Storms cause flooding, damage
Crazy Alan’s Swamp Shack received an unwelcome, though not surprising, visitor Friday afternoon. Roughly 2 feet of rainwater flooded its Kemah patio and bathrooms just days before the restaurant was set to celebrate a decade in business.
It wasn’t the first flood for the business, and it likely won’t be the last. Owner Alan Franks said the restaurant has taken on rainwater two to four times a year for the past several years.
“It doesn’t do a lot of damage,” Franks said. “It just makes a huge mess and shuts us down. It always seems to happen around the weekend.”
Kemah was among the hardesthit areas as bad weather moved through the greater Houston region on Friday afternoon and evening, said National Weather Service meteorologist Dan Reilly. Localized, slow-moving storms dumped between 5 and 8 inches of water on Kemah, Seabrook, Pasadena, League City and Santa Fe.
“They were slow-moving storms,” Reilly said. “So where it did rain, it rained a lot.”
Those were followed by a line of storms early Saturday morning that hit a broader swath of Houston but moved quickly. It didn’t rain as much during these storms, though there was some gusty wind. An area east of Missouri City awoke to toppled trees and other Houston regions saw spotty wind damage. As of 2:30 p.m. Saturday, CenterPoint Energy reported more than 100,000 power outages in the greater Houston area during the previous 24 hours.
Walter Gant III, Kemah’s city administrator, said there was flooding in its main business district.
Crazy Alan’s Swamp Shack joins other restaurants that have opened and taken precautions against the coronavirus by seating guests at 25 percent capacity.
“With all the things that have been going on with the coronavirus and everything else,” Franks said, “it’s just like, ‘What’s next?’”