Port Wine Country by
Ron Scubadiver, on Flickr
24-120 @ 62mm stitched in ACR
In case anyone was wondering, I/we am in Rome, Italy, returning to the US on 8/31. I don't have a connection from Chicago to Houston because flooding closed the airport.
I don't have a house to go back to because it took at least 30" of water, 75 cm, (possibly more). Everything in it is probably ruined and that could include a couple of lenses and the fastest of several computers. Structural damage is probably equal to the pre flood value of the structure. It's likely the house will not be repaired. I will probably hold on to the lot and sell it in a few years. People are building large elevated houses in the area. I recall leaving my photo archive hard drives on high shelves.
It could have been worse. Some of my neighbors were rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter. One of my neighbors is a former US Army Ranger, an elite fighting unit. He rescued his 71 year old next door neighbor who was sitting in a chair in the rain on a high spot in his front yard. The neighborhood had not yet fully recovered from floods in 2015 and 2016.