Texas is burning...

[Cuttlefish]

ORIGINAL: Cribtop

We're as ready as we can be so I'm of course going to crank out a turn to Cuttlefish later.

This, of course, is the important take-away from your update. [:)]

Seriously, though, good luck, not only for you but your family and friends whose homes are also in danger.

[Cruiser87]

Cribtop, I'm praying for you. 

I live in Cedar Park (just NW of Austin) myself.

[Blackhorse]

Hang in there, Texan.

I'll be visiting Waco in October . . . I hope the rain reaches your region long before I do.

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: Blackhorse

Hang in there, Texan.

I'll be visiting Waco in October . . . I hope the rain reaches your region long before I do.

We can hope for October, but the forecast for the next ten days is zero percent rain chance. Times 10 days that's a total chance of zero.

[Cribtop]

Yep, we could have used that Lee storm around here. Things are looking pretty good for Team Cribtop still. About 8:40pm local time and winds are predicted to really drop off at 10pm. That should help. No rain (no surprise, it's only rained 3 times since April by my count at our house).

Cribtop Sr's lake house is still in some peril. The fire out there was about contained but winds fanned it again. It's still moving away from my folks' house due to the luck of the wind direction. Another close friend may be in the line of the reinvigorated fire, unfortunately.

Texas Forest Service is out of aircraft - they are all deployed, mostly on the Bastrop fire, now at 30,000 acres and counting. We even called in a South Dakota plane (thanks S. Dakotans!). A new fire in far NW Austin (town of Leander) has forced another 5000 evacuations on top of the 5000 in Bastrop SE of town. No idea what we can do about the new fire other than local assets. Cars were pulled back into the garage but remain loaded. Sleeping with my shorts by the bed tonight, boys!

Thanks for all your thoughts and support.

One bit of humor to close. As many may know, Austin is home to several enormous bat colonies. As one bat cave emptied of its millions of residents for nightly feeding, they were picked up on radar and caused a temporary panic of a new fire near the town of Garden Ridge. Fortunately a false alarm. [:)]

[LST Express]

Mother nature messes with everyone, we'll get thru it and come out the other end just fine. I heard November is the best chance for rain, but who the hell knows?

[Cribtop]

Feeling a lot better as winds have dropped dramatically as predicted after 10pm. This reduces the chance of new fires popping up.

LST, you're right. We'll pull through!

[jmalter]

ORIGINAL: Cribtop
One bit of humor to close. As many may know, Austin is home to several enormous bat colonies. As one bat cave emptied of its millions of residents for nightly feeding, they were picked up on radar and caused a temporary panic of a new fire near the town of Garden Ridge. Fortunately a false alarm. [:)]

when they develop stealth-capable fire-breathing bats, we're all gonna get shredded.

my best hopes for your family & neighbors, Cribtop.

[mc3744]

ORIGINAL: Cribtop
guns [hey, in Texas those are essential [;)]]).

I played WitP for years with a Texan engineer from Nasa.
He has a collection of some 700 guns/rifles/machine guns!
Very nice and smart guy, collects them [:)]
I haven't heard from him in a while. I'm going to write to make sure everything is fine there.

Good luck. Very sorry to hear the troubles your are going through. [:(]

[Cribtop]

I own quite a few guns, but he has me beat. [:D]

The fire near my parents' lake house is pretty much under control now. Bastrop is still out of control but that's well away from any Cribtop family structures. Hopefully we'll improve today across the board as winds have died down.

[jeffk3510]

Hoping everyone is well in the said area.

[LoBaron]

Me too, just seen the news, doesn´t look like its under control.

Good luck over there. [:(]

[tocaff]

I've been keeping tabs through this thread.  Glad to hear all is well so far.  This has made the news in Brazil too.

[Cribtop]

Just to clarify, there are multiple fires. The biggest, the Bastrop fire SE of Austin, is still out of control and literally can be seen from space per a NASA photo. Smaller fires west of town threatened my parents' home and could have threatened mine but those fortunately are now under control. The danger of new fires is ever present, of course.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Cribtop

Just to clarify, there are multiple fires. The biggest, the Bastrop fire SE of Austin, is still out of control and literally can be seen from space per a NASA photo. Smaller fires west of town threatened my parents' home and could have threatened mine but those fortunately are now under control. The danger of new fires is ever present, of course.

Don't forget Possum Kingdom (85% contained last time I checked)...for the 2nd time this summer. And that is only about 60-80 miles from me.

[SuluSea]

It's  sad to hear  what the folks in the Lone Star State are up against , I hope you all get some relief very soon. [:(] [:(][:(]

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: Cribtop

... Smaller fires west of town threatened my parents' home and could have threatened mine but those fortunately are now under control. The danger of new fires is ever present, of course.

Glad to see you're still here.

They have similar problems with winds and wildfires in Cali, but residents soon discovered that removing any trees and large shrubs near to their homes greatly reduced the chance it would catch fire.

[Alekks]

I'm a bit north of Austin (~60 miles) but work in Round Rock which is just outside Austin. You can pretty much pick any 60-degree arc and see smoke from one fire or another.

Where I live (Belton) our official rainfall for the month of August was 0.00" not even a sprinkle that month. Average daily high was 106. We had our record summer in 1980 with 100 consecutive days of high temps being 100 or more. But that summer, those temps were generally 101-103, nothing like 106-110 like this summer. I'm sure my home's AC unit is ready to mutiny any day now.

Earlier in this thread it was mentioned about the stalled Tropical Storm (Hermine) that stalled out just NW of where I live. We got 11" of rain in less than 24 hours and that plus rains in towns west of here helped cause the 100 year flood mentioned earlier. As bad as the drought is here now, one Meteorologist made the comment that if we had a replay of that scenario, we would only see minor flooding from it. Whatever, we sure could have used Lee heading west instead of NE. Unless we can get some tropical relief soon, the October/Novembers rains seem years away.

[Shark7]

ORIGINAL: Alekks

I'm a bit north of Austin (~60 miles) but work in Round Rock which is just outside Austin. You can pretty much pick any 60-degree arc and see smoke from one fire or another.

Where I live (Belton) our official rainfall for the month of August was 0.00" not even a sprinkle that month. Average daily high was 106. We had our record summer in 1980 with 100 consecutive days of high temps being 100 or more. But that summer, those temps were generally 101-103, nothing like 106-110 like this summer. I'm sure my home's AC unit is ready to mutiny any day now.

Earlier in this thread it was mentioned about the stalled Tropical Storm (Hermine) that stalled out just NW of where I live. We got 11" of rain in less than 24 hours and that plus rains in towns west of here helped cause the 100 year flood mentioned earlier. As bad as the drought is here now, one Meteorologist made the comment that if we had a replay of that scenario, we would only see minor flooding from it. Whatever, we sure could have used Lee heading west instead of NE. Unless we can get some tropical relief soon, the October/Novembers rains seem years away.

The part of Tx I live in (near Abilene) is so dry that we would actually flash flood from having 11" of rain in 24 hours. The ground is so dry here now that the rain just immediately runs off, doesn't even soak in. There are cracks in the ground of my yard 6" plus wide and no telling how deep they go. We've had a grand total of about 4/10ths of 1 inch of rain since December of last year. [X(]

[Cribtop]

Much better day today. No new fires, all Cribtop dwellings are secure, even the Bastrop monster is starting to get contained. Two bodies were found in Bastrop, however, which puts a damper on things. They burned in their homes yesterday or Sunday. [:(]