r/corpus

Expectations of a powerful "super El Niño" event this year suggest that intensely wet weather could return to the Coastal Bend of Texas this fall. The record-breaking Texas drought of 2011-2014 ended with the onset of El Niño. Then 2015 became Texas’ wettest year on record. On Memorial Day weekend in 2015, catastrophic flooding tore through the Texas Hill Country and the town of Wimberley. 

Successive years saw disastrous flooding across Texas, including in Houston in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

“Every one of those years we had devastating flooding,” said Greg Waller, an operational hydrologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Fort Worth. However, he cautioned, “no two events are exactly alike,” and past weather patterns offer no guarantees for the future. 

And that period did not refill Corpus Christi’s reservoirs entirely. Choke Canyon hasn’t been full since 2008. Not even super El Niño is guaranteed to solve Corpus Christi’s water problem. 

“I think it will help,” said Pat Fitzpatrick, atmospheric sciences program coordinator at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. “I don’t know if we will get out of the drought that easily.”

Corpus Christi needs the groundwater beneath the small town of Sinton so urgently that it’s already laying pipeline, even before it has the permits to start drilling for water.

Sinton, with 5,500 residents about half an hour north, is fighting those permits in court, citing concerns for its own water supply. But leaders in Corpus Christi, which supplies water to half a million people, now suggest an ulterior motive: Sinton wants a thirsty, new complex of data centers.

Officials and executives in Corpus Christi point to recent land deals, well permits and a rezoning ordinance as evidence for the data center plans. Officials in Sinton neither confirm nor deny Corpus Christi’s supposition.

“It is rumors,” said John Hobson, Sinton’s city manager, declining to say whether or not it is true.

Everyone involved in the deal probably signed non-disclosure agreements, said Greg Ellis, an attorney for the San Patricio Groundwater Conservation District, which is based in Sinton and issued the drilling permits in dispute.

“Seems like it’s gotten out anyway,” he said. “I find the rumor very believable.”

This is a long shot but i’ve searched everywhere with no luck!

Does anyone have a video in maybe 2012-2015 of a rap battle at cunningham middle school (the old building) It was during the Hmmm trend. It’s a group of kids and a girl that yells ayyyyy it went viral locally and one of those kids in the video is my friend and we want to find it!

They want us to just let them destroy us.

Hello,

Seeking advice - My sister has been offered a 3 month job placement at an doctor's office in Corpus Christi starting in early June. We know nothing about the area but have family in Houston a few hours away.

How is living there, especially in summer? Is it safe? Are there things to do? General advice welcome on areas to live. Thank you.

I’ve been scrounging EVERY MENU looking for molé 😭

As Texans that vote against our own interests and as coastal benders that have allowed ourselves to become bystanders in our own towns, we really need to take this lesson in and quit avoiding American history out of fear of feeling the guilt our ancestors should have felt. It's time to organize. I know Coastal Bend Indivisible and the DSA are doing their part and I know there are other non profits and community-based organizing going on, but can anyone give shout outs to what they do within corpus to give the rest of us hope and ideas on how to help our people, our village, and get these greedy money hungry mother f$#_ers replaced with someone that likes the job, not the paycheck?

I just typed up this comment to another post, but felt it deserved to be stand alone. Can anyone shed some light on this order?

Because I feel as if the water shortage is a manufactured crisis.

City of Corpus Christi has agreed to dump a large percent of the water retained per year out of the reservoirs regardless of inflow until reaching water restrictions, per ADJ 21-2464; 21-3214 and 2001 Agreed Order. Keep in mind that the reservoir system has about 900,000 acre feet capacity if I recall correctly. Dumping 151,000 acre feet/year is about 15%, draining 45% in only 3 years.

There are nuances to the agreement, but:

• "The City of Corpus Christi, as operator of the Choke Canyon/ Lake Corpus Christi reservoirs (the "Reservoir System"), shall provide not less than 151,000 acre feet of water per annum (per Calendar year) for the estuaries by a combination of releases and spills from the Reservoir System at Lake Corpus Christi Dam . . . "

then

• " When water impounded in the Reservoir System is less than 70 percent but greater than or equal to 40 percent of storage capacity, a targeted amount of 97,000 acre-feet is to be delivered to Nueces Bay andlor the Nueces Delta by a combination of releases and spills from the Reservoir System. . ."

Want to sell my 4/3 house in Portland and just don’t want to deal with a realtor or the market tbh