Perhaps someone finally told Rick Perry and his pals to stop praying for rain.
So the bad news is rain pummeled the Houston area again this weekend, with severe thunderstorms and flash flooding that soaked parts of the city already water-logged by last week’s epic Memorial Day flood. Good news? Not only are things looking up now, but the weather for the week out looks awesome.
First the damage. Houston officials have already tied seven deaths to last week’s flooding — six bodies were discovered in submerged vehicles or floating around the bayous, while another man who appears to have died of a heart attack while helping push a car out of the flood waters, officials say. Severe weather has left 31 people dead across Texas and Oklahoma.
On the heels of last week’s flooding, storms moved through the Houston area Saturday, dumping more than an inch rain in southeastern Houston within just 15 minutes Saturday afternoon. There was ankle-keep water in parts of downtown Houston. As we told you yesterday, a concourse at Minute Maid Park flooded Saturday during the Astros’ game against the Chicago White Sox. Some schools were forced to delay or even reschedule their graduation ceremonies due to power outages, reports the Houston Chronicle. Several flights coming into Hobby Airport Saturday evening were diverted to New Orleans after circling Houston, looking for a break in the weather that never came.
Still, weather is expected to be downright pleasant in the week ahead. Channel 13’s Chief Meteorologist Tim Heller reports that the atmosphere looks like its finally beginning to dry out, and we can expect a week with little chance of rain and low humidity.
That means the Harris County Flood Control District officials* can start doing controlled storm water releases to lower water levels in the Addicks and Barker reservoirs that swelled during the past week’s rain. Officials say they hope the break in weather across Texas might aid search and rescue operations in areas hardest hit by the storm, like Wimberly, where last weekend a vacation home was swept into the Blanco river and broke part after smashing into a bridge. Five people, including two children, who were inside that home are still missing, officials say.
*Correction 6/9/15: The Harris County Flood Control District, which oh so helpfully got back to us nearly two weeks after we’d reached out to them for comment on our flooding coverage, tells us that it’s the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that controls stormwater releases out of the dams, not HCFCD.
This article appears in May 28 – Jun 3, 2015.