Two words for those who're flinging shade at Houston municipal officials: Hurricane Rita

[TygrBright]

Last edited Sun Aug 27, 2017, 08:04 PM - Edit history (1)

"OMG, did the Houston officials know how bad this was gonna be?"

"Why didn't they evacuate?!?"

"Why haven't they been trying to evacuate since, like, Thursday, even???!?!?"

"Houston ALWAYS floods! They shoulda known! Why didn't they get everybody out?"

ummmm, yeah.

They shoulda told everyone to drive to that Motel 6, twenty-five miles north of town. You know, the one with six million rooms and an unlimited supply of food and water. Right?

For anyone who doesn't remember it, here's a Wikipedia article on Hurricane Rita. Notable takeaway: Of the 120 deaths associated with Rita, more than 100 were directly related to the evacuation. People died in their cars of heatstroke. Heart attacks. A deadly bus fire. They had to use up a lot of valuable resources evacuating people from the evacuation.

There are between six and seven million people in the area affected by catastrophic flooding.

Have you ever been in a traffic jam trying to get home after a concert or sporting event at an arena that holds 30,000 people?

Multiply that by a couple of hundred times, then multiply it again because these aren't concertgoers with purses or backpacks, these are people with families, pets, carloads and trailers full of stuff.

I am old enough to remember when Civil Defense tried to hold evacuation drills- they managed to evacuate just the Portland, OR city center (population of the whole Portland metro area at the time was probably about 350,000) after weeks of preparation and publicity and at enormous cost. Evacuating major metro areas is even more complicated now.

The Houston city government is working with state and federal forces, private relief organizations, military assistance, news media, and help from other major metro areas (NY just sent a few hundred trained disaster responders... how they're gonna get IN, I don't know, but I'm sure they'll do excellent work when they do.)

If you want to blame anyone, blame the climate change deniers in Congress who have steadfastly refused to fund NOAA, NWS, FEMA, and other agencies to model catastrophic weather events and create preparation and response plans and resources on a scale we've never even imagined we would need before.

Oh, and the dickhead who pulled us out of the Paris Climate Accord... what's his name again...?

bitterly,
Bright

[ismnotwasm]

1. K&R

[Cryptoad]

79. What the OP failed to mention

is most of Rita Deaths were directly to the Failed GOP Planning for Harris County in that they did not build roads on which u can "get the fuck out of Dodge" if you wanted to. And They still have not taken measures to correct the problem. Guess they would have to cut some of those tax benefits for GOP TX Oligarchs During these past 20 years of dry weather in SE TX , they have delevoped more and more swamp land that will flood surrounded by more roads that are in the Flood plains.

Harris County TX is a GOP Cluster Fuck!

[narnian60]

2. Well said.

I live in South Houston and had 22 inches of rain in my neighborhood last night & this morning.

[Phoenix61]

3. Exactly!

I got stuck on the road when I evacuated for Opal. Never, ever want to go through that again.

[angel823]

4. Thank you, TygrBright

I have lived in the Houston area for 40 years. I was here during Alicia, Allison, Rita and Ike, when many folks attempted evacuation.

If your area normally floods, you should have had enough sense to leave if at all possible, regardless of what Mayor Turner did or did not order. Logistically and economically this isn't possible for everyone.

People panic, and if you order an evacuation for those in flood-prone areas, many folks who probably don't need to evacuate WILL evacuate in panic, further clogging the roads.

I have an 11 year-old daughter, 3 dogs and 5 cats. No way I would evacuate and get stuck with them in a car on a freeway overpass somewhere for 12-24 hours or more. Not that being stuck in a house with rising water would be better, but there are no "good" options here, just educated guesses for everyone at a public and private level, based on history and experience.

I support Mayor Turner and his handling of this event.

[TygrBright]

6. Thanks, angel823. Stay safe. Keep us updated on you and your family. n/t

[certainot]

82. like after katrina republican talk radio will be used to blame dems

and facts won't matter.

turner is black and 50 texas rw radio stations will attack him and other dems till the next elections. the r-con think tanks are already working on the angles, excuses, and talking points and they know they can make it all up because dems ignore it.

