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Texas flooding

My sisters house in Katy got flooded and I'm taking our motorhome there for her to live in while they recover. Will be leaving Saturday from Memphis TN going 40, 30 to Texarkana then 59 to 99. Any word on road conditions? Or problems buying fuel? I would like to top it off with fuel as close to Katy as I can.

Thanks, Dan
 
Re:

Just remember......all is well until the potential Cat5 rolls in next week. I pray that the next one goes north or it will be devastation that makes Katrina look like a ride at Disney Land.

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Yeah this next one may get nasty. It's building pretty quick. My wife is scheduled to leave Tuesday for Turks and Cacois but I hope she will use the insurance and not go. Looks too risky to me to chance it.



And on a lighter note
 

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Our corporate office is in Houston, it took some water damage. A buddy of mine just got promoted and moved out there, they had to come get the people at his apartment via boat the other day, truck completely trashed under water. .
They said out of the 200 employees we have in the area, around 10% were affected pretty bad, some lost everything.

They started a Gofundme for the affected folks. They are also letting us donate PTO to them which I thought was pretty cool.
 
We are in Missouri and there are donation stations everywhere. Good to see lots of people pulling together.

One thing I have noticed in many pictures is how clear the water is in flooded houses. Cleanup should be made somewhat easier with that. When we have flooding from the Mississippi river one of the biggest cleanups is mud. Floors of houses will have up to several inches of mud in them. Different kind of storm I suppose.
 
Dan Dibble said:
My sisters house in Katy got flooded and I'm taking our motorhome there for her to live in while they recover. Will be leaving Saturday from Memphis TN going 40, 30 to Texarkana then 59 to 99. Any word on road conditions? Or problems buying fuel? I would like to top it off with fuel as close to Katy as I can.

Thanks, Dan

Dan,

I had friends that left out from North Alabama yesterday headed to the eastern side of Houston. Luckily they carried a 100 gallon diesel tank with them because there were several places that were out just traveling their. They were being told that as of Thursday, it was a 3-4 hour drive outside of Houston before you could reliably find diesel.
 
IH-10 may still be shut down in my town due to the river flooding. I'd check in txdots site to confirm that.


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5onrocks said:
Dan,

I had friends that left out from North Alabama yesterday headed to the eastern side of Houston. Luckily they carried a 100 gallon diesel tank with them because there were several places that were out just traveling their. They were being told that as of Thursday, it was a 3-4 hour drive outside of Houston before you could reliably find diesel.

I live in Humble near Bush Intercontinental Airport and have no issues with getting fuel.
 
I'm back!

**** all the worst parts of the bible!

Fri-Sat:
We got hit by a hurricane (Fri), then its tornadoes took out 150 homes in my hood(Sat morn), then the next night lightning burnt two more to the ground(sat night).
I chainsawed for 6 hours of so on that Saturday between feeder bands, helping get friends and neighbors back in their homes that tornados ripped the roofs off.
I think we went thought something like 60 Tornado Watches between Friday evening and Sunday. It was just constant.

Heres my screen shot of mesocyclone that cut through our neighborhood.


Damage at our golf course maintenance shack


Neighbors house that got the roof ripped off



Sunday:
Sunday seemed uneventful, I mean it rained 18", then a break in the storm I went into Houston to water rescue my brother-in-law. It got dicey rolling through a rough part with people standing all around in thigh deep water in the rain in the dark, it just didnt make sense. I was worried I'd be shooting, so was the first time I've ever open carried, and this time I had it on my lap in my right hand. Pulled one chicks truck out, but had to turn down stopping to pull others. Water started to rise again and I wasnt wasting myself for them.

Mon-Tues:
Monday am, we realized we were getting more rain than our pumps could keep up with and the waters rose quickly inside our neighborhood, Sienna Plantation, TX. We got notice we were under Mandatory Evac.
So the math said if the levee breached I'd have 6-8' of water in my kitchen. Sheriffs driving down the street with the PA saying "Get out". We scrambled but got nearly our whole house moved upstairs. Helped that my brother-in-law was here.
We were probably one of the last people out going through Riverstone before it flooded. We had my Duramax and my wifes Tahoe, and had the race radios up. I basically treated it like Baghdad. We didnt stop for anything. Cars flooded left and right, I didnt pause to even worry about traffic in front of us, we'd jump into oncoming lanes and keep going, by the time we got through Riverstone, I had a convoy of 15+ cars behind me. From there to our backup location (father-in-laws) it was easy going just torrential downpour. Thats when we discovered his street had 3-4' of water on it. He had never gone outside to check his own street. Let me tell you there was some pissed people in two vehicles.
So we scrambled and Plan A through about Plan H failed due to highwater. We had some friends tell us they had a place a few hours south to come, so we headed south down 59, ended up all the way north in College Station where Texas A&M is 6 hours later. And drove in from the north (you would normally approach from the south).
We stayed in College Station Monday and Tuesday night, but headed back because of reports of looting in our neighborhood. There was water on the road, and the Sheriffs will not patrol in flooded streets or pursue into flood water.

