(or maybe five or six)
Reference Points:
June 2001 (June 5-June 10 – TX weather event) Tropical Storm Allison
The storm dropped heavy rainfall along its path, peaking at over 40 inches (1,000 mm) in Texas. The worst flooding occurred in Houston, where most of Allison’s damage occurred: 30,000 became homeless after the storm flooded over 70,000 houses and destroyed 2,744 homes. Downtown Houston was inundated with flooding, causing severe damage to hospitals and businesses. Twenty-three people died in Texas. Along its entire path, Allison caused $9 billion (2001 USD) in damage and 41 deaths. Aside from Texas, the places worst hit were Louisiana and southeastern Pennsylvania.
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…Houston experienced torrential rainfall in a short amount of time. The six-day rainfall in Houston amounted to 38.6 inches (980 mm)
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[Note: George W Bush signed his 2001 tax giveaway on June 7, 2001. Didn’t stall that federal emergency funds to Texas.]
Texas flood damage could top $3 billion for 2015 Houston Memorial Day weekend and other areas later in the season.
A Week-Long Siege of Heavy Rain Triggers Flash Flooding in Texas in May, June 2016
Houston (24.84 inches) has also seen their second wettest spring on record. Houston’s two wettest springs have now been in consecutive years (26.61 inches at Bush Intercontinental Airport in 2015).
A Primer on Houston Metro flood risks and what has been and is being (not) done about it:
Propublica/The Texas Tribune – December 7, 2016 Boomtown, Flood Town This is part of a series on Houston’s flood risk. Read about why Texas isn’t ready for the next big hurricane.
Too soon to tell if Fort Bend County, cited as more responsible in the Propublica report, is doing better than Houston and Harris County in the 2017 “500 year flood.” Fort Bend County – OEM
Note: those “500 year floods” in the Houston metro area are getting closer to being “5 year floods.”
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And the Army Corps of Engineers, which regulates development in coastal wetlands, only has about 10 people in charge of making sure the rules are followed for all of Texas and Louisiana.“Our budget is fixed by Congress, and it’s been flatlined for three or five years,” said Kimberly Baggette, chief of the regulatory division at the Army Corps’ Galveston District. (Whether that will change under the new president remains to be seen.)
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Wasn’t that budget on Trump’s chopping block?
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Aside from the distant reservoir plans, it remains unclear whether many Houstonians realize that nothing is being done to address floods like the one that happened on Tax Day. Democratic Congressman Al Green said he was counting on his colleagues in the U.S. House of Representatives to fund some key bayou-widening projects in the coming months — though he understands they only aim to protect against much smaller events.“I’m going to maintain a level of optimism,” he said. “We should not have another catastrophic event and then bemoan the fact that we didn’t do what we could have and should have done, so that’s an argument that I make.”
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Well, here it is, another “catastrophic event.” Optimism — or hope — isn’t a plan.
Post-“catastrophic events” costs aren’t cheaper than proper zoning/building restrictions and infrastructure planning and construction. They do, however, have two major advantages over responsible government actions. First the costs get dispersed with those individuals directly impacted bearing a larger share and insurance picks up a share of those costs as well. It’s like Gov Abbot calling in only 3,000 National Guard members for relief work (subsequently raised to 4,000 and today, Monday increased to 12,000) (that was 3,000 out of a population of near 28 million) and relying on local (and not so local) volunteers (free labor) to take on the task of rescuing people. Second, federal and state disaster relief money is much easier to get than all the money required to do the job right in the first place. The downside is that little of the disaster relief monies makes its way back to correcting what was wrong in the first place.
However, the larger impediment to “doing it right” is the corporate and individual mindset in TX. The “keep government out of my business” and “don’t tax me, bro” mentality with a heaping dose of anti-science thrown into the pot. A majority of Texans and the people they vote into public office never seem to stop screaming no help for irresponsible people while being some of the most deeply irresponsible people themselves.
(Much more to discuss about the unfolding and management of this “catastrophic event.” I’ll add a couple as a comment even though they aren’t responsive to the topic of this diary.)
