THE LINE OF THUNDERSTORMS ALONG THE COLD FRONT WILL CONTINUE TO END FROM NORTHWEST TO SOUTHEAST THIS MORNING. HOWEVER...FLOODING WILL BE SLOW TO RECEDE THIS MORNING IN AREAS THAT RECEIVED THE GREATEST RAINFALL. GREATER THAN SIX INCHES OF RAINFALL HAS FALLEN ACROSS AREAS BETWEEN I-10 AND US 190 OVER SOUTHEAST TEXAS AND SOUTHERN LOUISIANA...WITH THE HEAVIEST STRIP OF 10 TO 14 INCHES OF RAINFALL EXTENDING FROM BUNA AND DEWEYVILLE TEXAS...
--- National Weather Service statement
October 27, 2006 4:49 a.m. CDT
October 27, 2006 4:49 a.m. CDT
First of all, I am glad not to live in Deweyville. Or anywhere in Newton County, for that matter, but that’s another story.
Deweyville is a small town of around 2,000 people, right on the lower Sabine River and next to Beauregard Parish in SW Louisiana. Also on the edge of a huge lowland river marsh called Black Swamp. The area has received 14 inches of rainfall the last two days, and is under water. Getting from one place to another is problematical at best, and the area schools have been closed all week. Gov. Rick Perry has declared nine SE Texas counties disaster areas due to flooding from the recent rain, including Newton and Orange Counties (Deweyville is located near the southern border of Newton County and northern border of Orange County.)
The weather has let up, in fact it is gorgeous today, but Deweyville will be under water for awhile. It sucks living on the lower end of a flooding river system, especially if you are on low ground to begin with (Deweyville and several other small towns in that area on both sides of the border are located in what is essentially the Sabine River flood plain.) The rain stops after a front comes through, and the weather is beautiful; but the water keeps rising anyway, as all the flood water from upstream comes through. I have a friend who works for the Sabine River Authority, and he says once Toledo Bend Reservoir is at a certain level, they have to open up the dam gates and let up to 300 cubic feet per second of water through, no matter what. Not good if you are about 100 miles below the dam and under water already.
Deweyville is on Highway 12, a fairly busy state highway on the way to Starks, LA. A lot of truckers with oversized and/or overweight loads come through, thus avoiding heavier traffic on Interstate 10 (and the scales in Louisiana, just across the border.) So Deweyville has a decent enough trucker’s café there. . . by ‘decent’ I mean basic meat and potatoes entrees with a reasonable starch and grease content, and pies for dessert. The town is 98% white. There’s a high school, and a new one to be built reportedly, once the tax money starts flowing from a couple of power plants being constructed on the river there. A medical clinic, a convenience store or two, couple of churches, a small post office, and that’s about it. South is Orange, a much bigger town, west is Buna (byoo’ nuh), a slightly larger town, and north is the wilds of Newton County, including the Devil’s Pocket, a section of undeveloped river bottom noted for supposedly being struck by a meteorite in the early 1800’s; for primitive-by-21st-century-standards living conditions; for residents hunting deer with dogs (and setting fire to the forests around their homes as a form of protest when state fish & game authorities cracked down on this long illegal practice); and for the belief by some locals that one of Bigfoot’s southern relatives resides around there.
All of this is under water at the moment. The weather should be clear through the weekend, followed by more rain the first part of next week. If I wrote country songs, I could probably come up with a good one about living in Deweyville.
__________________________________________
I am not a country songwriter, alas, and the world is better for it. I do like the rain, though, and always have. I don’t really know why. I suppose it is a good thing I have spent a good deal of my time in an area that averages 50-60 inches a year. Rain is supposed to be depressing, but someone like me would be much more depressed in a semi-arid environment.
I can afford to be a bit blasé about it all, because my area of the West End has recently had its infrastructure upgraded, including the installation of a huge 8’ storm drain under the existing drainage ditch that runs through the neighborhood. That ditch used to jump its banks regularly, but I haven’t seen it full since the revisions. There are giant drains at the bottom of it into the storm drain underneath. All of this empties into a brand new retention pond excavated behind the demolished Wal-Mart on Highway 69. It used to be that after a moderate downpour, I would drive home through waters halfway up the doors of my F-150 in my neighborhood. Now, even after the deluge yesterday, I encountered nothing more daunting than a few large puddles formed along the curbs. Drainage District 6, gotta love those guys.
By the way, most of the national coverage of the flooding takes the angle that here are these poor people, still recovering from Hurricane Rita, now being hit by floods. Never mind that most of the area has basically been recovered from Rita for awhile, or that floods are normal here, especially along the Sabine and Neches River bottoms. I guess Rita is the only point of reference to this area most people around the country have.