[OBrien]

5. I live here

and remember Rita. Also, on short notice how do uoy evacuate millions of people with no mass public transportation??

[appleannie1943]

7. IMO their state and local governments are doing an outstanding job of keeping deaths to a minimum.

[TexasBushwhacker]

20. And that's really what it's about

More people on the road means more stranded vehicles and more drownings. People whose homes have flooded before, who have the means, may choose to evacuate, or not. People who live in coastal areas and by rivers often already have a game plan. It's not surprising that most people don't evacuate unless there's water in their house. Until the water gets REALLY high, there can be water in one house, but not in the one next door. I wish people would just give it a rest.

[barbtries]

8. thank you Bright.

I would like to add that this is a natural disaster (probably exacerbated by feckless oil and MIC dickheads and republicans going way way back).

Nonetheless, this storm was wrought by mother nature. this was going to be bad. I knew it a couple days ago, just a couple days ago. City, county, federal officials knew about it when? your post is spot on. there was no good answer to this storm, there couldn't be because it is a devastating storm.

been watching coverage for about 4 hours straight. this is an absolute catastrophe and i just hope the toll does not match Rita or Katrina, but the volume of water being poured on the Houston area is unprecedented in my life and I am apprehensive for so many people. Such a big city. as one person wrote on twitter this morning, "heart breaking in real time."

[TygrBright]

15. It is heartbreaking.

We have known for years that the number and frequency of catastrophic weather events (CWEs) is increasing.

As the awareness of this fast-developing hurricane shows, we've developed better and better modeling and tracking tools to help us see them coming, even with short notice.

We have the creativity, the expertise, and the resources to make fast-preparation-and-response plans, stockpile resources, dedicate personnel, educate the public, get people prepared the way we were for the Atomic War in the 1950s and 1960s. I can still remember the location of my CD shelter when I was in grade school.

We have had people in the relevant agencies BEGGING for the funding to create those plans and prepare those resources. Adding them to the budget requests, year after year. Testifying to committees about the need for them, the lives and economic resources they would save.

And year after year, those budgets get cut in Congress by climate-denying assholes.

I have confidence in, and respect for, the people of Houston. I remember how they opened their city to Katrina survivors, sent resources again and again to other Big Bend and Gulf communities when the disasters hit. I'm praying for them.

sadly,
Bright

[Turn CO Blue]

9. So far, 9 trillion gallons of water. It's the Kobayashi Maru of disaster scenarios.

[TygrBright]

10. One journo said: "Harvey's trying to pick up the whole damn' Gulf and dump it on the Big Bend." n/t

[Turn CO Blue]

19. Exactly. It was a no-win scenario even two days beforehand - for all the reasons you state

Damned if they did x or y, and damned if they didn't.

I despise the Day Two Edition of the news cycle, i.e. Natural Disaster: Find Somebody to Blame Edition

We should still be way back at empathy - there are thousands of people who have lost so much.

on edit: we are still on search and rescue, I meant to add.

[Bob Loblaw]

11. What does this have to do with

a hot dog eating champion?

[ananda]

12. When I lived in Houston ..

.. I always evacuated, no matter what.

That was because of Dan Rather's reporting
on Hurricane Carla.

That gave me a huge, healthy respect for
hurricanes and floods.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

13. Most of the people who stay in their homes have a lot of pets or can't afford a hotel. I used to

have 7 birds and 3 cats. Most shelters do not take animals. A lot of people cross the coast to go to a hotel but if you don't have the money, you can't do it. The affluent usually flies to their second home up north.

[martigras]

14. Add to that

That the last time they evacuated, many more people died in car accidents trying to flee the city.

Houston also has no zoning regulations which would have kept people from building homes in areas that are prone to flooding

For those who hate government regulations, this is what happens.

[TexasBushwhacker]

58. Not true re: zoning

You cannot build NEW structures in areas that have a certain risk (probably 10%) because flood insurance would be required by any mortgage holder and would be prohibitively expensive. Or there may be building code requirements, such as a foundation that is a certain height.

