Hurricane Harvey
- Thread starter DFSNOLE
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Saw an interview with a State Guard helicopter rescue guy last night. He said one of their problems was all the drones flying around and getting in the way of rescues.
There was also a bad on in June of 2016 that is currently the worst one on record. This will surely surpass that
My cousin's house. He lives on a creek and his boat dock, boat and shed are under water. Wife and son were evacuated via boat. He and the dogs are held up on the 2nd floor.
Should just shoot them down.
I'm surprised he still has electricity.My cousin's house. He lives on a creek and his boat dock, boat and shed are under water. Wife and son were evacuated via boat. He and the dogs are held up on the 2nd floor.
Nonsense! Things are good. Just normal storms, and nothing new to see here. /sarcasm
The first pic was just before he waded in and killed the power (2X4 to the breaker box). He's holding out with some power-packs for his cell phone.
Shouldn't his boat float?My cousin's house. He lives on a creek and his boat dock, boat and shed are under water. Wife and son were evacuated via boat. He and the dogs are held up on the 2nd floor.
Technically, yes, but it was tied in under the dock...I think everything came in so fast it just filled up.
Hmm, it's almost as if unplanned cities like Houston don't have appropriate...err...plans in place to deal with disasters. I'm putting on my shocked face now.
He bashed in the breaker box with a 2x4? What's the rationale for that? Why wouldn't he want to keep power on for as long as possible?
Honestly not sure what Houston could have done (much) differently. The thing morphed from a tropical storm into a Cat-4 very quickly, and 48" of rain is 48" of rain. Not sure what plan would have prevented the flooding.
The issue is, the last time Houston evacuated it lost more people stuck in traffic than to the darn natural disaster. There were road brawls, a bus fire, heat stroke, etc.
"You literally cannot put 6.5 million people on the road," --Houston Officials.
It was a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. All these cars would be under water:
No, he used the wood beam to turn off power at the breaker to the house. He waited until the water was about 2" from breaching the house. The back yard was already under about 12' of water. No need to get electrocuted.
Ahh, okay. I misunderstood "2x4 to the breaker box". I thought that seemed like a permanent fix to a temporary problem.
Hopefully he's got enough battery chargers to keep his phone going for a while. I couldn't imagine being stranded for days like that.
The issue is, the last time Houston evacuated it lost more people stuck in traffic than to the darn natural disaster. There were road brawls, a bus fire, heat stroke, etc.
"You literally cannot put 6.5 million people on the road," --Houston Officials.
It was a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. All these cars would be under water:
Not my words but I liked them so I stole them from Fark.
"Prepare? For a potential disaster? But that costs money. We can't be spending money on frivolous things like disaster preparedness or training for people in the event of one. I mean we need to lower our spending for tax breaks for the rich- oh cool. A new sports arena!"
But honestly, things like building codes, proper wetland protection and maintenance, requiring flood insurance in low areas, proper disaster plans and training, proper shelters, etc...all require spending beforehand. Now all of these bootstrappy Houstonians who want everyone to just pull themselves up will be begging for handouts left and right because they didn't prepare.
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What large city does? Doing the best they can under extraordinary circumstances. I say give the city a chance.
Well I just read a story about how a shelter was set up with literally no one in charge so some Millenial had to look up from his phone to volunteer to run it with no training or experience. And somehow that's being hailed as a story of how great Texas is instead of what it really is...a miserable failure of leadership.
https://www.usnews.com/news/top-new...e-hero-takes-over-chaotic-texas-storm-shelter
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This is a short synopsis from a Canadian source.
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/op...utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark&service=mobile
The TLDR version of this already short article was 1) while Florida had a score of 95 out of a 100 on its buildings being up to withstanding flooding and hurricanes because code enforcement is not mandatory in Texas it scored a 12 out of a 100. 2) Houston ate up all of its wetlands to toss up more housing and businesses so there's little natural sponge and drainage for this flood. 3) Because the wetlands were destroyed, a hurricane dike was strongly suggested back in 2009 which has not been acted on other than a couple of studies. In 8 years that could have been built and saved millions if not billions of dollars.
https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/op...utm_content=link&ICID=ref_fark&service=mobile
The TLDR version of this already short article was 1) while Florida had a score of 95 out of a 100 on its buildings being up to withstanding flooding and hurricanes because code enforcement is not mandatory in Texas it scored a 12 out of a 100. 2) Houston ate up all of its wetlands to toss up more housing and businesses so there's little natural sponge and drainage for this flood. 3) Because the wetlands were destroyed, a hurricane dike was strongly suggested back in 2009 which has not been acted on other than a couple of studies. In 8 years that could have been built and saved millions if not billions of dollars.