Scientific American – Hurricane Harvey: Why Is It So Extreme? How did the storm rapidly blow up from Category 1 to 4, why is it so stuck over Houston, how can it possibly produce so much rain? And more. Interview with Jeff Masters, co-founder Weather Underground.
(a short piece worth the few minutes to read)
Jeff Masters on Katrina – which STILL gets me mad:
https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/katrina-an-unnatural-disaster.html
In Houston the Real Estate developers were able to pave over the aquifers, or wetlands. I remember in Florida the first time somebody said wetland.
Folks a “wetland” is a swamp.
But swamps do things like soak up water. They are sponges. So when Houston paved them over, they were paving over the natural ecosystems spounge.
And so you get what is happening in Houston.
Thanks for adding Jeff Masters comment wrt Katrina. And after screwing up the advance planning, they couldn’t bother to scramble as people were drowning, locked into the LA Superdome without sanitation, food, and drink, and Mercy Hospital as a nightmare. News coverage in those days focused on a handful of looters and that always enrages the general public and the cops use it to become trigger happy.
If you haven’t read it, the Propublica/Texas Tribune article I linked to covers wetlands and R/E development in the Houston metro area in some depth. A case study in bad government and greedy developers.
btw — I started this to post as a comment to your last diary, but as it getting a bit long for a comment, went with a diary instead.
There is no plan to evacuate Houston as there was no plan. You can’t evacuate if you don’t have transportation and place to evacuate to. A plan to evacuate 1 million requires coordination between local, state, and the feds. Proof of no plan…first, we are still giving tax dollars to nursing homes whose only disaster plan is to abandon patients. Second, the voluntary evacuation of Corpus Christi, all lanes on the interstates were not switched to move cars out of the disaster area. Third, how much water rescue training has the TX national guard been given while we have been training the Afghan army to shoot straight.
A discussion of disaster emergency operations — both before and during — requires a sober and calm look at the facts. (This is one of those areas not covered in my diary that I was going to comment on.)
How would you go about evacuating over 6 million people in the Houston metro area within at best twenty-four hours advance notice? Harvey’s storm track wasn’t even stable. It could have veered northwest (a hope of many). That would have put more millions in need of evacuation.
Hurricane Rita — Mass evacuations in Texas began on September 21, 2005. It made landfall on September 24 in southwestern LA. Evacuation related deaths in TX: 107, including 23 nursing home evacuees. Those Dickenson, TX nursing home residents that you’re exercised about were all rescued. (Dickenson is in Galveston County; so, you can’t hang this one on Harris County/Houston officials and OEM.)
While I personally think that Houston Mayor Turner’s claim that the choice is limited to 1) evacuate or 2) ride it out omits in-between options. A good reason to evacuate those with significant mobility issues (and assuming decent accommodations are secured for them outside the evacuation zone, it that they seriously stretch the capacity of rescue operations. However that needs to be balanced with the risk of pre-event evacuations.
Trump presser:
(DT’s tweets and statements are more massaged that what comes out at his pressers.)
“Total bs” was my first response to this one. But DT doesn’t see the world like most people; so, reconsider. It’s known that Trump inflates his support base seems to assume that it’s all Trumpsters who hang on every little sound he emits. And in Trumpland, liberals are losers that close shop at 4:00 pm on Friday. Thus, the Trumpster audience for his Arpaio pardon announcement would have been yuuge if not for the distraction of an incoming large hurricane.
The Guardian Lurid Trump allegations made by Louise Mensch and co-writer came from hoaxer .
Others that have been feeding Taylor and Mensch bs (assuming those two weren’t merely making up their bs) were using them to push the bs. The hoaxer highlighted that the two will take anything from anywhere and anyone that fits within their desired narrative.
You write:
As will the most of rest of the media, of course.
The difference?
One of expertise.
The mass media is made up of pros.
People like Mensch?
Amateurs ripe for the picking by false news sources.
Or of course…pros , masquerading as amateurs.
And the beat goes on.
