Most people envision Texas
looking like Monument Valley,
Utah – that is unless they watch
the news. They think all Texans pull on
a pair of gaudy cowboy boots and great big cactus plants stretched out as far
as the eye can see. The truth is many of
us have never seen the high desert or own a pair of cowboy boots. The closest most Baytownians have come to a
rattlesnake has been to a visit at the Eddie V. Gray Wetlands
Center.
Most non-Texans are almost arrogantly ignorant about us and
wish to blissfully remain so. Some see
the whole state as an aberration which produced two Bush presidents and a whole
State full of obnoxious residents who brag on how big everything is in Texas.
Most don’t realize that if you flipped the state
horizontally (either way) you would dip El Paso
in the Atlantic Ocean and Beaumont
in the Pacific. Most don’t realize that
the Gulf Coast is wet year round and alligators
are far more common that cowboy boots.
Recently they’ve watched the weather reports and believe all
of us are drowning in our homes and to those who have suffered this fate; I
don’t mean to sound flippant. The truth
is hardly any of us are at risk here in Baytown
anyway if we simply stay inside. It’s those
folks who simply must get to work that are at highest risk of a water or
traffic related accident.
If they knew they were heading out the door to sink their
new car in 6 feet of water and nearly drown in the process, they would stay
home. Ah, but those of us who are
committed to our jobs go anyway. People
in Dayton make that hazardous drive down SH-146
all the way to Texas City
and on the way pass hometown folks heading north to the Chevron Plant in Mont
Belvieu.
And to those poor souls who have to head west on I-10 into
the Houston
metropolis, all I can say is “May God be with you.” It is bad enough when the sky is clear, but
if we are having a deluge, it is ten times more hazardous.
Driving is the most dangerous thing most of us do every
day. Add in the pouring rain, standing
water, and distracted drivers and our soldiers in the military are safer than we
are. Bump it up with a boiling cup of
coffee, kolaches, and the Smartphone
making its peculiar identification ring (should I answer this one or wait?) and
you have just blasted this commute up into an all out attack on our senses.
Many Texans don’t realize that here on the Gulf Coast
we have a micro-environment different than the rest of the state and our
weather can be one of severe extremes.
When we get a Harris County weather report, it most likely covers Conroe
to Victoria and over to Katy and back to Baytown making it wrong the majority
of the time for all of us.
For some time, my bride and I have planned to zipline west
of Austin and
it just so happened that this past Wednesday was the day. We kicked it back and forth and talked to
those folks out there and decided to reschedule. A no-brainer you offer? Yup. I
didn’t think putting entertainment ahead of the very real possibility that we
could suffer something negative was a particularly good notion.
But let’s say for the sake of argument that we would have
gone and something tragic would have happened.
It would be the same outcome as going to work in a deluge. It has been an observation of mine for many
years that the main reason people have accidents in the rain is they are going
too fast. Remember when cars used to
wreck on our side of the Fred
Hartman Bridge
due to hydroplaning? It would be easy to
blame the standing water, but the reality is cars would not slow down in the
rain.
I drove that stretch of road every day and knew I needed to
take that section at about 50 mph when it rained, yet people would fly past me
at 70. On two occasions I witnessed cars
lose control. One went sideways down the
freeway and came to a stop. The other
clipped the barrels and went down the exit.
They eventually fixed this low spot so now people can play with their
life again.
Slow down in the rain folks, or if it is bad, think twice
about getting out in it. No one wants to
die to get to work now do they?
