Hurricane Harvey Update 10AM on Tuesday

[dan_s]

The National Weather Service now forecasts that the Brazos River is rising to an elevation of 59 feet on Thursday (two days ago they said it would be on Tuesday). Fort Bend County issued a mandatory evacuation for residents living within LID 1 and a voluntary evacuation for all other LIDs. The county has referred to this as an 800-year flood event.

The Brazos was expected to crest at 59 feet today. I'm not sure if pushing it back to Thursday is good or bad. The levee system was designed to handle a crest of 55 feet.

For more details: http://www.sugarlandtx.gov/1361/Storm-in-the-Gulf

We have a lot of hospitals in Sugar Land and they are all closed except for critical emergencies.

Everyone here has been told to stay in their homes and "ride it out" because all roads in and out of the area are now flooded.

We have enough food and water to last seven days upstairs. We may run out of gin and wine in two days. I am already down to the last six pack of tonic. Plenty of dog food for little Ricky, who doesn't seem to give a damn about this. I have already told Ricky that if we are stranded for more than ten days, I may ask the Chinese down the street if they have any good dog BBQ recipes.

We live in one of only five levee districts that are still listed as "voluntary evacuation" areas. Our hope is that this means we are not going to get water into our home. Yesterday, the big pumps that push water out of our neighborhood went down for a few hours. Susan's phone lite up as her network of friends in the area went into "panic mode". At least the rain has slowed a bit today. Yesterday was hard rain all day.