In Houston. Thank God for all my backpacking gear

It went from backpacking gear to survival gear. The city is talking about shutting all the water off. I have 10 gallons of water on hand but if I need more I can filter water out of the lake in front of my house. For all the other backpackers here living in Houston please stay safe!!

Best wishes to you and all your fellow soggy residents!

p.s. Assume all floodwater is contaminated with chemical as well as biological hazards unless you know otherwise (if it came off your roof, for example).

If you have a tub, fill it and remember you can drain the water from the water heater.

Stay safe!

I'd rush to fill every container you have. The filter will do nothng for chemical contaminants or viruses.

Sending thoughts and prayers for everyone's safety!

wow, that's a terrible drag! Very depressing. Good luck.

bathrubs full and have rain barrels. Should have enough water to last a few weeks

Good to be prepared and if you have backpacking gear you're always a big step towards that.

I hope the water has began to recede a bit for you. I was poking around the NOAA site a few days before Harvey started hitting the coast and saw a video from a satellite and it was just amazing how huge it got, but the news didn't seem to be mentioning it much until it had just a couple days before the eye of the storm was about to hit the coast, which surprised me.

My sister, who lives near Dallas, said they had a huge rush on gasoline there on Thursday. Said they sold 40,000 gallons and had 18 pumps running non-stop until they ran out.

She said they taped signs over the "Regular" gas buttons because the tanks were down to 1000 gallons and when they're that low the gas gets all mucked up with sediment, but people were tearing off the signs and still pumping gas from them into their big expensive trucks. That's certainly gonna cost of few of them more than it was worth.

The photos and videos I've seen show some pretty devastating results. I know from some experience it's easy to make it look worse than it is, but it sure looks bad from what I've seen.

Yeh, gas is scarce in Houston. you can only get premium if you can find it at all. I have been keeping my tank full everyday in case we run out

I'm glad you have your backpacking gear with you.

I read you have a water supply, but what's the situation with food?
Do you have a reserve?

Best wishes to all the Houston citizens!

Seriously, I sure wish there was a way to send some of that water up here to the parched and blazing Pacific NW!

What part of town are you in? Now that the storm is past, what does your cleanup situation look like?

Everything is back to normal for the most part. Groceries are open again. I stocked up on food that I would use for backpacking, It all worked out.

Im in the Heights which is just north of downtown. Really didnt have any clean up. My house didnt flood nor my car. Everything a block away from me did in ever direction

It's good you are in the Heights.

I've heard a story about a guy that bought some Anti-Flooding system on the Internet, and it did save his house. It was in Texas if I'm not mistaken.

Didn't you hear anything similar?

Yeh, they were water filler tubes that form a dam around his house. The guy lives about 50 miles outside of Houston