My Office [pic-heavy]

[Thumpalumpacus]

So, some of y'all may have heard about the flooding we've had down here in Tejas. It has been heavy but not dangerous here, though we have had a couple of tornadoes on the ground near the Preserve. We've taken a beating as far as the trails are concerned, so we've been closed, and are in damage-control mode.

It started 10 days ago, with about an inch of rain, which filled the waterfall up.

Should have known something was up when I found this yellow-eared slider looking for high ground.

The frogs, like this Rio Grande leopard frog, were out and about.

The creek was up a little ...



... and then on Saturday night we got 4.25" of rain in eight hours throughout Hamilton Creek's watershed, which is 25 sq mi.  All of that water came into the creek, which was running whitewater Sunday morning as I drove in. It had to go somewhere.

The railing in the middle of the pic, under the Mexican sycamore, stands three feet high ... and it was only about 6" above the water-level.

The creek was up several feet as well, obviously.

... and had enough current to do this to our footbridge.

This is the Pedernales River, about six miles downstream from the Preserve; it picked up about 25' in one night.

... and this is the river at Hammett's Crossing, about ½-mile from where it enters the Preserve.  There's about four foot of water over the bridge at the far end.

We disturbed this guy while we were cleaning up the trails today -- the maintenance supervisor almost clocked this water moccasin when she threw a big branch into the creek right over the bushes he was hiding in.

eta: I don't know why those pic-links are showing up in the middle of my post. Sorry for the technical difficulties.