[George II]

16. Those people should have watched the Mayor's press conference just a few minutes ago...

He laid it out very well regarding what would have been involved in evacuating 6 million people, and then their Congresswoman relating stories about the horror experienced by those who DID evacuate 12 years ago.

People love to criticize without thinking. The safest way to go was to keep people in Houston and prepare for the storm.

[SCVDem]

22. I saw that on MSNBC

He was logical, methodical and presidential.

Everything this orange disaster is not.

[alarimer]

69. I also think people not from Texas have no idea how big Houston is.

Harris County alone has like 6 million people in it and geographically it is huge. So logistically, it would be very difficult even with weeks of notice.

[SweetieD]

17. It is possible that the mayor saved more lives by not issuing a mandatory evacuation.

[Lucinda]

18. KNR

[GETPLANING]

21. Mayor Turner has lived in Houston for decades

He has been a thoughtful, pragmatic mayor. The people attacking him are not from Houston and are merely trying to exploit Houston's situation for their own political agenda. Turner was right. Trying to evacuate a city of this si e would have resulted in hundreds if not thousands of deaths. Imaging an evacuation during this flood. I would say shame on the trolls, but they have no sense of shame. They would take it as a compliment.

[More_Cowbell]

23. Also, there was very little notice

Usually a story like this would be tracked for two weeks, I saw on the news today. But trying to evacuate people in just a few days would have been much harder than usual.

[Igel]

27. They had time to evacuate.

The question was, Who should they evacuate?

We need two plans: One for hurricanes + storm surge and one for "it's raining a lot, where's going to flood?"

The Tax Day floods hit a lot of people nowhere near an evacuation zone. This flooding, too. Nobody ever plans on evacuating the entire city. That would just be creepy.

[steve2470]

24. and let's say theoretically...that an evacuation was called a WEEK in advance...

I just picked that out of the air. Then...the TS/hurricane goes elsewhere, which I've seen many many times in my lifetime.

All the people yelling about no evacuation would then be saying, oh he wasted taxpayer money doing this, he was alarmist yada yada yada

He made the right decision. Even a week is probably not enough advance notice. I have no idea what would be, and besides, where do you shelter 6.5 million people ????

[KY_EnviroGuy]

38. What about security?

Once the people are gone, you must have personnel (military or cops) in place to secure evacuated areas! All during an active storm. Lots of personnel required to help get people out, then lots to stay behind for security. Most of those people that might do that are now doing active emergency responses!

Folks sometimes forget (like the case with Katrina) that you can't just instantly shit thousands of aid personnel into an active emergency zone.

[steve2470]

40. excellent point nt

[Cryptoad]

25. People in Houston ,,,,

would love to be able to drive across town,,,,
what do expect when all the mail road are built below the flood plain, ,,,
geeez,,,,,, no wonder Tx votes Republican all the time.

[Cattledog]

26. Too many like to find some one to blame.

[syringis]

28. May I...

...add it is not the time to look for somebody to blame? But the time to stand by each other and help as much as possible.


My best wishes to you Texas from Belgium.

[pnwmom]

37. Unfortunately, some blaming is already happening. Thanks for your well wishes, syringis!

[Dustlawyer]

29. I evacuated from the Beaumont area during Rita. Our area has about 300,000 residents

and I had my elderly mom and uncle, a brother with a pancreatic attack, and two dogs. It took 13 hours to go 60 miles. Cops in little towns along the way would not let us stop to go to a bathroom or get anything from a store. They blocked off their towns from us!

The hospital discharged my brother right after they admitted him and he almost died. After dropping off my mom and uncle at a friends cabin I took him into Lufkin to the hospital. An ambulance on the side of the road would not take him because I still had gas to make it. I made it to the hospital but could not go back for my mom and uncle. The hurricane followed us up our evacuation route and caught many on the road!

There is no way the Houston metropolitan area could have evacuated Friday and got out before the flood, no possible way!!!

This is a Republican smear on a black Democratic mayor in Texas, plain and simple. The commenters are either biased or just ignorant. Having been through evacuations for Rita and Ike I know of what I am speaking. I am only 90 miles East of downtown Houston.

