Rain has stopped in San Antonio for now. We even had some sun with a patch of blue sky visible. Can’t believe what I’m seeing on CNN from Houston and Galveston.
Well, at my house - so far, 14.12 inches and it’s still raining.
@ignatius and others…
Stay safe. I hope this rain ends sooner than they say it will.
My Houston suburb has gotten about 18 inches so far, with 18-24 more inches in the forecast. We also rent a first-floor apartment in Houston near Buffalo Bayou and parts of the building are already in trouble. With all the rain still to come I’m expecting the apartment to flood, but luckily that’s not our main home and we have decent renters insurance. I have no idea when we’ll be able to get in there to assess the damage.
I really worry about those folks without flood insurance since this is impacting areas that historically don’t flood. I might be revisiting our homeowner’s policy after this…
My SIL owns two homes in Rockport and she says that they are both miraculously still standing.
Great news @JazzyTXMom !!!
Hugs to everyone experiencing this.
Our prayers to your bil @ChoatieMom.
Flood insurance is a nightmare. Another discussion. It will continue to rise as areas that never flooded before or flooded rarely keep getting slammed.
Best to those in Texas! Very sad to see the devastation.
Actually the 14.12 inches of rain at my house happened over the past 24 hours. If you look at the last 48 hours, the amount of rainfall totals 17.60 inches. That’s a heck of a lot of rain.
We haven’t flooded (yet). The street in front of my house has no standing water at this time. My backyard opens on one of the bayous - currently 4 and 1/2 feet still to go before it hits the top of the bank.
Ready for this to be over and done but it WON’T STOP RAINING.
(My husband has Stage IV cancer and is having a bad day … I think the stress of Harvey - will we or won’t we flood? - is really hitting him hard.)
@ignatius , I do think the stress of what could happen takes a definite toll. We have had flood waters miss our first floor by inches, but major damage to the crawlspace n the past. Sounds like you will be okay. So sorry to hear about your husband’s health issues.
Along with rising flood insurance rates, home values can decrease with any flooding. A difficult situation all around, particularly loss of life. So sorry for what Texas is going through.
(((ignatius)))
Years ago when we had a hurricane in NE (not Sandy), the store we owned got completely flooded. Our insurance didn’t cover flood due to hurricanes, but it covered water damages if the fire sprinkler went off. The sprinkler did go off, but it was due to water pressure from the flood, so because of a technicality we got covered, otherwise we would have lost hundreds thousands $$. I tried to apply for FEMA assistance when I didn’t know if we were covered, but it turned out FEMA’s assistance was only low interest loans and they asked a lot of financial questions. They were not giving out free money. I really hope most of those homeowners have flood insurance coverages.
Stay safe.
ignatius, I’m so sorry…
Echoing others: what is the best way we can help? Donations to the Red Cross? Other places?
One of my friends down there said HEB is donating food in their food trucks but I can’t see a way to give other than at their stores (which we don’t have up here I guess- I had never heard of them before today).
@ignatius, sending prayers and positive thoughts
Several people have asked how they might help Texas. Red Cross donations can help, although unless things have changed since Katrina the Red Cross might not allow you to earmark your donation specifically for Harvey recovery. Of course the Red Cross is an amazing organization and is pretty well managed (pretty low percentage of donation goes to overhead and a lot goes to worldwide disaster relief), but be aware that if you want to donate specifically to Harvey recovery the Red Cross may not be your best option.
The mayor of Houston has just established a Harvey relief fund, if you are keen to insure that your donation goes specifically to this effort. I haven’t had time to look into the Greater Houston Community Foundation which will administer the fund though, so I can’t vouch for its overhead or management.
If you want to donate money to Harvey relief, please carefully research your organization of interest before donating. Many “relief funds” will be outright scams, and others may be legitimate organizations but poorly run such that your donation is less effective. Some organizations are so mismanaged that half or more of your donation may go to overhead and will never help the cause. Please proceed cautiously with the organization described in the article I’ve linked below; as I said I have not researched it yet and I don’t know how well it’s run.
The Red Cross is letting you earmark donations specifically for Harvey.
https://www.redcross.org/donate/hurricane-harvey?campname=Harvey
Thanks @traveler98 and @Ynotgo
I just found out one of my exes lives in Galveston with his wife and kid. No one knows how to get in touch with them to check in. 
@ignatius thoughts are with you ( and other Texans) especially with your husband’s health issues. This is epic stress for you all.
One of my FB friends posted they are running out of insulin at shelters in Houston with parmacies closed.
They are now talking 50" in Houston before it’s over. stay safe.