I would submit that needs an entire thread on its own. We have seen multiple times that a city is stretched too thin fiscally, and when it comes time to invest in disaster preparedness, it is low priority. Until it occurs. NY flooding. NO flooding. Houston flooding. Miami flooding.
Yeah, this has never happened in the past...
Oh wait... The 1900 Hurricane that hit Texas and killed thousands. The storms are the same. The difference is in 1900 Houston wasn't built up and dealt fine with the rain. Now Houston is an urban sprawl dumpster fire and floods, not because nature has changed, because people have changed the landscape and not planned properly. Galveston was pummeled by this same storm and since they learned from their mistakes they have faired ok. Houston is not really a coastal city, it's about 50 miles in from Galveston... If they had pre planned the infrastructure then this would have been a non issue.
Orlando for example is similar in distance from the coast as Houston (not including the bay) and we don't hear about Orlando getting completely destroyed when a Hurricane hits.
Have a fair amount of experience in disaster planning, etc. The planning is on/at the city, county, town or whatever and the support for the plan is on the state/federal government. The federal government does not plan for disasters in cities; they couldn't possibly do that, their man function is to come in and provide resources and funding. Essentially FEMA or the governor etc. ask the town manager/mayor ok what do you need and where. This is what made me so mad about Katrina; the media beat the crap out of the feds and NO had no plan whatsoever. There are also layers of declaring an area a disaster zone. When we got hit last year our town and government were declared disaster zones; but not the people or individual property owners', that took an additional couple of days. While there are things that towns, cities, and states can do the vast majority of the help comes form the federal government. They have the resources and money to handle that; states don't and in many cases the states main support is the National Guard; which is often a victim of the disaster as well.
I have the news on today, this girl is saying their house has been hit now a third time by a major storm. To me this screams of utter lack of preparedness at the individual level. Storm coming but you didn't even pack an emergency check out bag? She had to leave with no shoes....... come on. Pack a bag of essentials the day/night before.
I am not talking about children. Or seniors in homes. Or disabled. But adults who simply seem to be born without any ability to create and execute an emergency plan for themselves.
I am not talking about children. Or seniors in homes. Or disabled. But adults who simply seem to be born without any ability to create and execute an emergency plan for themselves.
I watched the Army Corps of Engineers press conference this morning about the Barker and Addicks reservoirs. They are filling up so fast (3-4 feet a hour) and they are forced to open the dam into Buffalo Bayou (which is already at the highest stage anyone can remember) so that the people on the other side of the reservoir don't get flooded out due to the water overwhelming the levee on the back side (which it is going to do anyway).
The were designed to handle a 1000 year flood event (that's a .1% chance of happening in any given year) and they were saying this would exceed that. From an engineering standpoint it would be irresponsible to build anything within a .1% failure rate.
Houston certainly has drainage problems, no doubt, but with the recent urban development of downtown and its resurgence more and more people are moving into flood potential problem areas.
To blame a once in 10 generation's lifetime event on improper planning is a bit harsh IMO. Florida was rocked by Andrew and alot of things changed after that storm. Building codes were strengthened policies were changed. But South Florida was devastated.
I have seen very little building code issues anyways... its almost entirely flooding. No amount of code is going to fix that.
Its like blaming FSU if a meteor hit Doak Campbell and it got destroyed.
The were designed to handle a 1000 year flood event (that's a .1% chance of happening in any given year) and they were saying this would exceed that. From an engineering standpoint it would be irresponsible to build anything within a .1% failure rate.
Houston certainly has drainage problems, no doubt, but with the recent urban development of downtown and its resurgence more and more people are moving into flood potential problem areas.
To blame a once in 10 generation's lifetime event on improper planning is a bit harsh IMO. Florida was rocked by Andrew and alot of things changed after that storm. Building codes were strengthened policies were changed. But South Florida was devastated.
I have seen very little building code issues anyways... its almost entirely flooding. No amount of code is going to fix that.
Its like blaming FSU if a meteor hit Doak Campbell and it got destroyed.
Someone suggested phased evacuations to avoid everyone on the road at once. Apparently that has been tried elsewhere with some success. Wasn't in an area with the population of Houston though.
Weather experts were talking for a couple of days before the storm hit land that Houston would experience a significant rain event estimating 3 feet of rain. If it was me, we would have headed elsewhere right then.