[zentrum]

30. And too, there's a certain irony...

.....in the fact that Texas is the text book state. The text books that are downplaying or not mentioning climate change at all.

There are forces in Texas that do not wish the same for the rest of the country when other areas get into trouble from climate change disasters. Their Senators vote to cut off disaster funds for the rest of us. That said, I know the rain is falling on the just and unjust alike, so hope they get all the help they need.

Also, Texas is one of those places that often talks about seceding. But now they are crying for help from the big bad Federal Government.

Ironic.

[zentrum]

31. Mexico is number 32 in crime rate rankings

America is 44.

At least according to this crime rate ranking site:

https://www.numbeo.com/crime/rankings_by_country.jsp

There are no words for how disgusting this liar is.

[KatyMan]

32. i would add, without reading the thread yet,

That Houstonians and surrounding citizens should be so proud of how their neighbors have come out to help each other through all of this. We have an amazing community in these parts, diverse and caring. Houston is America writ local.

[Dopers_Greed]

33. Thank you

I live in Texas, and during even a normal day of rainfall, the highways grind to a halt as traffic backs up for miles.

The roads here cannot handle the evacuation of millions of people. Even if they had tried, the death toll would have risen substantially as stranded motorists got flooded out.

[onenote]

34. +1

[WinkyDink]

35. Katrina saw many people evacuated by the Feds to other states.

[Horse with no Name]

36. Thank you.

I can't imagine if they had tried to do that.
There were no good solutions.
I am worried about the hospital situation right now....they have evacuated to all of the outlying hospitals.
Now they have to evacuate Ben Taub.
It's just a horrible disaster.

[EllieBC]

39. There are too many armchair FEMA employees.

You bring up a lot of good points. There is no way to evacuate that large of a population.

Please stay safe if you are in the middle of it!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

41. Evacuating major cities isn't all that easy.

And I'm not exactly an expert on this topic. But all anyone has to do is to think about rush hour traffic in your own city. And that's far from everyone.

As a side note, the one time I visited Houston some time in the late 1970's, I was astonished and appalled at how awful the traffic was. But Houston is by no means the only such city. I was recently in Portland, OR, a city I'm highly inclined to like. This trip I had occasion to notice how terrible the traffic is in the downtown area.

One good thing about hurricanes is that they give more advance warning than any other natural phenomena. But even that advance warning isn't always helpful. In this case, Harvey strengthened a great deal shortly before landfall. Had it remained a category 1, it would have been no big deal. But Cat 4? That's an entirely different hurricane.

[Honeycombe8]

42. Exactly. Houston knows what it's doing. Evacuations are dangerous in & of themselves.

Hunkering down in a "safe place," which was what the local officials recommended, seems a good plan of action, unless there are extenuating circumstances. Safe place can be your home or a public place or a friend or relative's place, etc.

People are always free to evacuate, if they want. Some did. My brother ran across a Houston couple tonight, who came here to evacuate. (I'm somewhat near Houston.) They were driving an Audi SUV, so they probably have the money to evacuate. Many don't.

[Catherine Vincent]

43. Amen! Thank you for this post.

I am north of Houston and have been here for years and witnessed plenty of floods and TSs and a couple of hurricanes. One that really stays in my mind is the exodus of folks when Rita was aiming here. It was a big clusterfvck. There is no way to evacuate a large city even if it were 2 weeks in advance. It can't be done. Of course indivduals could evacuate whenever you want but what about our jobs? I am sure most managers would not like someone taking a week off before a TS or Hurricane that may or may not hit.

Right now I am far north where even though it's been a lot of rain, thankfully we are ok but my only worry right now is my mom's safety since she is in a nursing facility and is unable to care for herself and is dependant of others for her care. Yes, the facility called us this am and said it's not flooding and everything is fine but...still we worry.

[SunSeeker]

44. K & R

[Heartstrings]

45. K & R. Nt

[Lee-Lee]

46. The proper way is phased mandatory evacuations

Doing it by neighborhood over several days, right down to the 6 hour block of time a person must leave.

You map out your vulnerable areas to flood. That data exists now in detail, so not a big effort is needed to get that info.

