Another Peculiarity of Living in South Texas . . .

An interesting fact of the geology of South and West Texas is that the state more- or- less rests on a huge amojunt of rock, which makes drainage problematic.

VERY problematic -- as in dangerously so.

This is what the creekbed outside my place of employment looks like about five minutes after the rain starts falling. The level is about 4-5 times higher than normal, but you still can't see the water in the bed without walking up to the crest of the bed and looking down into it. But that's a lot of water to raise the level of the creek so fast, and it comes up very quickly.


After five to ten minutes elapsed time, we begin to see significant drainage in the creek; to the point that the creek is now visible outside of the bed. (In other wotds, you don't have to look into the bed to see water; just driving by it's obvious there's a lot of water moving through the creekbed, and fast, too. At this point it is no longer safe to attempt to cross the creekbed fords, so about 10% of the surface streets in San Antonio become impassable. Still some idiot tries it every time it rains, usually with fatal results. A lady and her graddaughter drowned in this creek in the picuture last year not 20 yards from where this picture was taken.



And after about fifteen minutes elapsed time, this is what we're staring at out the back window. Please note that the entire street paralleling the creek has disappeared (it's under three feet of rapidly moving water) as well as the driveway for those poor folks' house. They're pretty much trapped in there for a while, hoping that water doesn't come up much more.

This is also about the time we start evacuating the back parking lot so the employees' cars won't float away. Still, it beats the heck out of a "Code White" (snowed in the hospital and unable to leave) any old day.

~~~JD~~~