What’s happening with Tropical Storm Imelda

I helped close this evening at my Starbucks and our shift supervisor closed the store 15 minutes early because there was an inch of standing water above the drainage grate in the parking lot.

And I just drove home about an hour ago and it took twice as long as normal. There’s deep spots even on Calder Avenue, which usually drains pretty well, where I had to plow through slowly. The water is so high on the main road going into my apartment complex that it’s up to the headlights of my little Subaru Forester and it’s creeping up onto the hood of cars parked on the street.

But on the rear side of the apartments where I park under a carport it’s fine, like there’s only an inch or two of water because it’s higher. Plus I’m in an upstairs apartment.

(I am very insistent about having an upstairs apartment after I came dangerously close to flooding at my old apartments during Harvey and had to be evacuated with my two cats in the back of a city dump truck because no one in the whole complex could get their cars out through the water to the main road.)

When I walked my doggy Finn tonight, he did not enjoy wading through 3 inches of water to find a potty spot, poor dear. He hates getting wet.

But the neighbors on the front side of my apartments (the lower part) are starting to park their cars up on the grass like people did during Harvey and honestly I can’t blame them.

I just watched some of the downstairs neighbors wade out to the street and try desperately to get their car up to higher ground but it’s not budging.

Normally I would be off work tomorrow but the TV station where I work asked if I can come in and help out, so I’m gonna see if I can leave my apartment to go in around 6 a.m.

I’ll let y’all know how it goes.

In the meantime, you can get the latest info on Imelda and all of the tropical activity right now on NOAA’s hurricane center website here: www.nhc.noaa.gov

They posted a 10 p.m. update with the most recent advisories over here.