If you have information regarding the whereabouts of the cheery orange digging machine spotted yesterday morning dipping its tracks into a brimming Brays Bayou, a concerned reader would like to hear it — the shot above is his last sighting of the machine, taken from the Main St. bridge. “When I looked today, it was gone. Any idea what happened to it?” 24 hours, of course, is plenty of time for someone to have taken the excavator somewhere warm to dry off, so no reason to assume anything particularly unfortunate transpired; the photo was taken around 8:30, a little over an hour after the water had begun to recede from its early morning crest, according to the Harris County Flood Control gauge readings at the Main St. bridge:
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Here’s a view of the rest of the scene — part of the ongoing Project Brays construction:
- Previously on Swamplot: Tracking The Newest Concrete Tracks Along Brays Bayou
Images: Bryan Holub (photo); Harris County Flood Warning System (graph of Main St. gage readings)
It’s starting to look like the Swampy nominations will be full by the end of this month.
As a frequent user of that Main Street bridge, I’m amazed that it has taken so long to get to deepening/widening the Brays Bayou channel at that point. That is a major arterial into/out of the TMC (Texas Medical Center) so having it swamped by floodwaters would be bad for patients and staff.
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An irony is that the slightly west Stella Link crossing has a top-of-bank depth of 48 feet. Main is at 41 feet. But, Stella Link carries much less traffic.
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Back on topic, I hope Big Orange made it safer to higher ground. That would be a pain to fish out of the bayou.