As many of you have deduced from my stories, I'm a denizen of Southwest Louisiana.
Harvey missed me. Tried twice, but the second try doesn't count. Tropical storm force winds? Feh...
Rain? eighteen inches in three days, but none of the road I travel locally, including the ones to and from work, were flooded.
Thousands are not so fortunate. Even here in my area, the amount of rain resulted in flash flooding - the water came down faster than it could run off. Houses flooded. Cars flooded.
I don't want to NOT mention my neighbors in Texas, from the Sabine River west. Folks, this isn't a case of dumbasses building on the creekbanks, these are people with homes outside the hundred-year floodplains, in some cases outside the 500-year plains. When you get four feet of rain (Dayton, TX got over 50 inches) in three days, the old rules about flood plains go out the door.
This is a weather disaster of almost Biblical proportion.
Fortunately for me and my employer, facilities, for the most part, didn't suffer damage, at least not MY facilities. Others, again, were not so fortunate.
The Houston area is perhaps the largest concentration of petrochemical industries in the US, and they suffered. 25% of oil refining capacity went off line. Expect gas prices to spike. Worse than that are the myriad other chemicals that come out of the area. Want a fright? We lost over 60% of the nation's ethylene production. EVERYTHING you do in daily life depends on ethylene.
I'm awfully proud of the way that ordinary people in the area, including my own Cajun Navy, stepped in to provide help. It's a great country that produces that manner of action.
But me? I'm good. Thanks for asking.