You assign every home, apartment, business a group number, starting with the most vulnerable. It includes an official sign that will go in your windshield for the evacuations.

You start holding mandatory evacuations based on numbers- when you start all #1's must be evacuated or businesses closed no later than 12:00. Then all #2's no later than 6:00. The #3's no later than 12:00. And so on.

If you stay past that mandatory time, then you are on your own. No rescue. If you stay past that time you will not be allowed on the highway later during other evacuation periods until the cycle has worked through to whatever the highest number is.

With that kind of planning and proper management you could do evacuations. However nobody wants to listen when told to evacuate until the very last minute so people would hate that and wouldn't support it, and no city wants to have to manage that kind of effort.

[haele]

67. I've been through manditory evacuation drills like that. And through manditory evacuations.

This in a relatively small area where there were under 10K people to evacuate over four reasonably large roads in hilly terrain.
The evacuation drills were for wildfires - where there is less warning in advance than in flood events (unless you get a dam burst)

The drills and the evacuation always ended up a clusterfuck. We were assigned primary and alternate routes out, depending on where the danger was coming from and where the firefighters were stationed. You would typically get 15 minutes to a half hour notice if you were in the danger area, and the county was supposed to give you the warning before you left so that the roads wouldn't become parking lots. You were allowed two vehicles max (even if there were more adults in your residence), and no trailers other than for livestock when you evacuated to minimize traffic.

When we actually had an evacuation (wildfire), the household I was living at ended up sheltering in place, because by the time "our turn" to leave arrived, the roads were already packed with the majority of residents upwind who decided they and "their stuff" - including the jet skis and RVs and major household goods hurriedly thrown into trailers and multiple vehicles coming in as well as out was far more important than following the county's evacuation process that would ensure the most amount of people could get out safely.

The firestorm came within 50 yards of the house - and that's only because we cleared the area around and ran the sprinklers off the well for the hour and a half we were stuck there to get the ground, the house, and surrounding area damp enough not to catch. We lost a few outbuildings, yard equipment, and the fruit trees and makeshift plumaria nursery my friend was starting, and the house was still damaged due to heat, smoke, and the ash falling all over. But we and the critters were all okay. No thanks to the idiots fleeing too early who had to be evacuated earlier from their now burnt-out vehicles that were parked on the main road going out when the fires crossed the road.

Evacuation plans work great on paper. It's the human factor that always screws it up, and local disaster preparedness personnel know when the conditions will allow a smooth evacuation, or when it's better just to have people shelter in place where it could be known that they are there and when they would require assistance that could be sent out for them - instead of being stuck on the road or out in the open en mass when the disaster hits.

Hundreds of people died stuck in their cars on highways in Spain earlier this year trying to evacuate willy-nilly from wildfires.

Haele

[7962]

74. Your last paragraph says it all.

Either everyone waits and bitches about the gridlock, or they leave early and bitch that the storm wasnt as bad as expected.

[greymattermom]

47. New Orleans lost about half of its population after Katrina

and the same thing may happen to Houston. People do evacuate when they can. If there homes are a total loss, they will have to move anyway.

[Sunlei]

48. Republicans Global warming & Climate change is real. 30-40 inches of rain in 3 days is HERE to STAY.

[Jimbo101]

49. Houston Mayor Turner made the right call,...

You can't evacuate on I-10 west because last Friday, Harvey hit just east of Corpus Christi.

You can't evacuate on I-10 east because that was in the path of where Harvey was projected to go (plus a section of I-10 is prone to flooding in Louisiana - and as you drive east you are getting closer to the Gulf of Mexico - not farther away)

You can't evacuate on I-45 South or I-59 South - that just puts you closer to the Gulf of Mexico

Which leaves I-45 & I-59 Northbound - for 2 million people to evacuate in a day or two?

[onetexan]

50. there's also US290 going towards Aus but that's been hit with closures and ongoing construction work

not to mention it goes through the 610 loop through downtown. These are not good conditions to accommodate millions of people.

[Me.]

