We were just looking at Weather Channel and the forecast storm surge map. This is something they've greatly refined the past few years. Up to 12', some areas up to 9' but a lot of areas including places like downtown Port Aransas with 3'. Now, I'm not knowledgeable in how far above sea level many of those areas are. I see several areas with mandatory evacuations. Also, noted that even though well outside the primary area, New Orleans will even be hit with the rain and very few of their pumps are currently in service due to maintenance issues.
It reminds me in some ways of Sandy. It's very slow moving and is forecast to remain in the area for a long time, even stall, even head back out. It's stronger than Sandy however when Sandy made landfall.
No two hurricanes are alike though and no two areas of the coast are the same. In Fort Lauderdale, we've never had the kinds of surge they are talking about and our home is well protected up to 6' surge.
Also, there are a lot of areas in South Texas, near both San Antonio and Houston which flood very easily and have been hit hard by storms in the last few years. The predicted rainfall by itself is likely to flood those areas.
I hope people who are evacuating did so soon enough that they don't get held up on the highways. Typically evacuation is up the interstates toward Dallas. Also, typically, you'd see forecasts of rain in the Dallas area a few days later, but there is none forecast for this storm, which shows further how it's expected to linger on the coast.
Thoughts with all impacted by this storm, both TF'ers and others.