Nice to know. It used to be cancer-causing petrochemical pollutants.
__________________________________________
Some favorite ‘rain’ songs, off of the top of my head:
“When The Levee Breaks” – Led Zep
“Rain” – Uriah Heep
“Riders On The Storm” – The Doors
“Texas Flood”, “Couldn’t Stand The Weather” – SRV
“Gimme Shelter” – Rolling Stones
“Water In The Sky” – Phish
Deweyville is a small town of around 2,000 people, right on the lower Sabine River and next to Beauregard Parish in SW Louisiana. Also on the edge of a huge lowland river marsh called Black Swamp. The area has received 14 inches of rainfall the last two days, and is under water. Getting from one place to another is problematical at best, and the area schools have been closed all week. Gov. Rick Perry has declared nine SE Texas counties disaster areas due to flooding from the recent rain, including Newton and Orange Counties (Deweyville is located near the southern border of Newton County and northern border of Orange County.)
The weather has let up, in fact it is gorgeous today, but Deweyville will be under water for awhile. It sucks living on the lower end of a flooding river system, especially if you are on low ground to begin with (Deweyville and several other small towns in that area on both sides of the border are located in what is essentially the Sabine River flood plain.) The rain stops after a front comes through, and the weather is beautiful; but the water keeps rising anyway, as all the flood water from upstream comes through. I have a friend who works for the Sabine River Authority, and he says once Toledo Bend Reservoir is at a certain level, they have to open up the dam gates and let up to 300 cubic feet per second of water through, no matter what. Not good if you are about 100 miles below the dam and under water already.
Deweyville is on Highway 12, a fairly busy state highway on the way to Starks, LA. A lot of truckers with oversized and/or overweight loads come through, thus avoiding heavier traffic on Interstate 10 (and the scales in Louisiana, just across the border.) So Deweyville has a decent enough trucker’s café there. . . by ‘decent’ I mean basic meat and potatoes entrees with a reasonable starch and grease content, and pies for dessert. The town is 98% white. There’s a high school, and a new one to be built reportedly, once the tax money starts flowing from a couple of power plants being constructed on the river there. A medical clinic, a convenience store or two, couple of churches, a small post office, and that’s about it. South is Orange, a much bigger town, west is Buna (byoo’ nuh), a slightly larger town, and north is the wilds of Newton County, including the Devil’s Pocket, a section of undeveloped river bottom noted for supposedly being struck by a meteorite in the early 1800’s; for primitive-by-21st-century-standards living conditions; for residents hunting deer with dogs (and setting fire to the forests around their homes as a form of protest when state fish & game authorities cracked down on this long illegal practice); and for the belief by some locals that one of Bigfoot’s southern relatives resides around there.
All of this is under water at the moment. The weather should be clear through the weekend, followed by more rain the first part of next week. If I wrote country songs, I could probably come up with a good one about living in Deweyville.
__________________________________________
I am not a country songwriter, alas, and the world is better for it. I do like the rain, though, and always have. I don’t really know why. I suppose it is a good thing I have spent a good deal of my time in an area that averages 50-60 inches a year. Rain is supposed to be depressing, but someone like me would be much more depressed in a semi-arid environment.
I can afford to be a bit blasé about it all, because my area of the West End has recently had its infrastructure upgraded, including the installation of a huge 8’ storm drain under the existing drainage ditch that runs through the neighborhood. That ditch used to jump its banks regularly, but I haven’t seen it full since the revisions. There are giant drains at the bottom of it into the storm drain underneath. All of this empties into a brand new retention pond excavated behind the demolished Wal-Mart on Highway 69. It used to be that after a moderate downpour, I would drive home through waters halfway up the doors of my F-150 in my neighborhood. Now, even after the deluge yesterday, I encountered nothing more daunting than a few large puddles formed along the curbs. Drainage District 6, gotta love those guys.
By the way, most of the national coverage of the flooding takes the angle that here are these poor people, still recovering from Hurricane Rita, now being hit by floods. Never mind that most of the area has basically been recovered from Rita for awhile, or that floods are normal here, especially along the Sabine and Neches River bottoms. I guess Rita is the only point of reference to this area most people around the country have.
Nice to know. It used to be cancer-causing petrochemical pollutants.
__________________________________________
Some favorite ‘rain’ songs, off of the top of my head:
“When The Levee Breaks” – Led Zep
“Rain” – Uriah Heep
“Riders On The Storm” – The Doors
“Texas Flood”, “Couldn’t Stand The Weather” – SRV
“Gimme Shelter” – Rolling Stones
“Water In The Sky” – Phish
"Sure Got Cold After The Rain Fell" - Z Z Top
“Down In The Flood” – Bob Dylan
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