51. On One Of The Sunday Shows (can't remember which one)

It was said he was receiving the criticism because it is a combo platter of a. Republicans who hope it will get a Con mayor elected next time and b. racism.

[AtheistCrusader]

52. This hurricane is not out of line in frequency or power with regular hurricane patterns.

There's no need to make this about climate change. This shit happened before the Americas were even colonized.

You're actually playing right into the hands of climate change deniers when you make EVERY SINGLE STORM about climate change. What is happening right now is actually normal.

We're under-prepared for normal.

[dbackjon]

57. That is incorrect

1) The Gulf is warming to higher temperatures than normal. This allows the storms to form faster, and with greater intensity.

2) A thousand year flood is not normal. Although with climate change, 1000 year floods become 100 year floods, and 100 year floods become routine.




So YOU are playing in the hands of the deniers.

[AtheistCrusader]

62. You can't credibly describe this as 1000 year flooding. 1000 years ago the houston impermeable surfa

ce area was 0%. Large portions of the city are now 100%. The concept doesn't apply.

To your point 1; see figures two and three. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/309/5742/1844.full
(Changes in Tropical Cyclone Number, Duration, and Intensity in a Warming Environment P. J. Webster1, G. J. Holland2, J. A. Curry1, H.-R. Chang)


It IS now normal, not because Harvey is really all that unique. It's 'hanging around' due to a convergence of high pressure systems, which makes it statistically improbable. But the damage it is doing is almost entirely our own stupidity on the ground. If it moved on like normal, it would have been bad, but not too terrible of a thing. We're going to remember this one by name, for a long time, not because of it's strength, but for its dwell time over the target.

I hope you don't think climate change improves a hurricane's 'aim'.

[dbackjon]

70. Yes, the development is a major issue with the drainage

Let's also not forget that climate change is disrupting the jet stream, making highs like we are seeing behave differently.

No, climate change does not improve the aim. Just makes them more likely, and more intense.

From your study:

We conclude that global data indicate a 30-year trend toward more frequent and intense hurricanes, corroborated by the results of the recent regional assessment (29). This trend is not inconsistent with recent climate model simulations that a doubling of CO2 may increase the frequency of the most intense cyclones (18, 30), although attribution of the 30-year trends to global warming would require a longer global data record and, especially, a deeper understanding of the role of hurricanes in the general circulation of the atmosphere and ocean, even in the present climate state.


They also didn't isolate the Gulf, which IS warming at a greater intensity.

[AtheistCrusader]

71. True, for the long game, it's critical to keep the climate perspective.

And you make a good point about the jet streams, although it's nearly impossible or might actually be impossible to prove direct correlation to this event.

I guess my main point is, these storms happen even absent any human spawned climate alterations, and with that in mind, the ground level development is fully irresponsible, and entirely profit-motivated with little to no meaningful regulatory oversight. Or worse, fox guarding the henhouse stuff where the regulatory building codes and city planning is infested with developers/allies. It's possible to build the city to shrug this kind of storm off, but they seem to have taken the opposite tack, and build the second most vulnerable infra/city behind New Orleans itself.

This was preventable. Completely so.

There's some heroic rescue efforts underway, and some impressive sudden shelter options, but there should have been formal mass-scale shelter options in place. Worst case mitigation is shelter-in-place in communal shelters, evacuating residential areas but not leaving the city. They really didn't have much of a plan for that. Investment isn't there.


Now I'm starting to look around and worry. What other under-investment disaster planning is on the brink? Mt. Rainier? Hawaii coastline tsunami prep? What is the next disaster where we're going to say NEXT TIME we do it right, after failing to address an obvious vulnerability?

[dbackjon]

73. Saw this today

https://thinkprogress.org/jet-stream-harvey-bd146d428ed1/

“The kind of stalled weather pattern that is drenching Houston is precisely the sort of pattern we expect because of climate change,” climatologist Michael Mann explained in an email to ThinkProgress. Earlier this year, Mann co-authored a study explaining how human-caused warming is changing our atmosphere’s circulation, including the jet stream, in a way that leads to “increase in persistent weather extremes” during the summer.

