(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.)
