Hurricane Harvey

[Joods]

I know some had no choice. You left out the entire rest of my post where I expanded on that.

But it doesn't matter.  The vast number lack the resources to do anything else but sit there and take it.  That's the bottom line.  If you had someplace to put them, how do you evacuate 5 million people in 48 hours?  This thing strengthened heavily as it approached the coast.

Seems that this section of Texas is a target for these sorts of events. One would think the Army Corp of Engineers would try and do something about that.

[brewer]

Anybody posted the Joel Osteen/Lakewood Church lack of action during this?

http://nypost.com/2017/08/28/pastor-oste...ng-crisis/

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-new...vey-relief

Quote: "Lakewood Church is prepared to step in when shelters are unable to provide aid."

Remarkable christian values.

He can't be bothered to help while seeking shelter in his comfy 10 MILLION DOLLAR mansion. Compliments of all of the "worshipers" who he conned money off of. 

Isn't god great?

Additional: http://mashable.com/2017/08/28/houston-j...7ryS_RzOq7

[Thumpalumpacus]

Now there are floating fire ant colonies:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/hurricane-har...57278.html

---

Just now reported on the news. Texas rainfall sets new continental record at 49.32 inches.

Damn good thing we have all those science deniers in the White House.

Yea and who do his gullible supporters think will pay for hurricane relief if we never raise taxes on billionaires and corporations? Somebody has to make up for what they don't pay. GOP cuts look great on paper short term, but the borrowing long term leads to another bubble.

Yea lets keep doing that so maybe next month or next year the gulf or east coast can have a Cat 5 that will make Harvey look like a kid's squirt gun.

Amazing how humans are so desperate for impossible utopias they will vote against their own self interests. 

God didn't cause or allow either Katrina or Harvey, your gullibility and those supporters of the GOP for decades has lead to bad economic/environmental policy which is why you now are dealing with those numbers. 

Allah didn't allow are cause them either, neither did Poseidon. Just like Thor does not allow our cause lightening.

But, there are gullible people like you that let politicians con you.

Seriously, dude, take your politics out of it. Fucking Christ. Plant your soapbox elsewhere, compadre.

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But, see, that really is not an excuse to say "fuck it let's keep doing what we're doing."  Because what?  It worked so well before?  If you have recurrent floods - and granted this one is a doozy but I assure you it will not be the last to hit the region because they are right off the Gulf of Mexico which is a hurricane generator then you should be doing whatever you can do to minimize the impact of flooding. 

Somehow I simply cannot shake the notion that the developers and their un-indicted co-conspirators in the banks do not give a flying fuck about people who get flooded out as long as they can keep building shit so that they get flooded by MONEY.

A fat lot of good that does people who are, you know, dying. But hey, I hope you feel better about things now you've gotten that off your chest.

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I know some had no choice. You left out the entire rest of my post where I expanded on that.

But it doesn't matter.  The vast number lack the resources to do anything else but sit there and take it.  That's the bottom line.  If you had someplace to put them, how do you evacuate 5 million people in 48 hours?  This thing strengthened heavily as it approached the coast.

This is the crux of the evacuation issue. Can you imagine those millions being caught on I-10 when it becomes like this?



At 3 people per vehicle, you're going to throughput 1.7 million vehicles in 48 hours on the main route headed inland? I shudder to think ....

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Seems that this section of Texas is a target for these sorts of events. One would think the Army Corp of Engineers would try and do something about that.

There's just not a hell of a lot that can be done when the water table rises above ground level -- and in that part of Texas, the water table is always close to the surface.

[Seraphina]

In 2011, we had enough warning time for the flood, and the area affected, while very long, was quite narrow.  Folks had time to load up all their stuff and 'head for the hills'.  My farm is high enough we had folks farther out on the Missouri bottoms store farm equipment here.  A friend of ours was going to bring his camper here if water threatened his location, and I had a full camper hook up ready (electricity, sewer and water) but fortunately he was fine where he was.

In Houston, where's the nearby high ground?  Where's the nearby areas not under water or threatening to flood?  Where's the nearby areas able to absorb large numbers of folks displaced by the water?  And they didn't have the lead time we did either.

From what I've seen, those places don't exist in Houston. I'm not sure what I would do if faced with the same situation as Houstonians. I'd like to think I'd get the hell out of Dodge but if I had a 2 story house, I might try to ride it out too.

4 million residents of Houston...anyone without enough $$ to leave quick and look for a hotel inland or a place to stay away from the storm basically had to make a choice in a big hurry between two dystopias - your neighborhood under 10 feet of water or a possibly squalid indoor refugee encampment  evacuation center.

