Sympathies to you and everyone down your way, and hang in there as you deal with all that moisture. It's nice to be out of drought in our lower Plains states, but c'mon - enough is enough! Be safe and don't enter flowing water in these situations - we've had people swept away in flash flooding incidents recently. Cynthia

The fragility with the Live oaks is that their root systems are astonishingly shallow for their massive size. I've seen hundreds of examples in the Lowcountry (where Katie lives) where the roots are no deeper than 8 inches. Add to that the crisscrossing of sidewalks, streets, development, etc. Oaks benefit hugely from gypsum after salt water flooding and/or intrusion, every bit as much as shrubs and other plantings.

It breaks my heart to hear of Marilyn's losses. Tragedy. To answer the question yes I was able to get out today! A neighbor came and got us. I was able to use the transport walker of the lady I am staying with since we were just going out for a short time. We got lucky the Kroger was not crowded and there were scooters available. There was an att store next door so I got a replacement phone. Not everything is on it but a lot is. We saw the sun! The water dropped a lot! We could not get down our street boats only but we could see the roof of husband's truck! We are watching the TV right now and the just showed video by a drone going down my street! Saw my friends house but they can it off before my house. But the water looks like it was about the middle of the house. Here's some pics from my subdivision.

Good news for Houstonians. I learned some information that differs somewhat from what cilantro said. Sometime in the last 5 or 6 years, I don't remember when nor if it was at the time of one of the catastrophic storms, I saw a TV interview with the director of the local Houston flood control district or agency. I don't remember if it was a county agency or a city one. Anyway, standing in front of a completely flooded freeway underpass, the interviewer asked why the Houston area was subject to such frequent flooding. I don't remember the exact words he said but I remember the very clear message. I'll try to paraphrase and reenact his comments as if quoted: "We have two factors at work here. First, this area can expect to experience very heavy rainfall events with regularity. Second, our drainage system is inadequate for even moderately heavy events and the only possible outcome is flooding. When the drainage system was first engineered and constructed, there was a shortage of money and an unwillingness of the local population to pay more to have an adequate job done. So, what was done was severely compromised, the best they could do with limited funds. It was known at the time to be inadequate. As the years went on and the city developed, periodic efforts to try to obtain more resources and money to improve and enhance the system were always met with resistance. Many times when significant improvements were proposed, they met opposition and little or nothing was done. Because of the development that has taken place, we are where we are now and it would be prohibitively expensive to fix the major known problems in the existing system. I'm sorry to say that regular flooding is to be expected." --------------------------- The technology is known. The tragic risk of life and inconvenience in the area is the result, according to the boss, of poor choices and compromised systems. There are plenty of places where low lying inhabited ground is protected from flooding with ease. New Orleans is one although the jeopardy is always there because of ill-maintained dikes and its own risk to major storms. Much of the Netherlands is below sea level but is protected by sophisticated water management systems and well maintained dikes. Looking up and seeing a boat passing by in the nearby river or canal, higher than the ground one is standing on, is an eerie reminder of how much low ground there is. That experience can be seen in the NO area too. .