[7962]

77. Same thing happened in Ga in '94; that flood was "only" a tropical storm. it didnt move.

Stayed right over central ga for 3 days dumping water, but "only" 18-24 inches compared to what we see now.
Tropical storm Alberto

[TygrBright]

61. See this breakdown of how climate change factors affect intensity and behavior of storms...

...and then tell me this is "normal."

The NEW "normal," maybe...

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/28/us/hurricane-harvey-climate-change/index.html?sr=twCNN082817hurricane-harvey-climate-change0336PMStoryGal

wearily,
Bright

[AtheistCrusader]

64. I read that. Some problems with it.

Thursday morning into Friday afternoon, it transitioned from a tropical storm with winds of 45 miles per hour to a Category 3 major hurricane with winds of 125 miles per hour in only 36 hours.
Rapid intensification isn't necessarily rare, but it is very hard to forecast. When all the conditions come together just right, a storm can really "blow up" and intensify very quickly.

This establishes no climate change link. The link between rising surface temperatures, acceleration and total wind speeds is not entirely understood. A large part of why it is hard to forecast. You can't just scale up what we knew 40 years ago by X% to account for a factor like surface temps. It's more complex than that.

Harvey was downgraded to a tropical storm over the weekend and expected to make a third landfall.
It is rare for a storm to move inland and then back out again over the same body of water it came from. Excessive rainfall has caused flooding more devastating than the impact of Harvey's initial landfall itself.
Inland flooding is often one of the worst impacts for storms making landfall. With the stalling of the storm over land, the flood threat has become Harvey's lasting impression.
CNN meteorologist Dave Hennen labeled Harvey a "one-in-1,000-years type of event."

These are WEATHER systems. There are three high-pressure weather systems pinning Harvey over that region. The ground flooding is almost entirely due to irresponsible human development, and they are going to pay in spades for it. There's a hell of a lot less of a link between global temperatures and those weather systems, than there are for simple surface temp boosting of a storm, and even that's a murky link.

Yes, climate change is likely a factor for Harvey, but it's not the driving or central issue. It's a mistake to focus on it in this context. It's no better than when the far right goes 'herp derp it's snowing in New Jersey in May!' because again, the relationship between climate and weather is more complex than that. (And because climate chance CAN introduce cold weather in summer too, again, super complex to model.)


https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/8/28/16213268/harvey-climate-change
If I had to pick a single thing that could have made this whole event less tragic, building codes. Runoff, impermeable surface development. Simple, raw, human greed. That's where we dropped it. This was a big hurricane, but we own most of the devastation.

[7962]

75. As in building at or below flood levels, or even sea level ( New Orleans)

Although THIS storm is the largest we've ever recorded in rainfall, I believe

And then the govt flood Ins program is also part of the problem; paying you less if you rebuild somewhere ELSE other than where you JUST flooded

[Lithos]

53. K&R

It would have killed far more people than waiting it out. What people are seeing on TV is damage which would have happened anyways . It is also far easier for food/supplies to be sent to Houston than to the many outlying communities where people would have evacuated.

Also, to be honest, there was no place to go. Austin and San Antonio were full up of the evacuees from Corpus and Rockport areas plus was getting hit hard as well. There is only one route up to Dallas/Tyler and that would have easily be overwhelmed. Going Eastward to New Orleans was not really an option as the storm was likely heading that way too...

[usaf-vet]

54. The republicans say we need smaller government.

They cut funding for all types of emergency service.

THEN when there is a disaster they point the finger. No not us, not our fault, we didn't do it.

Right they did it!

Remember the top republican said "good luck". Doesn't that make you feel better the Donald wished you luck.

[Motley13]

55. yeah, 3 mil people on the road to where? that place could be worse!

[Blue_true]

59. Sort of like the movie Independence Day.

RV caravans to nowhere. The local officials seem to have made the right call.

[McCamy Taylor]

56. Anyone who has ever lived in Houston knows that the city can be evacuated

It would take a week. There just are not enough roads out of town and there is no mass transit.

