In a period of only 8 hours in June 2001, various parts of Houston received between 15 and 38 inches of rain! This massive downpour, a result of Tropical Storm Allison, caused the worst flooding--in terms of $$$ lost--in the history of the US.

Allison actually arrived in the Houston area late Monday. It stayed around our area for about 2-3 days, dumping anywhere from 10-15" of rain on the city. This caused some widespread flooding, some severe, but nothing we hadn't seen before, since Houston gets a lot of rain at times. By late Wednesday, it was moving out into the Gulf. Hasta la vista, baby (or so we thought).

Then on Friday, due to some fluky weather patterns, Allison--which had been sitting out in the Gulf, sucking up moisture and gaining strength--began to move back onshore. This was totally unexpected.

The rain started about dinnertime Friday night (June 8). It continued until around 3 in the morning. I had to keep emptying the rain gauge in our backyard every hour or two so it wouldn't fill up. I emptied out over 17" during 8 hours. Parts of the city received over 38". The flooding we had seen earlier in the week was nothing compared to what we woke up to on Saturday morning.

I originally created a one page web pictorial on Monday, June 11. It was not intended to be a complete story of the flood. Just a few pictures that I took of the Southwest Freeway (US-59) where it runs just north of our neighborhood. Well, you know how the Internet works--the page took on a life of its own. I received hundreds of emails from people--from all over the world--who saw the page. Then I started getting pictures from people who had their own story to tell, so I ended up expanding my original one page site to include as many pictures as I could.

As I reorganize these pages, in February 2002, the magnitude of the disaster is still evident in Houston. Here it is over half a year later, and there are still office towers & hospitals being restored. Many basements & underground parking garages flooded so deeply, and then filled with mud & muck as the waters receded, that they had to rebuild them from scratch. And there are neighborhoods where every house had to be either remodeled, or torn down to start over. 

The numbers on the June storm are awesome: Thirty-eight inches of rain in some places, $5 billion in damage and 22 deaths. More than 33,000 families got government help for temporary housing. Over 50,000 houses were damaged by the flood. 70,000 flooded vehicles. 58 counties were declared disaster areas. It was the costliest urban flood in the nation's history.

The pictures start on the following page...

(for a chart showing Rainfall Totals from the Storm, click here...)