And on and on and on and on and on…
AG
The difference between a pro, a hack, and halfwit with a twitter feed is that pros have developed a nose that can smell a rat with at least 95% accuracy. Halfwits couldn’t smell anything if they were plodding through a toxic waste dump. Most journos are hacks but some do have better noses than others if the subject doesn’t contradict the way they want the world to be.
The one elected official that is currently being subjected to criticism for his pre-disaster decision not to order an evacuation is the mayor of Houston. Yet his decision was like that of other mayors and the governor. Racism?
Trump is using the disaster as a public relations opportunity for himself. Publicly blaring his every thought and deed. Many of those thoughts are his evaluation of how well he’s performing his job. IOW, he’s preempting the public and media critiques that normally follow in the days during and days and weeks after a disaster. Differences from GWB during Katrina: 1) he’s making sure through his tweets that the public knows that he’s engaged in monitoring and doing whatever it is that a POTUS can do; GWB appeared to slack off and disappear. 2) he’s supportive of Gov Abbot and his requests. GWB fought the LA governor and ignored the mayor of New Orleans, in part because they were Democrats but his team also had an agenda.
This is a continuation of how he and his opponents have been operating for over two years. Trump dominates the media coverage for whatever status he occupies at any time and his opponents struggle to get a word in or concede the turf to him. That blew up in his face wrt to Charlottesville, but that was unique for two reasons: 1) he was on the wrong side and 2) his target wasn’t an identifiable major politician or group.
Who is around to focus attention on the following:
and the related The US officially tells the UN it is quitting the Paris climate change deal from August 5, 2017.
GWB’s “Brownie” was only half his Katrina PR nightmare. The well regarded and more visible than normal Clinton FEMA Director James Witt was on top of it:
Latest example (sticks in my craw to use actual DT quotes but paraphrasing doesn’t make the point as clearly):
Trump – the MAGA cheerleader in chief (always obnoxious when a POTUS does that to assert his authority) and Melania flew all the way from DC to get a first hand look at h. Harvey devastation. As they didn’t tromp through any areas that are flooded or have been devastated, they may not have seen as much as GWB during his New Orleans flyover. (Not that Melania would have gotten very far in waterlogged and/or devastated area in her four inch heels — yes, that’s catty on my part, but more time, thought, energy, and money go into costuming Trumps for public appearances than what goes into real matters of public policy.
The Guardian – Houston dam begins to overspill as Harvey triggers unprecedented impact
Water management officials began releasing water from the Addicks and Barker dams yesterday. Apparently too little in the case of Addicks.
The nightmare scenario is always discounted. Such failures occur far less frequently in the US than 500 year floods.
Naomi Klein The Intercept, Harvey Didn’t Come Out Of The Blue. Now Is The Time To Talk About Climate Change.
It’s almost as though this could become an issue for an, um, opposition party!
For more than three years, the nominal opposition party invested everything in HER to succeed Obama, for the better part of a year, team HER invested in getting deplorable Donald nominated by the GOP, over the next six months team HER invested in painting Donald as deplorable but opted to label his supporters and not him as deplorables, and it’s been a Trump-Russia-Putin investment for the past ten months with a singular objective of toppling the deplorable one that is somehow supposed to magically restore HER to her rightful place.
Environmentalism has always been a tough sell — particularly by those so lacking in optimistic vision. It gets turned into austerity and/or shared sacrifice when the objective reality for most people is that there is nothing wrong with the way we are. The “fear card” is only effective within narrow time frames and if real changes aren’t implement within those short windows, the fear gets dumped into the Chicken Little bin.
Thanks for this useful retrospective M3, it’s so hard to remember weather facts over the decade.
Agree that Trump is clearly winning the PR battle, mostly because the “opposition” has voluntarily fled the field–hapless corporate MSM has no pushback whatever and can’t learn even the simple facts you detail. And of course the current state of the Mommy party thinks it beyond the pale to attempt to counter Trumper’s Tweets of Greatness and Fantasticity…don’t want to be accused of “playing politics” by rightwing Noise Machine!
Nice phrasing:
The Trumper’s Tweets of Greatness and Fantasticity is an inherent meme just waiting to be adopted by a mass number of people.
