When the Levee Breaks – written by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie in 1929 and from Led Zeppelin’s untitled 1971 album.
Song for the Day
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The Dam Will Hold – For Now
A dam near Midlothian appeared to be on the edge of failure, but WFAA reports that it will hold for the time being.
Engineers and builders at Padera Lake in Midlothian say it was a close call, but an earthen dam won’t breach after all. They are still waiting on official word from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
The National Weather Service expected the levee to break Wednesday morning. U.S. Highway 287 was being prepared to close near Kimble Road in case the road became flooded. Up to 15 feet of water was possible.
Stephanie Parker with the Ellis County Emergency Management Agency told News 8 that people living near the dam were notified of the potential break, and livestock was moved to higher ground.
Officials had been trying to slow down the process for several days, as rain added more water to the small lake. They were draining it from the bottom of the dam Monday morning, as soil was seen eroding and water was spilling over the top.
Today in Texas History – May 27
From the Annals of the GOP – In 1961, John Tower was elected as the first Republican senator from Texas since the days of Reconstruction. It was Tower’s first elective office. Tower a professor at Midwestern University had run unsuccessfully for state representative in 1954 and worked to build the GOP in Texas. By 1960, he was sufficiently well known to be nominated at the state Republican convention to run against Lyndon B. Johnson for senator – who was also on the national ticket as the Democratic candidate for Vice-President. Tower’s campaign slogan was “double your pleasure, double your fun, vote against Johnson two times, not one.” Johnson easily won the election but resigned his seat when he was also elected vice president. Tower entered a very crowded field of more than 60 candidates for the special election to replace Johnson. His main opposition was William Blakely of Dallas whom Price Daniel, Sr. had appointed to fill the vacancy left by Johnson’s resignation. He led the first election with 31% of the vote and then won the runoff. Tower was a mostly reliable conservative during his tenure. His shameful votes against the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act were likely popular in Texas. But Tower did stray from the ranks of the hard-right when he supported Gerald Ford over Ronald Reagan in 1976. Tower resigned in 1985. After his 24 year career in the Senate, President Ronald Reagan appointed him chief United States negotiator at the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks in Geneva. In 1986, Reagan appointed him to chair a commission to investigate the Iran-Contra affair. In 1989, President George Bush nominated him to become secretary of defense. In an unusual move, the Senate rejected one of its on largely because of concerns over Tower’s alleged excessive drinking and womanizing.
Houston Hammered
Red will confirm that Houston was indeed hammered last night and into the early morning. CNN can fill in the details. When woken by Mrs. Red this morning at 3 am, Casa Rojo was completely surrounded by water. Around 5:30 Red was pretty sure it was going to flood, but the rain stopped.
“We got hammered,” Houston Emergency Management Coordinator Rick Flanagan told CNN’s “New Day,” echoing sentiments by many others in the region in recent days. “We had cars that were stranded, mobility was stopped … signals didn’t work. It was just a madhouse.”
It still is. While the sun appeared Tuesday, more rain remains possible. And even though some parts of Houston were “high and dry,” others were not, Mayor Annise Parker said.
“The sun is shining out here right now and the city is slowly getting back to normal, but this is a little bit of a situation of a tale of two cities. Much of Houston was unaffected by the weather, but the parts that were affected by the weather were very severely hit,” she told reporters.
Underpasses, patches of highways and areas near waterways such as the San Jacinto River, Cypress Creek and Buffalo Bayou, already strained by weeks of heavy rain, remain inundated.
“The defining feature of Houston is the small rivers that run through the city,” Parker said. “Many of them went over their banks and began to flood neighborhoods.”
The result of the flash floods and river overruns is “lots and lots of abandoned cars” and large pools of standing water, making for a logistical and traffic nightmare in the United States fourth most populated city.
The mayor said that as many as 4,000 properties in Houston may have suffered “significant damage,” although the assessment is complicated by all the water.
Image of worst high-water spots from http://www.chron.com.
Today in Texas History – May 26
From the Annals of Slavery – In 1837, the executor of William Barret Travis’s estate placed a notice in the Telegraph and Texas Register for an escaped slave named Joe. Joe had been one of the few survivors of the battle of the Alamo the year before. The notice ran for three months before it was discontinued.
During the final battle for the Alamo, Joe was armed and defended with others before retreating to an interior room. After the battle, Joe answered the call of the Mexican troops for any slaves to reveal themselves. Joe came out was immediately shot and suffered a bayonet thrust. A Mexican captain prevented his death. He was taken by the Mexican Army and later interrogated by Santa Anna regarding Texas and the Texas Army. He was apparently released and on March 20, Joe was questioned by the Texas Cabinet at Groce’s Retreat about the siege and final battle at the Alamo. William F. Gray reported that Joe impressed those present with the modesty, candor, and clarity of his account. Joe was then returned to Travis’s property near Columbia. On the first anniversary of the battle of San Jacinto, Joe escaped with two fully equipped horses while accompanied by an unidentified Mexican man. Joe was never returned to slavery and was last reported in Austin in 1875.
