The Bayou - click to enlarge

“When the Allen brothers founded Houston in 1836, they established the town at the confluence of Buffalo and White Oak Bayous. Shortly thereafter, every structure in the new settlement flooded”.

These waterways perform an important role in flooding control. With natural streams and man-made systems, Harris County now has about 2,500 miles of channels, significantly higher than the 800 miles of natural channels that originally existed in the county, but that’s not enough; the amount of rainfall than affects the area is more than the channel systems can handle. Harris County suffered through 16 major floods from 1836 to 1936, some of which crested at more than 40 feet, turning downtown Houston streets into raging rivers. However, after the 1940’s, the Harris County area did not suffer what would be considered a widespread, regional flood, that is, until June 2001. Tropical Storm Allison suddenly formed 80 miles off the coast of Galveston, Texas, on Tuesday, June 5, 2001, no one expected that, five days later, it would go on record as one of the most devastating rain events in the history of the United States. When the rains finally eased, Allison had left Harris County, Texas, with 22 fatalities, 95,000 damaged automobiles and trucks, 73,000 damaged residences, 30,000 stranded residents in shelters, and over $5 billion in property damage in its wake. Allison was the costliest tropical storm in the history of the United States. My cousin lost his house, his family was “rescued” on a boat.

Bayous, creeks and channels are part of Houston’s local landscape. We are surrounded by them. We are a part of them. They are home to a vast amount of animal and plant life. Children play around them and fathers teach their sons to fish. I’ve caught several snakes and I’ve seen beautiful birds.

Pictured here is a branch of the White Oak Bayou, one of Houston’s main bayous. When I took this shot there was some kind of crane a few steps away from me.
You can also see a kid fishing on the left, under the bridge.
I pass by this spot every day and always wanted to stop the car and take a few shots.
Today I finally did that.

I submitted this story to JPG Magazine hoping that maybe one day they publish something I do. No luck yet.

More Pics:

Bridge 1 - click to enlarge

Bridge 2 - click to enlarge

Bridge 3 - click to enlarge

The Bayou City Place - click to enlarge

Looking North – click image to enlarge

Brazos Bend State Park.

Home to the American Alligator among thousands of other species.
Looking North from the observation tower

If you like it make it a favorite here.

The story under this image:

A few months ago my brother Agustin and I went hiking to Brazos Bend State Park for the first time.

It’s a vast area full of wildlife. Incredible variety of birds, snakes, deers, alligators, etc.
I brought my camera gear. It was heavy. It was a mid-summer afternoon , really hot in Southeast Texas. We looked all over the swamps for alligators and finally gave up.
Before dusk we met a nice old couple who lived in the area and were frequent visitors, and they both had semi-pro photo gear too.
I asked: why there’s no alligators? They looked at me funny and they said “- what do you mean…? there’s one right there…!”, and he pointed at the swamp a few feet away from us to what I thought it was a log. Then we started seeing more “logs”…we realized that the alligators had been there all the time, we were so imbeciles to not notice them.

I pulled out my camera and started shooting like crazy. Then I passed my brother the off-camera flash and before we knew it was dark. Pitch black dark. We couldn’t see our hands even if we put them right in front of our faces.
Agustin said “-it’s 9:00 and the park closes the gates at 10:00…! We were more than an hour away so we  pulled out our flashlights and started jogging our way back. By the left of the road we had the main swamp and when we pointed the flashlights towards it there were hundreds of pairs of eyes blinking. We made sure we stayed on the road away from the swamp. We made it just in time.

Some more pics:

The swamp - click on image to enlarge

American Alligator at dusk - Click to enlarge

Alligator at night - click to enlarge

Alligator ready to strike - click to enlarge

Little Blue Heron - click to enlarge

I think this is a Little Blue Heron but I might be wrong. Experts please feel free to comment and correct me.

Water Lily - Click on image to enlarge

Water Lily at dusk - click image to enlarge

Acuatic plants - click to enlarge

More images coming in Post #2…