Dealing With Harvey

TigerBlog read the other day that more than nine trillion gallons of water had fallen on the greater Houston area as a result of Hurricane Harvey.

He can't remember ever reading about a storm in terms of the gallons of water that fell, so he's not sure where other major rainfalls end up, or even an average rain, like the one that fell in Princeton yesterday.

He did a search for it, and what it said was that one inch of rain that falls over one acre of land brings with it 27,154 gallons of water. If you want to factor that out to nine trillion, it gives you a sense of what's going on down there.

And actually that was a few days ago. The rainfall has pretty much doubled since then.

The pictures from the flooding there have been horrific. The stories of the loss of life have been even more tragic. The pictures of the rescue efforts, on the other hand, have been nothing short of heroic.

There have been shots of parks or roads before the rain and since it started, and they hardly look like the same place. TigerBlog has experienced flooding around here at various times, but nothing remotely close to what's going on down there now.

TigerBlog reachd out to Scott Jurgens and Mary Gleason the other day, to see how they were doing. Scott used to be the marketing director here at Princeton and, after stops at East Carolina and Montana State, now has the same position at Rice, in Houston. Mary is a former Princeton women's basketball assistant coach, who would become the head coach at Houston Baptist and now is a high school coach in the area.

TigerBlog has never been on a motorcycle. The closest he's come is one of those Vespas, which Mary owned when she coached here, back when Richard Barron was the head coach. She took TB for a ride one day, and which led to this conversation between her and a panicked TigerBlog:

TB: "How fast is this thing going? 70? 80?"
Mary: "22."

As far as Scott and transportation when he was here, he went with a blue car that, as TB recalls, was missing a door or something. Maybe not a door, but it was pretty beaten up.

Both Scott and Mary have been lucky, since they've been pretty removed from the major flooding. Mary's brother Joe works for a TV station down there as a sports producer, and he did a live remote from his flooded house on television that enabled him and his family to be rescued.

You can read about that HERE.

As for Scott, he and his dog Barnaby are also safe. He's actually been able to get out and around a little, getting to work. And has taken pictures of flooded areas. Scott. Not Barnaby.

It's hard for TigerBlog to believe that there is a dog anywhere who's ever been photographed more than Barnaby has, ever since Scott got him as a rescue while he was still at Princeton. Pretty much every day there's another picture on Scott's Twitter of the dog. TB is pretty sure he's seen Barnaby actually roll his eyes at the idea of getting another picture taken.

Scott and Mary were Jadwin Gym regulars for awhile, though they didn't overlap. Mary left just before Scott arrived back in 2007, and then Scott left in 2011.

Mary is the all-time leader in three-pointers made at SMU, so she was a high draft pick in lunchtime basketball when she played. Scott? He, well, he has a heart of gold, a really strong work ethic and a great sense of humor. TB can't remember ever seeing him shoot a basketball, though he assume he isn't very good at it.

TigerBlog is glad they're doing well down there. Hopefully the waters recede, and the long process of cleaning up and getting life back to normal there can get underway.

And it was nice to check with both of them. TigerBlog mentioned that Richard Barron, the head coach when Mary was an assistant, had stopped by a few days ago, and Mary mentioned the health problems that he's had, and how his wife, former Princeton softball player and then coach Maureen is a saint. That was obvious.

TigerBlog hasn't really talked to Mary much through the years. He's tried to stay more in touch with Scott, who will text every now and then and ask TigerBlog how it's going, always calling him "my friend."

TB is happy for Scott that he's at a place like Rice. He just hopes the weather gets better there soon.

As he says, it was nice to hear from them.

Hopefully, next time it won't be to check and see if they're in the heart of an epic, and very much life threatening, flood.