Every morning I wake up, turn on the news, and see more stories about continued flooding on Houston’s north and west sides.
I’m sure I speak for all of CD when I say that our hearts go out to everyone that has had their homes, cars, schools, or businesses flooded and we feel especially bad for the family and friends of those that have been lost.
Undoubtedly, this has affected several Houston area teams, some of which are bound for CMP next week.
If you are on any of those teams, how are you doing? Is there anything CD can do to help?
Jersey Voltage 4587 is doing ok. We had about 2" of water in our storage room submerging the axles of both our 2014 and 2015 robot. They sat to dry for a few days and should be ok now.
On another note, school was cancelled for the entire week. Our students haven’t been to a day of school this week and won’t go for the rest of the week. Some of the schools in our district took significant damage so the entire district was closed.
Luckily we build off of the school campus so we have taken advantage of the extra time our students get before champs. After the flooding cleared up in our area we have met like normal but with extended hours.
Last year’s floods were memorial day, so wouldn’t have affected a Houston CMP that year. This year’s floods obviously would have affected a Houston CMP, since it’d be happening right now. I think CMP could have still gone on, but there would have been issues getting things set up and getting teams and volunteers in. But it’s not like we regularly schedule extreme flooding events here. Last year and this were both highly unlikely events.
And it’s not like weather affecting Champs is unheard of. There was a hailstorm in 2012 during Einstein, and there have been several tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings during STL Champs over the years. Back in the dark ages of pre-2003 EPCOT Champs, with outdoor fields and pits in tents, there was a day it rained so hard the pits flooded and the power had to be turned off.
The weather is the weather, and Spring pretty universally means a chance for rough weather. As long as we’re holding events indoors, we’re doing about the best we can to mitigate the risks.
Katy closed the district for the entire week. I don’t think I’ve seen flooding this bad in Houston in my entire life living there; at least this widespread. The underpasses of highways have definitely been pretty bad historically though.
That’s right across the pits. The storm shattered windows at the cnn center, and several other buildings in the area. The dome was also damaged. The place was pretty badly beat up, but it was all cleaned up / patched up prior to championships that followed a few weeks later.
Allison was pretty close. That storm was just mean. Blew through headed north, then turned around and headed back south SLOW following all the water it dumped in the rivers just north of us.
Also, 57 the team escaped unscathed. Haven’t checked in with all the students yet, but they’re mostly located in central-north houston so they should be okay.
Glad to hear you guys are alright for CMP. Last year, everyone from your team I spoke with in the pit was friendly and excited to discuss your bot and more. I’d hate for floods to ruin your run at St. Louis.
The Klein Bots team members as a whole made it through the floods without major issues, but the community is still dealing with floods and high water. The school and district have been closed all week. We were finally able to get the robot shipped yesterday, so we are hoping it makes it to St. Louis in time. We have not been able to meet or practice, but the team is working together helping collecting food and clothing for disaster relief efforts.
Texas Torque is located in Conroe ISD and we had 9.5 inches of rain Sunday night and Monday morning. Our school district was closed on Monday and Tuesday. Some homes have been flooded here, but nothing like the neighborhoods to the south of us.
Thanks for asking about how the teams here are doing.
I appreciate the offer, but sadly I won’t be making the trek this year. I’ve got limited vacation time and it’s almost all spoken for already. Good luck this year though, hopefully we wind up on the same division.
Championships will be in Downtown Houston, which did not flood (though some major roads leading into downtown did). As others have mentioned, this storm and last year’s memorial day storm were…not normal. Both cases were around 500-year flood events. And those came just a couple of years after a severe drought.
I’ll be honest: flooding IS one of the biggest long-term problems facing the city. But the “more common flooding” you’d experience as a team coming to champs would likely be 1. isolated, 2. contained to the street, and 3. brief.
I do hope all our southeast Texas teams made it through this crazy storm safe and dry.