Ken Klippenstein:
So far no pictures of white people “rescuing” food and black people “looting” food as there were during the Katrina flooding in New Orleans. But journanamils are searching for POC “looters” to report to the public and LEOs.
Borrowed from b at MOA:
Newsweek: U.S. Military Battles Syrian Rebels Once Supported by CIA, Now Backed by TurkeyU.S. Military Battles Syrian Rebels Once Supported by CIA, Now Backed by Turkey
Oh, so now it’s acknowledged that the CIA has been actively engaged in supporting Syrian “rebels” and it’s not leftie CT. Guess we should be grateful that we didn’t have to wait decades for this reveal.
Pretty amazing:
Yes, we keep forgetting/overlooking the SLR factor. That’s a slightly longer-term variable than the elimination of land for heavy rainfall to migrate to.
Really good at getting suckers to cough up bucks to bask in “prosperity gospel,” but sucks as generic PR:
Yeah, the “church was always open,” but get your ass four miles down the road if you need shelter, and anyway our church is flooded, not that we mentioned that earlier.
Freaking charlatan.
Joel Olsteen’s net worth is $40 million and he and his family live in a $10.5 million mansion in the Houston suburbs. He has no formal degree in theology and attended Oral Roberts University for a short period of time. IMO this quote sums up Olsteen’s philosophy:
“Joel claims an individual should not feel guilt for possessing lots of material wealth. He instead believes that one needs to simply thank and praise God for the acquired wealth.”
https:/www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/joel-osteen-net-worth
Doesn’t that mean that he’s an excellent “prosperity gospel” preacher?
For reasons that I don’t understand, some people admire wealthy people. Even when the wealth is derived from them forking over money to a person that spouts narcissistic crap they want to hear. While he doesn’t wear a veneer cloak of god or Jesus, Trump has been running the same scam as Osteen on the general public but more successfully. Who the hell was buying Trump suits and steaks?
Witch doctors must surely be the oldest profession in the world. All they have to do is update the hocus pocus rattles in their toolkit knowing full well that magical thinking sells itself.
Certain people are attracted to a person like Olsteen. Olsteen knows how to make them feel special and important when they are in his presence. If these people donate money, they will become wealthy with minimal effort because they are blessed.
The great thing about Osteen’s product is that it’s no-fail. If the prayers and donations don’t deliver it’s because the individual didn’t pray and donate enough. And if the deliveries arrive, keep praying and donating to insure that they keep coming or don’t disappear.
q13fox – Floodwaters topple 2 oil storage tanks in south Texas, spilling almost 30,000 gallons of crude
Will Texans shrug this off or whine and demand more federal dollars?
Houston flooding: two explosions take place at Texas chemical plant
The Guardian:
FYI – Scott Pruitt, another Trump appointee that isn’t at the EPA to manage what the agency is supposed to do, but to destroy it. IOW – don’t look to him for accurate information.
Still much confusion as to what happened at the Arkema facility, what’s likely to happen, what may happen, and the toxicity of what’s been released and what might, may, and can be released.
Texas Tribune – It’s been one week since Harvey hit Texas. Here’s what you need to know.
HuffPo: Charlie Hebdo’s Harvey Cover Praises Drowning Of `Neo-Nazis Of Texas’ Kneejerk on the part of CH (and the HuffPo title is accurate (for once)) because everybody knows that natural disasters mostly discriminate between rich and poor and not by political affiliation. However, only hypocrites on the left can deny that such a kneejerk response didn’t flit through their heads.
NOLA – Hurricane Irma: What we know and don’t know about brewing storm
Hurricane watchers are a bit freaked about the speed with which Irma intensified. But perhaps their data set is too small to liken Irma to a known prior storm.
Shouldn’t a reminder go out now for all of those within potential tracks of this storm to verify that they have the recommended standard emergency supplies and if not, to stock up in the next couple of days? (Jose is brewing behind Irma.)
A decent take by James Howard Kunstler in A Hot Mess.
Makes me miss Molly Ivins — she would now be using a double-barreled shotgun of words and sparing none of the local, state, and federal miscreants.