Tropical Storm Bill 2015

Those of us who experienced Tropical Storm Bill are thankful that it wasn't an intense storm.  Yes we've had rain and wind, and even some storm surge, but along the Texas coast it wasn't that bad on Tuesday. Ironically the day after started out with more severe weather... heavier, steadier rain and wind, and I imagine we'll see more flooding with Bill's trailing bands and training storms from the Gulf.

The kids & I took a quick trip down to Galveston Island to check out the beach and the incoming storm (not what you are supposed to do, but we were responsible about it).  We knew this wasn't a life threatening storm and we were going to the state park beach area.  Call it an educational trip - a study in physical geography.

Red flags were flying along the entire Galveston Island coastline.  We weren't planning to swim - just sight-see.

Tides were higher and there was a bit of storm surge;  much of the beach area was covered in water.

A few people were out - fishing or playing in the surf.  The water was really warm and the incoming dark clouds were definitely filled with rain.

The gulls were spending more time on the ground - not wanting to fight the constant wind.  This is usually a sandy beach path that turned into a rather deep pool in some areas.

Along the seawall, the tide/surge had completely covered up the small beach area.  We stayed on top of the seawall - not a time to venture out onto those rocks/jetties.

On the way home, we stopped at the store for a few (real) food items - not storm supplies.  There obviously had been some panic buying going on in the bread aisle.  The news stations had been covering the storm for 24 hours and although we appreciate their urgency to be prepared - it panicked a few people.

The next day - voila - more bread appeared and there weren't many people in the store.  The rain day turned out to be a decent day (we did get intermittent showers), and the heavier rains came the next day.

I'm sure this storm will cause flooding in other areas as it moves through Texas and other states dropping heavy rains onto already saturated ground (goodbye drought).  But everyone along the coast is back at work and life resumes -- so we go about our business -- in the rain (which was a day late to the party).

My originally planned post about our trip to San Antonio will come later. I wanted to share a few images from Tropical Storm Bill.

For those interested:
lens:  Nikon 16-85 f3.5-5.6 (I use this lens often to walk around with)
last 2 images were taken with Galaxy S5 (& taken quickly)