Texas Flooding Strands Passenger Train

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Associated Press

KNIPPA, Texas (AP) - Storms dumped more than a foot of rain on parts of Texas on Saturday, stranding more than 170 passengers on an Amtrak train for hours and forcing rescue crews elsewhere to pull at least 50 people to safety.

Water covering the tracks in Knippa, about 75 miles west of San Antonio, stopped a westbound Amtrak train carrying 176 passengers around 9 a.m. CDT. Buses were expected to arrive around 7:30 p.m. to take passengers to El Paso, where they would board another train, said Amtrak spokeswoman Vernae Graham.

The train never lost power, but buses could not reach it earlier because of flooded roads, Graham said.

No serious injuries were reported in the state's latest round of flooding, which closed many roads and forced evacuations.

Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20070721/D8QH9GD80.html

[blayne]

1. Texas has been flooding for months now.

I live in North Texas, and I feel like I live in Seattle. We are loving the rain but are going to hate the droughts that follow. Damn that global warming thing.

[Gman]

2. I am so sick of rain right now

and there's no end in sight through next week. I've lived in this part of Texas all my 50+ years and I do not ever remember a summer as wet as this one has been so far. It may be a rainy spring, but the rain usually stops like turning off a spigot no later than the 3rd week of June. It might be rainy on Jul 4 but, barring a tropical storm of some kind, there is no significant rain until after Labor Day. None of that is happening this year.

And we've yet to get a named tropical storm so far during the official season. But that's not completely unusual. If we get to the end of August without a named storm, that would be highly unusual. But with no change to the current weather pattern, that might be so unlikely.

[Ilsa]

3. It's like living in the tropics right now. I'm near the Gulf Coast of tx.

I think we had rain 5 out of the last 7 days. And weeks and weeks of rain before that. I've never experienced such a not-boiling-hot summer living here in all of my life.

[Gman]

4. I saw today that Corpus has had over 13" of rain this month

and no tropical storm.

[snappyturtle]

5. We got about two inches.....one hour north of San Antonio...very

muggy..very! It's like there's little to no air. Thankfully the evenings cool off. Our garden is doing very well so that's a bright spot!

[donsu]

6. what is all the rain and flooding doing to the food crops in the area?

nt

[Kali]

7. nothing unusual about Amtrack being delayed for hours

:rofl: