Lord willing and the creeks don't rise.

I have heard geographers say no other place in the world has flash flooding like the Central Texas Hill Country. No other area has the combination climate, terrain and soil like here. The Gulf provides the moisture. The high plains provides the flat smooth runway that speeds the fronts to us. The rocky hills react to the falling rain more like duck feathers than sponges no matter how dry the land may be. When the warm, wet, Gulf air collides with the cold, speeding Canadian fronts, the battle over these hills becomes loud, bright and deadly.

Most folks think of floods in terms of gradually rising water. The rains fall and the river begins to creep up the banks, out of the banks and into the fields surrounding. Not so our Hill Country flooding. The rains fall in torrents. Within minutes, the creeks begin to fill as water runs off the cedar trees and rocks into the draws and down into the creeks. In a matter of minutes the creeks are raging, filling the pecan bottoms to the first limbs of the tall trees, uprooting the sycamores and scouring the banks of ferns and trumpet vines.

Now often someone who is in a big hurry or is new to the area will try to cross the creeks where the low bridges are built on the road. Around here they call them low water crossings for that is exactly what they are, a place to cross when the water is low. When the water is up, you go around or you have a cup of coffee at a neighbor until the water comes down.

The impatient native or newcomer tries to take a run for it or thinks that new pickup is high enough to make the crossing. What they don't realize is the water is rising sometimes at a rate of four to six inches a minute. Even as you try to cross the creek, the water is coming up higher and faster. Sometimes the water may not be up to the bottom of the pickup, but it is running so fast, the wheels lose traction and off the bridge you go. If the driver is very lucky, the drop off the bridge will be a short one and the vehicle will hang up on a rock or a tree. If the water is not too deep, the driver will be able to get out and wait until the water goes down. Then comes the embarrassment of getting the tow truck to pull the battered car or truck out of the creek.

If the driver is not lucky, the sheriff's deputies will have to ride the creek banks with the body bags hoping they find what's left before it gets too warm. Gross, but true. Every year we have at least one fatality from someone who tried to make it across the creek when the water is up. The sheriff's department has better things to do with their time and our tax money than find impatient fools who didn't respect the water.

Watch the flood gauges and don't get impatient. One of the blessings of our floods is their shortness. They come up fast and go down fast. That few extra minutes won't matter if they have to pick you up water logged and put you in a black rubber bag.

Some times the rain comes gently like now in the fall. That gives its own tales of mud and washed out roads but that's another story.