On July 3, 2002, after a week of heavy rain, people in parts of my subdivision and all over my part of town were warned to leave their homes because flooding was about  to begin, and it was going to be bad.

We've danced this dance before here in this part of Central Texas.  We are supposedly the flash flood capitol of the world, due to our geography and topography.  Our last major flood in 1998 was devastating: four years later, some people were just now rebuilding.  That includes many of the victims of this flood.

Twenty three miles from New Braunfels, there is a dam that was built in the 1960s that usually tames the Guadalupe River.  That dam forms Canyon Lake, which is beautiful and distinctive for its cliffs that surroud and make up the walls of the lake.  These cliffs also mean that Canyon Lake can hold a LOT more water than it does... about 15 feet more than it's usual level.  The lake was actually low, however, so we didn't worry... the lake would hold the runoff from the north (where they had also had a lot of rain) and we'd be fine...

That was flawed thinking.  Mainly because the rain didn't stop.  In fact, we ended up with over 21 inches of rain in just a few days.  That leads to flooding, no matter what kind of civil engineering you have upriver.

On July 4, 2002, for the first time ever, water spilled over the spillway at the top of Canyon Dam.  This water took about six hours to make it to New Braunfels.  We had lots of notice, and many people could be seen literally moving everything they owned to higher ground.  It was scary and interesting to see, but we all did what we were told.

When I woke up on the 4th, it had stopped raining for the first time in about two weeks.  That didn't mean we were out of the woods, however.  We actually had all that water coming our way, and so I of course took my digital camera and we went out to look.

My house, by the way, was high and dry.  My greatest hardship was having to do without cable and the cable modem for two days.  I'd be a really bad man to gripe about that!  The people who lived behind me took water in 1998, but they, too were fine this time.  Thank god for that.

Not everyone was as lucky, however.  I took as many pictures as I could, but I of course, didn't go into any areas where I would be in harm's way.  Please enjoy the photos, and let me know what you think!