Don’t be Stupid
If your area is flooding, stay put. Right now Red is watching video of flooded cars and fools driving through high water.
Texas Drivers Don’t Know Rules of the Road
Lots of bad weather in Texas means problems. One frequent problem is the dead traffic signal during power outages. This morning Red observed dozens of drivers blowing right through intersections with Nonfunctioning traffic signals. These morons were not even slowing down. Okay listen up – the rule is that an intersection with a dead traffic light is treated as a Four Way Stop. Learn it. Live it.
Abbott and Legislature Miss the Mark on Real Tax Reform
The illusory tax reform package cobbled together by the House, Senate and Gov. Gregg Abbott promises to deliver almost nothing in the way of real tax cuts for average Texans. The House plan to cut the state sales tax would have actually put money back in most Texans’ pockets. The illusory tax reform of increasing the state school tax property exemption by $10,000 will likely never put another nickel in anybody’s hands. The additional exemption is very likely to be eaten up quickly by rising appraisals. And while you can argue that taxpayers will be paying less than they otherwise would, the bottom line is that no real savings are coming from this deal. The Tea Party has failed to deliver any meaningful tax relief to the average Texan.
Texas Rising Takes a Few Hits
The History Channel mini-series Texas Rising debuts this weekend. Critical acclaim awaits. The early reviews are not particularly promising.
The Seattle Times for one is unimpressed.
It’s only partially “history” in “Texas Rising,” however, which we’ve come to expect from the History Channel. Some of the events are accurately portrayed in the miniseries, but others are invented and, at least in the first two episodes, there is embarrassingly little effort to portray the Mexicans and Native Americans as anything other than cartoon villains and savages. In fact, if you squint just a little, you’ll think you’re watching a John Wayne film from, say, 1960, when he directed and starred in “The Alamo.”
Dominic Patten of Deadline is harsher still.
With a Memorial Day debut on History Channel, Texas Rising has ambitious aims. But sad to say, the 10-hour multi-week miniseries just doesn’t hit the target. Brought to the small screen by some of the team behind the blockbuster The Hatfields And McCoys series, the Roland Joffe-directed tale of Lone Star warfare and revolution ends up, as my video review above says, being shrill instead of strong.
Brian Lowry of Variety takes a pass.
Watching the first six hours of “Texas Rising,” a wonderfully cast and otherwise completely wooden miniseries, one has to wonder what inspired the History channel to expand the production from six hours to 10. Chronicling a chapter in the Lone Star state’s bloody ascent to U.S. statehood that begins in the ashes of the Alamo, the Roland Joffe-directed project juggles too many indifferently written, tough-talkin’ characters, as if “Lonesome Dove” had experienced a sharp blow to the head. Fans of Westerns will no doubt be eager to immerse themselves in this once-abundant, now-underutilized genre, but for those who tend to be discriminating about their TV watching, don’t mess with “Texas.”
Jeanne Jakle of the San Antonio Express News points out that there isn’t much “history” on the History Channel.
Texas Rising,” TV’s upcoming star-studded saga about the birth of the Lone Star State, may be on the History channel, but it’s no history lesson.
“It’s big, epic and sexy,” Bill Paxton, who plays Sam Houston, said in a recent interview. “It’s historical fiction like the movie ‘Titanic.’ There are characters who’ve been brought in to flesh it out, make it move better.
“You can do a lot of research,” Paxton added, “but that can be a very dry affair.”
“Texas Rising” kicks off with parts one and two at 8 p.m. Monday and Tuesday on History. The remaining three episodes will run at 8 p.m. Mondays from June 1 through 15.
The series’ Oscar-nominated director, Roland Joffé, also described the 10-hour miniseries as much more emotional than historical, a way to transport viewers to Texas in the aftermath of the Battle of the Alamo and convey how people were feeling.
“You can do history as archaeology, which I think is rather dull,” Joffé (”The Killing Fields”) told TV critics at a History press session.
Red will wait and form his own opinion, but generally thinks that history itself is plenty fascinating if done right. At least Santa Anna isn’t played by some old ugly Mexican dude.
Today in Texas History – May 22
From the Annals of Golf – In 2003, Annika Sorenstam became the first woman to play on the PGA tour in 58 years. She did so at the storied Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth. The Colonial Invitational invited her to play based on her stellar record on the LPGA in the preceding years. When she retired Sorenstam had won 72 LPGA events and 10 major championships. But for Sorenstam her two rounds at the Colonial provide a large part of her legacy. Sorenstam refers to the experience as “one of the highlights of my career.” She ended the day at 1-over par and missed the cut by a stroke.
On a personal note, Red was there for her second round on Friday and strategically placed himself where he could watch Sorenstam play on holes 5, 6 and 7, and managed to catch her only birdie of the day. The crowds were incredible and largely supportive. It was a fun day to watch golf.
And who was the last women to play in an PGA event before the striking Swede? It was Texan Babe Didrikson Zaharias at the Tucson Open in 1945.
