Hurricane Harvey

Holy shit. The entire city is under water. And we're still not done yet. It all began Friday when school was canceled for the pending arrival of Hurricane Harvey. That night, the storm made landfall south of us (around Corpus Christi) and on the next day, all was calm. Besides the early morning showers, it didn't really rain all day. A few light sprinkles here and there but that was it. Why was everyone getting so hyped up for this storm? I thought this was a bullshit hurricane and I wasn't the only one with that opinion. And that's when Harvey said fuck you and raped us in the ass... over and over again.

Category 4 hurricane! (from weather.com)

On Saturday night, thinking the worst had already passed, I went to Steve's place to watch the potentially history-in-the-making fight between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather. On the way there, it started to dump heavy rain... but that's typical here in Texas. When it rains, it rains. No big deal. So we're hanging out and Gloria comes and says, "Ummm, you might want to move your car." Huh? I parked on the street and the water was already halfway up the tires. Oh shit. So I moved my car onto their neighbor's driveway. This rain was coming down hard and showed no sign of slowing down. We're constantly going outside the check the water level as it slowly crept higher and higher. Fuck. We're stuck here. Lynn is gonna be pissed. It ended up being an adult slumber party. At 1:30 a.m., I fall asleep on Hannah's tiny toddler bed.

It didn't take long for the street to completely flood. (Saturday night at Steve's)

The next morning (Sunday), the water on the streets receded and I bolted. I needed to get home before I got stuck again. I drove the usual way home but the roads were closed due to high water and I had to turn back. I navigated through back roads, drove the opposite direction of traffic, crossed through a downed railroad barrier, zig-zagged past stalled cars... and eventually made it home.

Fun for kids, stress for adults.

At one point it stopped raining and I took the kids to walk around the neighborhood. They were in awe and thought it was fun. A neighbor was lounging on a pool float. Other kids were splashing around in the streets. Everyone we met was smiling and in good spirits. But unknowingly, the worst was yet to come.

#Harvey in perspective. So much rain has fallen, we've had to update the color charts on our graphics in order to effectively map it. pic.twitter.com/Su7x2K1uuz

— NWS (@NWS) August 28, 2017

Good Lord.

On Monday, it rained all day long. It wasn't of the heavy variety but it was constant. Harvey is just sitting on top of Houston, dumping record amounts of water. We met the yearly amount of rainfall in a single weekend. This was dubbed the 1000 year flood. The water level kept rising. Shit, it actually might make it into our house now...

Our street is now a river.

26 inches deep and rising...

Today (Tuesday), the water level actually receded a tiny bit. The rain has lightened up and there have been breaks off and on. Hopefully the worst part is over and things get better from here on out. I'm grateful that water never made it into our home and that we still have electricity. We're quite fortunate unlike a lot of people around the area. Never again will I underestimate mother nature. This is nuts.