Over at my house we’re managing well (at least so far) during the deluge but I will admit that the relentless rain is starting to wear on me a little. There is, of course, nothing new under the sun and it does make me feel a bit better to think about that. In that spirit, let’s return to the Rice-Texas dual track meet in the spring of 1922, held in a driving rain that led to a massive campus flood:
The mess made enough of an impression that our friend Jack Glenn memorialized it in a full page cartoon in the Campanile:
We have some pictures of the results of this rain storm and they are sobering. In that second one you can see Harris Gully in full flood:
Bonus: A loyal reader sends this image from yesterday. Unlike 1922 this drained off quickly. A hundred years of flood mitigation efforts have paid off.
Extra bonus: From the same reader, Rice Village.
That last one is very much like 15 June 1976.
As I waded to campus from the back parking lot of the Rice Food Market, I saw the wakes of trucks breaking the display windows of the stores on Rice Boulevard.
The drivers didn’t realize or didn’t care that it was a no-wake zone.
In the 1922 pictures of the residence halls with Harris Gully, are those buildings West Hall (now Hanszen old section) and North Hall (now Baker old section)?
In the first 1922 photo, that’s West Hall (Hanszen old section.) In the second 1922 photo, that’s South Hall (Will Rice old section) on the left, and West Hall on the right.