Armageddon? It's Much Worse Than That!

We were delighted to see Sarah and the crew of her flight arrive safely at the hotel on Friday night, particularly so as we had heard the reports of terrible weather affecting both San Antonio and Austin, cities that lie not that far North of Houston.

During Friday, Austin received no less than 16" of rain and that was on top of the 8" that it had received while we were there for the American Grand Prix.  Over half of its annual rainfall fell in just two days?  Incredible.  That wasn't the end of it though as they were also struck by a tornado which was sufficiently strong enough to lift a huge fifth wheel caravan trailer onto the roof of a three storey Holiday Inn Express!!  The photo of this is attached.

Unfortunately, the weather that had been brewing in Houston all day broke late evening when the heavens opened providing a deluge.  We watched from our safe and cosy hotel room as the traffic on the Katy Freeway tried to cope with what was coming out of the sky.

At 2am when both Linda and I were fast asleep we were woken by the sound of my iPhone emitting what can only be described as a high pitched siren for 5 seconds.  In a daze we didn't know what this was but when it happened again during the night, we then realised that it was a flash flooding warning!!!  Everybody with an iPhone in the hotel had been woken by the same alarm and message.  Very clever but very scary when you are in a deep sleep.

We determined that being on the 5th floor, we were pretty safe from the danger of flooding although the amount of water that we watched falling relentlessly outside did make me wonder if in the morning we would find our hire car had floated away?

When we did wake it was still to heavy rain but also to news of some of the tragedies that had taken place - at least 6 people killed, 2 of these occurring in Houston.  Tornado and flash flood watches were still in place.

We have never experienced anything like this on any of our numerous visits to America and it has been a salutary lesson in the power of nature, particular during this appropriately named hurricane season which ends in November.  With all the travelling we have done, we consider ourselves extremely fortunate to have avoided being caught up in any of the widespread problems in Texas.

Tomorrow looks a brighter day.