I am MUCH more critical of how the A.C.E. runs these reservoirs and dams around the country. There are built under the guise and belief that they are solely for flood controls. But then people start building around the reservoirs and lakes (rich people at that) and suddenly the decision making process gets changed as to not let the water get too low as the affect the sportsmanship aspects of the lake in lieu of true flood control.
Look no further than how the Corps handled the Missouri River in 2011 at the Gavins Point Dam (which makes Lewis and Clark Lake) and how they kept the water high so the tourists would have a nice lake to boat, ski and jet-ski in and the cost of causing the flood that nearly ruined Omaha.
Look no further than how the Corps handled the Missouri River in 2011 at the Gavins Point Dam (which makes Lewis and Clark Lake) and how they kept the water high so the tourists would have a nice lake to boat, ski and jet-ski in and the cost of causing the flood that nearly ruined Omaha.
Got the below from the FSU Alumni Assoc. Figured for non members, it would be good to know. Going to try and make a run in the next day or so.
Noles near Tallahassee - our fellow Seminole families in Houston need your help!
The Houston Seminole Chapter is currently collecting donations for Seminole families that have been displaced by Hurricane Harvey. If you would like to donate FSU gear, clothes, toiletries or non-perishable foods, please drop them off at the FSU Alumni Center at 1030 West Tennessee Street, Tallahassee, FL, 32304. We are accepting donations until Thursday, Aug. 31, at 5 p.m., and will be sending all donated items to the Houston Seminole Chapter on Friday.
The American Red Cross is on the ground and providing assistance to all families affected by Hurricane Harvey. Visit the American Red Cross for information about making a cash donation to the Harvey relief fund.
Noles near Tallahassee - our fellow Seminole families in Houston need your help!
The Houston Seminole Chapter is currently collecting donations for Seminole families that have been displaced by Hurricane Harvey. If you would like to donate FSU gear, clothes, toiletries or non-perishable foods, please drop them off at the FSU Alumni Center at 1030 West Tennessee Street, Tallahassee, FL, 32304. We are accepting donations until Thursday, Aug. 31, at 5 p.m., and will be sending all donated items to the Houston Seminole Chapter on Friday.
The American Red Cross is on the ground and providing assistance to all families affected by Hurricane Harvey. Visit the American Red Cross for information about making a cash donation to the Harvey relief fund.
I have a sense the actual 'bootstrappy Houstonians' will start cleaning up as soon as the rain quits. The ones begging for handouts tend to be the same ones mad that someone else didn't have a plan for them...
Btw, I am going to clean my entire house out of canned and dry foods to send to Houston thanks to Runka's link. Unfortunately my wife and I quite literally and without exaggeration dropped off ten to twelve bags of clothes at Goodwill last week so we don't really have clothes for them. But consider me complex. I can enjoy the schadenfreude of the heartless "bootstrappy" Houstonites getting their comeuppance at the same time I contribute to help out.
Thank you for your support and help. I'm a part of the HASC Board and we held an emergency meeting via Facebook message yesterday to try and get things rolling. We're directing all of our funds to clothing and necessity items for our local members that suffered loss. It looks like we have a couple of members in our group that will suffer great losses or lose everything. It really puts things in life in perspective quickly.
That's by design, since Houston is the only major city in the US who has no zoning laws in place. It never has.
Not to make it political but he's a public example so I'll try to keep out the politics of it. But good ole Ted Cruz voted against Hurricane Sandy aid to New York and held up Hurricane Katrina funding to New Orleans until other spending cuts were made to "offset" the aid, and guess what? He's got his hand stretched out for federal aid for Texas. That's nice and bootstrappy of him. I saw 20 other Texas politicians who voted against past hurricane aid now begging for it as well.
Oh and my extended family isn't immune either. I've got some distant relatives and inlaws in the area on my Facebook feed who I distinctly remember being more than a little condescending towards people from Mississippi, Louisiana and New York and posting "hilarious" memes of black people walking through hip deep water to bring back food all of whom are now desperately begging for help. Funny how that works out.
You failed at trying. And I'm tired of your politics slipping in, albeit in clumsily amateurish attempts.
No amount of city planning would have stopped the massive flooding we received. If the amount of rain that has fallen on us fell on any other city, there would be the same amount of damage. You cannot plan, design a build a major city based on the chances of a 1,000 year rain storm. This is just mother nature reminding us of who is in charge.
It's funnier when you see the picture instead of hear about it third hand:
It's really the one in his back pocket that's seals it for me.
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