I could tell there was going to be a problem at about 3 am; it’d been raining hard for a long time, and the ground was already saturated. My street is high by Galveston’s West End standards, so rain has never been a problem—it just runs off into the canals (along with everything else that isn’t tied down). But when there’s high winds from the south along with those heavy rains, tides get up over the bulkhead and start creeping onto lawns and toward cars. There are some spots on FM 3005 that get covered, which can make the drive to work a little interesting. Throw is a few toppled high power lines at Pirates Beach, a flooded-out Jamaica Beach, and it made for a memorable Monday morning for many.
I crawled out of bed a little before 6 am and started making calls. Campus was in good shape, but Harborside was flooded, parts of Broadway were underwater, and there was a lot of debris on Seawall Blvd. Houston was a mess, the bayous were jumping their banks, and many parts of the mainland were having problems.
Ironically, just the day before I was talking with a friend and saying how I was finally coming to happily accept that we might be spared any significant tropical weather this season. I’d kept my head down and my mouth shut about the weather since June, just happy with each passing “quiet” week in the tropics. Mother Nature heard me get cocky and gave us a little thump to remind us that we’re here on her terms.
Today she gave us a beautiful day, so I guess all is forgiven. It may be Thanksgiving before the standing water drys and the mosquitoes clear, but you won’t hear another weather-related peep from me.