We got our near-repeat of the 1981 Memorial Day flood. Haven’t seen any pictures of 1981’s many swept-away cars and pickups here (except the few in the pix at the top of this link), but North Lamar Boulevard looked like a river in one television shot. The usual culprit, Shoal Creek, was out of its banks at its southern end. It flooded the high school football field at House Park which became a pond for fire department Zodiacs.
The little resort town of Wimberley, southwest of Austin, got the worst of the flooding by far: 72 homes swept away by rising Cypress Creek and the Blanco River. Twelve Thirteen Nine Eight people, including small children, are still missing.
Rancho Roly Poly got off lucky, very lucky. The rancho, essentially, is at the bottom of a steep hill of houses and streets above us. So the rains of the past two weeks saturating the ground meant yesterday’s repeat of Saturday’s downpour, quickly turned into a downhill river of runoff. Mr. B. and I became the towel brigade, sopping up and pushing back water trying to invade the house.
Until I could get a diverting row of sand bags down in front of the glass doors to the family room. Our good French drain took most of the water around the south end of the rancho and into the street out front.
Mrs. Charm was away working the flood story at the daily, but gave good advice by phone. No rain on the radar this morning. Forecast calls for another storm this afternoon but then a possible end to the rains until the weekend.
UPDATE: If you want to help, my preferred charity is the Salvation Army. They don’t push religion and they have no high-paid administrators to consume your money. They just help by dispatching mobile feeding canteens to area shelters. You can donate online at http://www.salvationarmyaustin.org
MORE: WIMBERLEY, Texas (KXAN) — Search crews recovered the body Wednesday of a boy along the Blanco River in rural Hays County. The boy’s body was found near Water Park Road, but authorities have not yet identified the child.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 