Tuesday night looters evaded cops into high water,


My little nook of Sienna. My house is at the top hidden by a raindrop on the lense. Lets just say thats normally a small little pond below.


Friend of mine Kelly and her husband hauling people from our neighborhood all day Tuesday.



Wed:
We drove back to Houston from College Station, dropping my family off at Father-In-Laws as water has receeded there. Then I roll on to our house solo, only to discover our house had been broken into. Sad and pissed me off at same time. They kicked in a doggy door on our garage and came through house. Left the backdoor, and a sidedoor unlocked. But for the life of us, can not figure out a single thing missing.
So that got me fired up, and my humvee was sitting here but had been having starting problems. I thought I'd solved the week prior, but was a bonehead idiot and made a critical/laughable error. Luckily Brian Allen (1tonzr2)???, we text all the time, he told me I was an idiot and fixed my problem, WHAMO running humvee. So I pick up a buddy, then another buddy, and next thing ya know the Sheriff has us running water rescues.

Now this should piss everyone off. There had been private boaters doing water evacs since Tues/Wed (Cajun Navy/Texas Navy, neighbors with flatbottom bay boats) Texas Parks & Wildlife Game Wardens show up Wed morning and run all private boaters off by noon, then they load up and go home at 3:30. There were still requests for water evacs. So there I am in a stock height hummer on 40's hauling people out. It was stupid. Plain and Simple.
I finally get back to the house after dark. Park the humvee, get in my truck, drink a beer, do some texting, respond to FB, and some emails before driving to Father-In-Laws for the night. When at 8:45pm six Sheriffs catch a car load of looters 2 houses up from me. I'm staying the night in our house. **** a looter! I've got a Thermal Scope, and was ready!

At around 3am, I hear some noise. I grab my Glock 9mm, it has one of those laserlights on it. Noise it in front of house, so I creep up, and slink out the side door. Hear more noise. I'm ready to perforate!!! And I'm scared as **** I'm going to have to shoot someone! I jump from behind the Humvee and flip that laser light on! And this MF'ING black cat scared for its damn life, levitates to 4' in the air, and then hovers over a hedge bush and through the front ya. I think it **** itself, and I nearly did myself. Heart out of my damn chest!!!

Driving around


Water Rescue


Looters getting busted.


Bedside
 
Thurs:
I wake to Chris Sommers (Sommertime) texting me about some pumps and if my neighborhood was Sienna Plantation as he got inquiries for some Barco Pumps. I make some calls, and its legit, which that is disheartening to here. The Sheriff stops by and asks me to haul a load of Deputies into the flooded sections for assessments in the Humvee.
I get a call about do I have the ability to offload pumps (I thought it was Sommers/Barco only, it was not) Yeah I have access to anything you want, and the trucks to haul them down the levee to a location to offload.
That call was the Head Engineer for the Levee system. He asks me to be at a meeting early afternoon on the south levee where our levee runs east/west Brazos River on the West, HWY 521 on the east. I am the impromptu Barco Rep. They had 5 pump co's there, and being a resident, being the next door neighbor to the Levee District's attorney, and being the guy bringing all the equipment to offload and move the pumps, I got Barco to the front of the line. BOOM!



Sluff #1





Now we assess the job. Levee was so damn saturated wet we couldn't drive on it at all. Even the Polaris were leaving ruts. Well guess who I was borrowing the rubber tire loader from to unload pumps, my buddy that owns a oilfield mat company right up the road. BOOM again. So I sell the engineer on us mat'ing 2000' of levee overnight and be ready fro Sommers/Barco pumps by the am. We worked all night and got it done.







Also in here, I had committed to deliver medicine to people stranded in homes that flooded before they could get out. People had been dropping off at my house, but I couldnt get it done, so I had my wife do it. Shes a HERO. Literally has refused to learn how to drive the humvee. Its not exactly hard, but its harder than just jumping in and turning the key. So why not walk her through it on the phone, then send her into 40" deep flood waters???? She and another girlfriend did it, then brought us all dinner down on the south levee. True rockstar badass heros!





Fri:
Sleep 2 hrs maybe. Meet the Sheriff at 8am and haul his Deputies around for an hour in flood water. Then haul ass for the jobsite. Get there to be greeted by 12 Deputies, and a mass of protestors. They are protesting us pumping ans saying its already flooding them out. The pumps were still in Wylie, TX 5 hours away being loaded. The river was still rising and had not crest yet. Situation gets diffused.
I left with the Levee Engineers on a polaris and road levee until we got reports of shots fired at the jobsite. Yes, some farmer fired a rifle down the way up towards the levee through the woods. Thats in, that site is off. All the work the night before for nothing. Engineers abandon the site because no one would man pumps. Sheriff advises we cease operations there because of threats to shoot out pumps after dark.
**** ****!