[TexasBushwhacker]

60. Harvey went from a tropical depression to a Cat 3 hurricane in 48 hours

Tell that to anyone that says Houston's mayor should have issued evacuation orders. Here's the full timeline:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/timeline-tropical-storm-harveys-development-49446842

Even over the last 48 hours, the "cone" of affected areas has shifted from west/northwest to north/northeast. That's 90 degrees! Originally they thought it would stall out and dissipate around San Antonio and Austin. Now the cone goes to the east of Dallas into Arkansas!

[uponit7771]

63. Yeap, between a rock and a hard place

[Lee-Lee]

65. "Well we screwed it up before so why try" isn't a strong policy base

It's not one at all, in fact.

If your last try at evacuation more than a decade before failed and your new policy "well just screw trying to evacuate" then that's just as big a failure.

The right answer isn't to say it's hard so screw even trying. The right answer is to set up better policies to have a more orderly evacuation.

You set priorities by determining the most at risk places and evacuating them first and early. Instead of waiting and telling everyone to go at once you set a phased evacuation to get only the people who need to leave most out, in timed phases, so not everybody is on the road and everybody that is isn't on it at once. Mandatory, nobodystays in areas after the deadline and deadlines and phased.

You use your flood mapping to determine the most at risk areas and your traffic planning maps to find the hardest to leave areas and they get emptied first.

You look at what caused the failures last time- broken down vehicles, out of gas, etc that bottlenecked traffic. You take the crews that drive the fuel trucks for the school buses and other municipal activities and have them going up and down filling those out of gas. National Gurd fuel tankers can be used here, all they need is the right sized nozzle for unleaded tanks. You contract with wrecker services to be stationed every mile along the route to quickly drag broken cars out of the travel lanes. You have relief agencies along the route with food and water.

It is possible to have an evacuation plan that works. To just throw up your hands and say "screw it, why bother trying" is a leadership failure. Not a new one, this should have stared right after the lessons learned of Rita.

[alarimer]

68. It was a tropical storm on Wednesday

It became a hurricane on Thursday and landed on Friday. Let's assume that 1 million people would need evacuating. You cannot put that many people on the road at the same time and not have them be sitting ducks. There would have been thousands on the road when the floods started. They would all die. We've all seen cars get swept away by flash floods. Not pretty.

[TexasBushwhacker]

80. Yes. It went from a tropical depression to Cat3 in 48 hours

Just wrap your mind around that.

[dixiegrrrrl]

72. Perfectly said. Just perfect.

You know what scares me the most?
crowds.
and the psychology of crowds.
and lots of traffic/transportation jams.


I watched one hurricane evacuation, on a north-south freeway from Mobile, Al. become a parking lot.
That was in 1995. Many more people have moved to the beaches around and in Mobile since then.

If you are gonna evacuate because of a hurricane, do it at least 2 days ahead of landfall, and be willing to risk any scoffers, be willing and able to stay away for at least 3 days post-storm, cause getting back into the area will be very difficult.
the best that will happen is you took a couple days vacation and the storm did not hit where you live.
The worst that can happen is it does hit and you lose things that you had no power to save anyway.

[Not Ruth]

76. Since Houston can never be evacuated, but it is the most vulnerable city to climate change

And climate change is not getting fixed for a few years, should people leave during the rainy season?

[pansypoo53219]

78. the teevee gnewz must 2nd guess at all times. 30 vs 100, i'd say the mayor got it right, but as a di

disaster expert said. they learn from each one. saving wetlands does not seem key tho.

[keithbvadu2]

81. What prevented the governor from ordering evacuation?

[PDittie]

83. Nobody cares what that fuckwad thinks.

[obamanut2012]

85. Because ir wasn't a hurricane

It went from a TS to a Cat 3 in less than 48 hours, which is insane. It would be very difficult to evacuate a 10k town in that time. And, where do the evacuees go? And who pays for it?

I am in SOFL right in Irma's path, and we are staying, as is everyone I know. It is much safer.

[Demtexan]

84. Really the only way to go was north.

All of Houston going north.

Not everyone has friends and family.

Hotel and motels would fill up fast.

What about gas.

People trapped in cars on freeways that flooded.

I-10 by me is really deep.

There would be dead people in cars.