State of the River
(River • )
The Brazos has been running high – just a couple feet from spilling over its banks into our back yard, and an incredible contrast to last year’s river, when it ran low and hosted fish-killing golden algae.
The river prediction folks over at the weather service kept insisting the Brazos was going to drop, but each day it held its high level, and each day over the last few it kept raining. Now the predictors acknowledge its going to go even higher – topping out at 40 feet here in Richmond by Tuesday.
So if you’re in Rosharon downstream (which is more prone to flooding) stake down that empty deep-freeze, huh?
→ B.Dunn, Feb 13, 2010, 08 08 am
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Brazos Bulks Up
(River • Richmond)
About 30 feet and rising, still contained within its banks…
(Click photo for a very large version.)
While the river’s getting big for sure, this is not anything approaching a flood event or even a big deal.
This is what happens when the Brazos climbs out of its banks, but even that fell short of flood stage.
There’s just a lot of flex in this river. When it’s down, it trickles. When it’s up, it roars.
→ B.Dunn, Feb 02, 2010, 04 20 pm
River Report: Wet With A Chance Of More
(River • )
I’d been idly following the progress of a rather sudden rise in the Brazos River water level beginning up around Waco a few days ago and, sure as gravity, it showed up here beginning Saturday. Yesterday we noted whatever that foam is that floats on the river whenever it’s about to assert itself. The river had been running at about 13 feet, but then it was 18 feet and rising, and I see that the boys down at the Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service say it’ll reach above 35 feet at Richmond by Wednesday.
That means it might top the banks around here, and my really good collection of pecan and sycamore sticks will probably end up in Freeport somewhere. Actually, we’re planning about four days of rain on top of the extra water Waco sent us, so Freeport might even end up with a few abandoned Rosharon appliances, too.
That’s how I judge the seriousness of a Brazos River episode. If 4-foot-diameter tree trunks and washing machines are chugging down the center channel faster than I can run, surf’s up.
→ B.Dunn, Feb 01, 2010, 04 53 am
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Wild Things Swim Fast
(River • Richmond)
As a few sharp-eyed readers are aware, the One-Acre Ranch is conveniently located along the banks of the Brazos just opposite the increasingly impressive Fort Bend County Jail. This has naturally sparked a few years’ debate over whether miscreant inhabitants of said facility could ever engineer an escape, and prolong it by swimming the river.
Clearly the river could be breached in times of drought, but normally the Brazos moves with a good deal of force, and the debate has proceeded under the assumption of normal river conditions. True, a curious steer did succumbed to the siren sounds of a local resident’s daughter’s outdoor birthday party a few years ago, and swam across to enjoy the screaming chaos that erupted upon his arrival at the cake table. But surely the average ax murderer or crack distributor is too overweight, over-wrought or tweaked out to go the distance?
Maybe so, but their progeny are up for the task, as evidenced earlier this afternoon when three young men under 18 years of age managed to escape from the county juvenile detention facility adjacent to the adult jail. They ran north to the river, dove right in and swam across to our side (albeit a half-mile upstream).
The news hasn’t made the local press yet, but exceedingly reliable sources inform us here that one young man surfaced and pulled himself ashore at Lucy’s Florist Shop under the U.S. 90A bridge, whereupon he was placed under arrest by Richmond police.
The other two escapees attempted to avoid that fate by dog paddling a few yards off shore. Cops were dispatched down river (next door to my house, to be exact) and worked their way along shore back up to Lucy’s, just in case. But the city fire department did the heavy lifting, hoisting a motor boat into the water, piloting the craft downstream a couple hundred yards and then extracting the wet prison breakers.
Plenty of fun and excitement all around, with a PG-13 ending and not a single Taser shot fired.
→ B.Dunn, Dec 30, 2009, 08 07 pm
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