Lubbock Got .78 Inches — And a Lot of Problems

Lubbock was pounded by a rain of biblical proportions last night — or at least more of us were.

It’s interesting that last Friday we had a 40% chance of rain...and nothing. Yesterday we had a 40% chance of rain, and we got soaked.

I guess Lubbock gets rain so infrequently that nobody is ever quite prepared for it. First off, you have to remember that the City of Lubbock’s flood plan is basically, “Let it run down the road into those lakes.” There might be a little more science to it than that, but not much. Making things worse, this was a lot of rain in a very short period of time.

Now, good people of Lubbock, you have to remember where you live. Lubbock has a worse reaction to water than the Wicked Witch of the West. The difference is, we don’t melt. We either pretend nothing is happening or completely freak out.

Here’s a spoiler alert: Do what you always do — just do it slower.

I reviewed LBK Scanner Squad this morning, and it was collision after collision. So what you or I might consider common sense apparently isn’t common sense to everyone.

The “official” amount from the National Weather Service was 0.78 inches at the airport — although, as always in Lubbock, your results may vary dramatically depending on where you were standing.

Lubbock Gets Drenched in a Hurry

Now think about this: much of that 0.78 inches fell in roughly an hour, give or take. If rain kept falling at that rate for 24 straight hours, we’d be looking at 18.72 inches of rain. At that point, we’d all need boats.

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So what’s the point of all this? Simple: Don’t lose your mind when it rains or snows in the Hub City. Both are excellent times to stay home if you can. If you can’t, slow down and keep an eye out for the people who haven’t figured out that wet roads dramatically increase driving hazards.