Addressing protesters who threatened a human chain
 
We spend the rest of the day trying to figure out how to pump and from where. constraints of suction and discharge, getting equipment in and out, getting refueling truck in and out, etc... We finally settle on a location within the neighborhood. Problem, the streets still have 2-3' of water on them, and we have to convince the 18 wheelers to drive through it. They do, and in the middle of the night we offload 25 trucks in the middle of the streets in the middle of a neighborhood dropping 13,000lb $100k units on driveways, and 15' stacks of mats blocking streets. It was nuts.
Somewhere in here we took my humvee and re-drove all flooded streets doing house assessments, holy crap some people got whacked.

Sluff #2


Theres a bridge under there.


Cul De Sac we are going to build out a pump station next to...we were desperate


Brainstorming


Running levee with real levee engineers.


Parked in the yard, sunk, and still flooded.



River about 12 hours before crest.
 
Saturday: We laid mat all-day, Barco fused pipe all day, then we had a F'ing flat on our loader. spent 5 hours down waiting on an emergency repair truck that would drive through flood water.
Waters had substantially been pumped down by the Sienna permanently installed pumps. No emergency in sight, we called it that night at 9:45pm Everyone exhausted and at each others wits end. We was DONE!



Setting pumps





Sunday: 8am I had a meeting at the new site with two pipelines. Ensuring we were good with them. We were. Somehow I squeezed in a run to church, met my fam there, and it was PACKED, and standing room only. Much needed, and great sermon. We wrapped up mats, set pumps, and started hooking up pipe. Pumping water by mid-afternoon. Everyone was in good spirits for getting the chance at decent sleep.

We pumped until we had 3 of the suctions pipes out of the water.









Me, Cutting Discharge pipes and sending $600 down the river...






Damn f-ing whirlwind. And it wasnt even the first or even 15th plan for the pumps, we were way down the sheet on what ended up installed vs. where we were just 48 hours prior.

Monday: We had to go to my Brother-In-Laws and pack him all up since he got water in his place. I basically died this day. I was exhausted, fell asleep sitting up in the middle of the day.

Tuesday: I slept pretty much the whole day.

We avoided anything worse than a roof leak, but it was preexisting, we just hadn't even been able to find it. When you dump buckets at a time its obvious quick.
So many were so much worse off.

I cant say enough about Texas pulling together, and my neighborhood of Sienna doing so like gangbusters. We were to the point of turning way food, drinks, beer from all the outpouring of support for us trying to get this backup pump station up and operational. All of it amongst neighbors helping other neighbors muck out their homes. Piles or carpet, piles of sheetrock, trashed furniture heaping high. Was heartwarming seeing it all come together, with strangers just walking up and helping other strangers.
 
other random ****.

My buddy tried to roll his truck down the levee. It was slick as snot. I somehow managed to get it out. A combination of bump it, and hang on for dear life. I did it with the drivers door open hanging out, in case it decided to go over...


The store by my house








The SGT over my area, and one of my sons friends getting a selfie in.


Humvee at sunrise in our sports complex with the Deputies in riding around.


Stopped to moon a buddies security cam.



Not my pic, but I saved it. I think its totaled...


Aint no doubt!



Guiding Barco's 1st truck in.


Waterline on my humvee on Wednesday.


yep!


Thats a two lane street then a nice little pond before the houses in the back.


Flyover


Scanlon Oaks Elementary



Our pump site is actually near middle of screen, that patch of green that comes off the levee and into the neighborhood.
 
Damn that's a hell of a story, says a lot about ur character to do the things you done, glad ur all ok.


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Dude you are a Hero! Thanks for taking the time to share the story it should be a inspiration to all! With that being said, to all my friends and wheeling buddies down in Florida, if any of you are on your way north, please feel free to come to my place. I have plenty of room for camping in my field, I have RV hook ups in my field and can hook a few more up to the shop. A couple of open bed rooms in the house.


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WOW Wyatt, I cannot say enough about the heart and fortitude you have, and are showing during this moment of need. The flood waters will reside, but your spirit will endeavour and show us what you are made of. You could have easily have balled up in a corner like many had done, but your Will to help out your fellow neighbors whether you know them or not, is amazing to say the least. Your wife also seems to have been the Hero as well in this case. God bless you guys in this time of need. Please continue to keep us posted on the situation at hand and let us know what we can do to help. :dblthumb:




ADMINISTRATOR
 
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And, to those that read about him thinking he needed to shoot someone. It isn't pop somone and walk off like John Wayne and strike a match on your scruff to smoke your unfiltered Lucky Strike. Sorry you had to have the experience, happy you didn't have to pull the trigger. Damn, I wished you would have called. I could have come down and offered a weeks worth of work. Same for you Florida guys. If there is a need, don't hesitate to give me a hollar.

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Thanks everyone, Im no hero, just a guy that cant sit idly by for anything. Its my home, my neighborhood, my friends, you always do what you can for those. At least thats how I was raised.

Somebody last week calles us Sheepdogs. I guess cause we protect the sheep...
 
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