ETA: According to The Houston Chronicle, 107 people died during the mass evacuation craziness of millions in Texas during Hurricane Rita in 2005.
http://www.chron.com/news/hurricanes/art...502590.php

-Teresa

[Rahul]

I thoroughly dislike the city of Houston, this is simply one more reason for me to stay far away from it. Hopefully, a lot of Houstonites will start agreeing. How many 100 year/500 year floods do they have to go through in one decade before they start thinking, "Maybe I should move."

The local police force here was disgusted with a few people that needed to be saved this last weekend because they tried to drive on roads with water going over them. I'm starting to think the same thing about people that continue living in this death trap. This is all going to happen again soon.

And yeah, I know a lot of people "can't afford to move". But I've heard so many stories of immigrants moving to America with only a few dollars in their pocket, that I'm pretty sure I'd find a way somehow. This is a clearly foreseen tragedy. You just can't pack that many people there and not expect this to keep happening. Until they start putting massive public works in place to protect that area, get the fuck out.

[Minimalist]

But it doesn't matter.  The vast number lack the resources to do anything else but sit there and take it.  That's the bottom line.  If you had someplace to put them, how do you evacuate 5 million people in 48 hours?  This thing strengthened heavily as it approached the coast.

Seems that this section of Texas is a target for these sorts of events. One would think the Army Corp of Engineers would try and do something about that.

I'm so glad you said that.  Rachel Maddow ran this bit of film tonight on her show.   87 years covers a lot of political administrations.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch...5573315601


Warning:  I could not get this to play on Firefox.  On Chrome, it worked fine.

[Rhondazvous]

In 2011, we had enough warning time for the flood, and the area affected, while very long, was quite narrow.  Folks had time to load up all their stuff and 'head for the hills'.  My farm is high enough we had folks farther out on the Missouri bottoms store farm equipment here.  A friend of ours was going to bring his camper here if water threatened his location, and I had a full camper hook up ready (electricity, sewer and water) but fortunately he was fine where he was.

In Houston, where's the nearby high ground?  Where's the nearby areas not under water or threatening to flood?  Where's the nearby areas able to absorb large numbers of folks displaced by the water?  And they didn't have the lead time we did either.

From what I've seen, those places don't exist in Houston. I'm not sure what I would do if faced with the same situation as Houstonians. I'd like to think I'd get the hell out of Dodge but if I had a 2 story house, I might try to ride it out too.

4 million residents of Houston...anyone without enough $$ to leave quick and look for a hotel inland or a place to stay away from the storm basically had to make a choice in a big hurry between two dystopias - your neighborhood under 10 feet of water or a possibly squalid indoor refugee encampment  evacuation center.

ETA: According to The Houston Chronicle, 107 people died during the mass evacuation craziness of millions in Texas during Hurricane Rita in 2005.
http://www.chron.com/news/hurricanes/art...502590.php

-Teresa

Not much of a choice. I remember when my sister and her husband called to tell me a tornado was 15 minutes from us. "Calm down, Rhonda," my brother in law told me. Nothing makes a person panic more than telling them to calm down.

I was 2 blocks down from the epicenter of the quake the hit the San Fernando Valley in 1994. You really don't know what to do in a situation like that. In both cases, I was alone and had to calm myself and think what to do.

[Clueless Morgan]

Shit, y'all are freakin' me out and I'm starting to think the Cascadia quake is now bound to happen as soon I go into surgery...

Phew, deep breaths, that's incredibly unlikely to happen...

I heard on NPR this morning that Harvey made landfall again in Louisiana and that it might trigger tornadoes in Louisiana, Missouri and Arkansas

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Shit, y'all are freakin' me out and I'm starting to think the Cascadia quake is now bound to happen as soon I go into surgery...

Phew, deep breaths, that's incredibly unlikely to happen...

I heard on NPR this morning that Harvey made landfall again in Louisiana and that it might trigger tornadoes in Louisiana, Missouri and Arkansas

We're expecting frog chokers here in Missouri. 

[Rhondazvous]

Shit, y'all are freakin' me out and I'm starting to think the Cascadia quake is now bound to happen as soon I go into surgery...

Phew, deep breaths, that's incredibly unlikely to happen...

I heard on NPR this morning that Harvey made landfall again in Louisiana and that it might trigger tornadoes in Louisiana, Missouri and Arkansas

Geesh. And I'm right up here across from Texarkana. Last month I kept having recurrent nightmares about being caught in a tornado. But I'm not superstitious. My dreams often come true but they're never as bad in real life as in the dreams.