Hurricane Harvey

[Beware of Cuccos*]

First off, how are all of my fellow Houstonians? Is everyone alright??

Patrick, Nola and I are ok. We evacuated our side of town (greater southeast Houston, closer to Galveston) to my parents (greater northeast area) on Friday. Our neighbors back home sent us some pictures of the apartments. The parking lot is under water but the water hasn't gotten into any buildings yet. We're lucky because our apartments are slightly higher up that the restaurants around us. We are stuck in my parents neighborhood with limited access out of it if we use my brothers lifted truck. We are extremely lucky to have come here when we did. We have water, food, and electricity for now.

This is very serious. It has been raining for four days straight. It is so bad that they are having to open reservoirs. I feel so helpless watching the news. The side of town we live on is nearly completely under water. People are being rescued from the roofs by boats and helicopters. There are makeshift shelters everywhere. Schools, business, and even the biggest furniture store in all of Houston have opened their doors. I have been through hurricanes and flash floods before, but nothing like this. This is literally historical. 2,000 people have been rescued last I heard. I've had friends lose their cars and homes in the last few days. One of our friends has to put their kids in an ice chest and float them down the road to safety through chest deep water.

People are questioning why the city wasn't evacuated. 6.5 million people evacuating would have ended in more deaths. It happened during the last hurricane when everyone tried getting out. Everyone was stuck on highways for 16+ hours with no way out. People died of drowning and dehydration. So don't let news outlets make our mayor look like an idiot for not ordering the evacuation. He did the right thing. This storm grew in strength so fast, we all would have drowned in our cars.

Sorry for all of the random bits of information. I wasn't sure what y'all were seeing on the news, so I wanted to update everyone first hand.



The pier at our apartment, before (my photo a few weeks ago) and during (the neighbor sent us that picture)




Photos I took. Top 2 are at a major highway near my parents, the last is from the news just a few miles away from where we live








Random pictures of Houston from around facebook








And because this post has been too real, here is a hilarious photo of Nola totally not digging the car ride to my parents house. She's doing fine, just a little homesick.

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It has rained so much that the National Weather Service had to add new colors to the flood gauge on maps. We have received over 6 months of our annual rain in two days.