WEATHER II: Hell on Earth

[Mongrel]

Sharknados may be a joke, but apparently gatorfloods are real:

[Rico]

I'm sure a lot of you have seen this around today, but The Texas Tribune and ProPublica published a pretty amazing long article last year about all of the bullshit that is contributing to how bad the current flooding is. Spoiler: You will really, really want to punch Mike Talbott, the former director of that Flood Control district.

[Niku]

Still safe over in our neck of the woods, and sounds like that's the case for my parents as well. My brother, on the other hand, needed to be boated out of his neighborhood around the time two inches of water had gotten into his house(edit: which ended up being several feet); he, his wife, my nephew, and their two dogs are safely holed up at the fire station for the time being.

[Mongrel]

Megachurch "pastor" Joel Osteen is refusing to open his church as a shelter.

Good time to bring this up:

[Niku]

No no no, see, they've been FLOODED.

Oh, there's both picture and video evidence that they're not?

Well OUR DOORS WERE NEVER CLOSED TO ANYONE SEEKING NEED!

And .. we'll shelter people IF the other shelters go over capacity!

What's that, GRB Convention Center's over by 7,000 people?

Well. Uh. Give us money. To our church. For hurricane relief.

[Mongrel]

The news feeds said that of the two biggest flood reservoirs in Houston, they've had to open the gates to prevent the dams from breaching and now both are in danger of spilling over and possibly collapsing anyway.

Stay safe, Niku.

[Niku]

I am; I'm luckily nowhere near those. I'm literally one street away from the mandatory evacuation line in Fort Bend county due to proximity to one of the creeks in the Stafford/Sugar Land area, but we've got some fair stretches of green and ditches between that and us. Our main immediate worry has been the basin/reservoir/big green hole in the middle of our apartment complex which has been full to the brim for the past two days, but it never quite managed to overflow, so we're sitting pretty unless Harvey REALLY takes a swing back in the other direction. I managed to pop out this morning to try to get a prescription for my grandmother (unfortunately, pharmacy still closed) and said "lol nope" to the line-out-to-the-street at our closest HEB and went two minutes down the road to our awesome Asian supermarket instead and got in and out in quickly. Dumplings and congee for dinner it is! (We still have plenty of dry goods, but you can only eat so many pb and j sandwiches).

Also, Lakewood has now opened to people seeking shelter apparently; shaming works!

[Mongrel]

Phew.

And, in slightly more terrifying flood news, here's a fun fact I learned today:

Hey, did you guys know that in Houston (and other places) when it floods, the fire ants don't just drown? No, they glom together into a raft or ball as a colony and float until they reach "dry land" to climb out on (where "dry land" could be anything, including an oar or a person). So in addition to the more obvious dangers of floodwater (drowning, getting struck by or tripped by debris, germ or chemical contamination) you also get a minefield of ant swarms! I remember seeing some of these myself back in the Houston floods of 1989. Here's a picture:

[Friday]

you know I was actually thinking to myself "well at least the one upside to Harvey is that it'll kill all those damn invasive fire ants" but no, you cannot kill fire ants, they are made of pure terror, hatred, and indestructibility

[Rico]

And apparently flooded fire ants contain more venom than regular fire ants! EVERYTHING IS FINE

[Mongrel]

Irma upgraded to category 5 and current windspeed is something like 180 mph.

We don't have any Brontos in Florida anymore... I think? But Puerto Rico is probably going to get an absolute thrashing. Stay safe, Spram.

[Caithness]

I'm pretty sure Spram lives in Florida now.

[Mongrel]

Well, either way.

[Mothra]

Niku please be wary of floating carpenter firegators, which will expel furious carpenter ants from their mouths when lunging toward prey and balking at passers by. This alligator "fire breath" consists of agitated spicy bois poised to deliver over 165% of the traditional dosage of gator venom.

Stay safe out there slugger and god bless I donated some old beans at work so those should be coming down your way in a few weeks

[Mongrel]

So uh.

It's probably not going to actually happen, but there's some talk among meteorologists about creating a hurricane category 6, just for Irma (for now).

0_________________0

[Niku]

Niku please be wary of floating carpenter firegators, which will expel furious carpenter ants from their mouths when lunging toward prey and balking at passers by. This alligator "fire breath" consists of agitated spicy bois poised to deliver over 165% of the traditional dosage of gator venom.

Stay safe out there slugger and god bless I donated some old beans at work so those should be coming down your way in a few weeks

i call the big one bitey

[Yoji]

So uh.

It's probably not going to actually happen, but there's some talk among meteorologists about creating a hurricane category 6, just for Irma (for now).

0_________________0

Good lord. It's bad enough living inside a Onion article, but now we're going to be living inside a cheesy disaster thriller too? Where's the awkward scientist with chalkboards predicting the arrival of a double event?

[Mazian]

Where's the awkward scientist with chalkboards predicting the arrival of a double event?

Funny you should ask. Tropical Storm Jose just this morning reached the sustained windspeed to merit a name of its own, and early projections have it at hurricane strength by the end of the week.

[Mongrel]

[Büge]

The "Our Collapsing Civilization" thread is thataway.