skwatra Posted October 26, 2015 Share Posted October 26, 2015 We drove to Dallas on Friday night. Family event we couldn't skip. Took about 5.5 hours to get to Carrollton (15 miles north of downtown). We had to cut across on some state highways and farm roads to get to I-35 and avoid Corsicana. On those roads we hit sideways hard downpour head-on. That part was a bit scary, but there were plenty of big rigs taking that route leading the way. Only ran in to a little bit of high water once (less than a foot). Trip home Sunday night was comparatively a breeze, most of the remnants of Patricia had passed by the time we got closer to Houston. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cspwal Posted October 28, 2015 Share Posted October 28, 2015 We drove back from Dallas yesterday and some of the frontage roads on 45 are still flooded out south of Corsicana. Still a lot of water up there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IronTiger Posted April 21, 2016 Author Share Posted April 21, 2016 I actually spent my last waking hours of Sunday hearing the rain and believing it was just another Houston rainstorm and woke up to find flood warnings and my car in ankle deep water (I don't live in the lowlands). I wonder if the flood authority will condemn anymore houses like they did after Allison. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samagon Posted May 2, 2016 Share Posted May 2, 2016 Looks like I picked a good week to get on a cruise ship. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJVilla Posted May 4, 2016 Share Posted May 4, 2016 We've talked here and in others posts about flood control so I though that the following Quora post about Toyko flood control could provide some great ideas for improvement in Houston system: Quote Tokyo is protected against flood by gigantic constructions under the ground. They are invisible in our daily life, but they sure help us to remain safe when Tokyo is hit by torrential rain. One such example is the Kanda River Underground Retention Basin made up of 4.5 km tunnel 40 meters under the ground. More details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanda_River and http://www.5election.com/2013/10/27/kanda-river-retention-basin-one-of-tokyos-protection-system/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigFootsSocks Posted May 5, 2016 Share Posted May 5, 2016 The problem here is that you can only dig down so deep; otherwise you hit sea-level and anything below that would require a massive pumping operation, and would most likely end up as a simple wet-pond (meaning the bottom of the pond is inside the water table). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ADCS Posted May 5, 2016 Share Posted May 5, 2016 8 hours ago, BigFootsSocks said: The problem here is that you can only dig down so deep; otherwise you hit sea-level and anything below that would require a massive pumping operation, and would most likely end up as a simple wet-pond (meaning the bottom of the pond is inside the water table). I think the biggest problem is that you don't reach impermeable bedrock until you're hundreds of feet down, owing to Houston's alluvial geology. This makes concrete tunnels much more expensive to build and maintain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigFootsSocks Posted May 5, 2016 Share Posted May 5, 2016 Also a very good point Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ross Posted May 6, 2016 Share Posted May 6, 2016 10 hours ago, ADCS said: I think the biggest problem is that you don't reach impermeable bedrock until you're hundreds of feet down, owing to Houston's alluvial geology. This makes concrete tunnels much more expensive to build and maintain. Bedrock is almost 30,000 feet down in this area, according to my geologist friends. That's to reach igneous basement. There are some pretty hard sandstone and limestone layers that aren't as deep, but this isn't NYC, where granite is pretty shallow, or exposed. London is riddled with tunnels, mostly bored through clays. Current construction there uses seamless concrete, but the older tunnels used cast iron segments to hold the soil at bay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cspwal Posted May 16, 2016 Share Posted May 16, 2016 My grandfather worked for a while in the civil engineering department at Rice and then Sugarland, and according to him one of the problems with the underground water ways was a soon as they filled up they acted like pipes, not drainage ditches, and would require pressure at one end to make it flow out (the one he was citing as an example was the drainage line under Rice University, that drains into Bray's Bayou) So unless the tunnel was huge, it could still back up and cause flooding in the streets Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samagon Posted June 1, 2016 Share Posted June 1, 2016 images from ti-38 show Brazos River flooding, and drone photos of woodlands http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/article/Astronaut-photo-shows-Brazos-River-flooding-7952369.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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