water. I began to think where else I might buy some. Then it occurred to me that I have thousands of gallons of potential bath water in the swimming pool, and if it rains as hard as they predict, all I will have to do to get more drinking and dish washing water than I can possibly use, is to put a bucket out on the deck. RNJ
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