Posted on 03/18/2006 12:38:27 PM PST by Ptarmigan
East Pacific Hurricane Rosa makes landfall on the west coast of Mexico on October 14, 1994 as a Category 2 hurricane with 100 mph winds. Then it moves over the mountains and weakens. However, its moisture remains and heads towards Texas. A strong cold front over Texas and high pressure system over Canada cause the remnant of Hurricane Rosa to stall over Texas. Rain starts to fall on October 15th. Many areas got 1 to 2 inches of rain. Then it rains again on the 16th. Later that night and well into the early morning hours of the 17th, heavy rain begins to fall northwest of Houston. 10 to 20 inches of rain fell. The the rain switches southward on the night of the 17th to wee hours of the 18th, heavy rain starts to fall around Houston. 10 to 20 inches of rain fell. Most of the heavy rain fell at night, which would make it a tropical rain event. Rainfall rates up to 5 inches was reported during the storm. Once the storm ended, up to 30 inches of rain fell, mostly around Liberty and Magnolia. Many areas got over 20 inches of rains in the four day period. It is one Texas's largest rainfall event. There was widespread and record flooding. Many rivers and reservoirs exceeded their past records and stands to this day. On October 20th, oil pipelines burst and caused a massive fires on the San Jacinto River. It claimed 22 lives and caused two billion dollars in damages.
NWS Houston-October Severe Weather
Catastrophic Rainfall and Flooding in Texas
Oh yea, remember it wee, had 6 foot of water in the beer joint I had back then.
http://www.floodsafety.com/texas/USGSdemo/photos/USGS_78.htm
A woman I met later had eight feet in her house after they opened the floodgates on the lake to save the homes there.
I remember seeing in the news of one of the pipelines bursting into flames. We had two disasters, flood and pipeline fire.
I worked for the Fire Department at the time. We had many instances where a pumper or ambulance would make it to a call and then get stranded by the rising water. In some cases the equipment was even destroyed.
I also got stranded near the hospital district while trying to get home. What a mess that night was.
That's really bad. In March of 1992, we had flooding and I had stay at school at 4:00 PM. I heard some had to stay until 8:00 PM.
I'll never forget it. We live north of Houston and when they closed the San Jacinto bridge all the traffic had to detour to I45......it was a horrible mess.
I remember it well, too, because I flew out of Houston over it all, so had a bird's-eye view. By my house, Brays Bayou was worse than even the later TS Allison flooding--and we were in the area of max rainfall for Allison. Oct 94 was much worse, which I think made them do some work on the drainage channels before Allison.
I've never seen anything as bad as Allison. When you drive into Houston and the water is up to the railings on the overpasses, that's bad. When most of the medical center basements and lower floors are flooded, that's bad. Hard lessons learned on both.
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