Rain retrospective

So hey, did you hear about the rain yesterday? If the rain and thunder overnight didn't wake you up and you had electricity while you were getting ready for work, surely you got caught in the morning rush hour from hell. It was all the fault of a warm front that moved ashore from the Gulf, resulting in more than 10 inches of rain in some parts of town — and that left us with plenty of news stories.

On the west side, a mom and her teenage daughters were rescued from their SUV after they tried to drive down a flooded street. "Other cars were going through it," Carlye Endicott, one of the rescued women, told KHOU. "We thought we could, but ... " But apparently not. At least they were saved, though; four motorists killed in high water weren't so lucky. Among them were Patricia Gutierrez and her daughter, Melissa Rojas, who died when they drove into a flooded underpass along the Gulf Freeway early Monday. The underpass — at Tellepsen Street — was so flooded that no one realized Gutierrez's SUV was there until the water began to go down around 9 a.m. Police believe the women drove into the water in the dark, not realizing it was so high, and then drowned trying to get out of the vehicle.

Elsewhere in the area, flights were delayed at both airports well into the evening Monday, around 30,000 homes lost power and some properties were flooded, especially along Clear Creek. And at the former Plaza Hotel on Montrose Boulevard, a three-and-a-half story portion of a parking garage wall collapsed in high winds; no one was injured, but some windows were blown out next door at 5000 Montrose.

The good news: There's only a 20 percent chance of rain today, after we make it through the heavy fog. The next good chance for showers will come Thursday morning, when a cool front moves through — but it shouldn't be near what we had yesterday.