Here we are on the 4th day of June and in the middle of the worst drought Texas has seen since the Dust Bowl days of the 30’s. Rainfall totals for the first half of the year are over a foot below normal.
That almost – but not quite – adds a bit of fondness to my memories of Tropical Storm Allison, the storm that hit Houston ten years ago this week.
The tropical storm inundated southeast Texas, having made landfall in Galveston on June 5. Before it was over, Allison had dropped more than 35 inches of rain in parts of Harris County. The Harris County Flood Control District estimated 28 inches fell in one 10-hour period.
At Hermann Hospital and the UT Medical School, an estimated 10 million gallons of water accounted for more than $87 million in property damage. The school was closed for a month with millions of dollars of sponsored research affected.
After its initial two-day deluge, the storm returned to the Gulf of Mexico, but came back inland again June 8 to leave behind even more rain. When it was over, 22 people were dead and $5 billion in damages had taken place.
In addition to offices and businesses in the downtown area and elsewhere being devastated by the deluge from Allison, the Texas Medical Center sustained heavy damages.
The rains left more than 30,000 people at least temporarily homeless in the Houston area with an estimated 70,000 houses receiving substantial
damage.
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