The Post-Harvey Houston Needs To Get Denser And More Urban (Portland: apartment complex, opthamologist)

[Texyn]

Originally Posted by Matadora

The OP reminds me of this guy reincarnated.

Originally Posted by detachable arm

Ynohtna, B00ST, Wipe0ut, Wipe0ut2020, Shake&Bake, Cybersamurai, CyberneticGhost, Viral, Zanzebar and Texyn are all the same person.

The city has issues to solve going forward. These knee-jerk responses won't get you two anywhere.

[Texyn]

Originally Posted by oceangaia

Nonsense. Lots of pompous talk but neither you nor anyone else can provide a real example of such a "dense walkable city" handling 50" rain in a few days without flooding. Blah blah blah, lots of sidetracking and bloviating, but no example. Not interested in another word out of your mouth until you name the place, date of the event, with references.

Cities like NYC, LA, Seattle, Chicago, etc don't have the a subtropical climate prone to heavy storms like Houston, and so aren't required to handle such amounts of rain.

Miami is pretty much the only other large city in the country worthy of comparison with Houston regarding this matter. They fared relatively well during Irma, so it wouldn't hurt to for Houston to see the flood control methods that they utilized.

Other than that, you pretty much have to look outside the US. Restricting to well-off cities, that leaves you only with those in East Asia, and Australia. East Asian cities, some of the largest on Earth, and highly dense, fare well in their storms. In fact, right around when Houston was dealing with Harvey, the Hong Kong area took two tropical cyclones, and still ended up with less casualties:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Hato#Hong_Kong
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic...m_Pakhar_(2017)

Most deaths were from people attempting to evacuate rather than stay in place. In a denser area you would have more people doing this in one place and more people getting stuck and drowning. Evacuation becomes the logistical nightmare of Katrina. And forget the silly idea that multi-story apartments means you just stay in the upper floors. The upper floors may be dry but they are not habitable without power, water, food, etc.

Kinda hard to stay put when your flooded residence is a one-story, sprawled out SFH, with the high ground either being attics (death-traps) or rooftops (exposure to the elements).

The flood in Houston was just overflow from rain, not the same as a barrelling water surge like with the Katrina levee failure. And yes multi-stories will be dry, so as long as people heeded warnings, and took time to get the water, food, etc that they need, they will be fine on the upper floors. Power outage isn't an issue unless the storms have sufficiently strong winds.

The comments about the dam are disingenuous. That has nothing to do with density or sprawl. That's an issue of building in the wrong place not building the wrong way. A dense walkable zone built in the same place would have flooded the same way. Plenty of blame to go around there. Lots of maps depicting flood zones so people know the risks of building in a location or the need to insure such building. Show me one map depicting the projected flood zones of controlled dam releases. I'll bet most people had no idea that authorities would open the dams and knowingly flood hundreds of homes.

Except that homes ended up in the way of the dam precisely because of unbridled sprawl. Sprawl, by nature, is not nearly as regulated as dense urbanity, and because of the wider area covered, is not as easy to provide control for regarding flood protection.

Ground percolation is a factor in moderate rainfall but makes no difference in the kind of rain we have in tropical events. After 10" or so the ground is saturated and is running off bare earth. Concrete does decrease resistance and allow faster runoff so why aren't the bayous concrete-lined like the channels in LA?

And in a dense walkable Houston, there would be more bare earth that flood waters run over, rather than homes and people in the way.

The solution to flooding isn't denser walkable (as if mode of transportation has anything to do with it) development but better drainage systems, wider and deeper bayous that are concreted with pumping stations. I promise the ocean can take as much runoff as we throw at it.

All those features are very helpful. Making Houston denser and walkable and having all those features would be even more helpful. It's all about maximizing protection.

I think it's pretty obvious to most here that you are just pushing an agenda for "walkable" development. You probably couldn't care less about flooding but you think you can use it to sneak in your agenda.

Face it, facts show that walkable density is ideal for Houston. No amount of knee-jerk push back will change that.

[oceangaia]

Originally Posted by Texyn

Cities like NYC, LA, Seattle, Chicago, etc don't have the a subtropical climate prone to heavy storms like Houston, and so aren't required to handle such amounts of rain.

Miami is pretty much the only other large city in the country worthy of comparison with Houston regarding this matter. They fared relatively well during Irma, so it wouldn't hurt to for Houston to see the flood control methods that they utilized.

Other than that, you pretty much have to look outside the US. Restricting to well-off cities, that leaves you only with those in East Asia, and Australia. East Asian cities, some of the largest on Earth, and highly dense, fare well in their storms. In fact, right around when Houston was dealing with Harvey, the Hong Kong area took two tropical cyclones, and still ended up with less casualties:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Hato#Hong_Kong
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic...m_Pakhar_(2017)

Like I said, lots of bloviating but no examples of a dense walkable city handling 50 inches of rain, as you claim would enable Houston to do.

Numbers matter, dude. Pointing to general info to make it appear that you are providing examples is more dishonesty (or ignorance) on your own part. Lets look at the numbers.

Miami downtown received 4 inches of rain. The highest amount anywhere was 16 inches about 130 miles north of Miami.
Here's how much rain, wind Irma brought to Florida | NOLA.com

Hong Kong received 81mm rain from Hato. That's a little over 3 inches.
Super Typhoon Hato(1713)

The entire rainfall for the month of August, including the two storms, was 489mm or about 16 inches.
The Weather of August 2017

When Houston gets 4 inches in a day or 16 inches in a month, it's a complete non-event. You have zero credibility.

[oceangaia]

Originally Posted by Texyn

Face it, facts show that walkable density is ideal for Houston. No amount of knee-jerk push back will change that.

It's not gonna happen here. And no amount of liberal agenda-driven campaigning will change that.

[Texyn]

Originally Posted by oceangaia

Like I said, lots of bloviating but no examples of a dense walkable city handling 50 inches of rain, as you claim would enable Houston to do.

Numbers matter, dude. Pointing to general info to make it appear that you are providing examples is more dishonesty (or ignorance) on your own part. Lets look at the numbers.

Miami downtown received 4 inches of rain. The highest amount anywhere was 16 inches about 130 miles north of Miami.
Here's how much rain, wind Irma brought to Florida | NOLA.com

Hong Kong received 81mm rain from Hato. That's a little over 3 inches.
Super Typhoon Hato(1713)

The entire rainfall for the month of August, including the two storms, was 489mm or about 16 inches.
The Weather of August 2017

When Houston gets 4 inches in a day or 16 inches in a month, it's a complete non-event. You have zero credibility.

Like I said, each city will have to be designed to ensure maximum preparation for whatever disasters they are at risk for. Therefore, it ultimately doesn't matter if other cities could handle 50 inches of rain or not. All that matters is Houston's ability to do so.

Hong Kong and Miami are just some other cities that deal with the types of heavy storms that Houston sees. Thus, they have a very real chance of getting hit with a cyclone that drops 50+ inches of rain. Now, Houston may very well have the most advanced flood control infrastructure on the planet. But the important thing is that those are just two cities that provide good guidance.

Originally Posted by oceangaia

It's not gonna happen here. And no amount of liberal agenda-driven campaigning will change that.

Push back all you like. The hourglass is still draining....

[Scientific]

Urban living will always be expensive. In every major city, & its tiresome to read how cheap we are compared to SF or Manhattan as if we even belong on those tier of cities. So are the other 90% of metros.

As more people come. & more competition for land & space keep increasing, "affordable" urban living for most native Houstonians is out of the question.

[oceangaia]

Originally Posted by Texyn

Like I said, each city will have to be designed to ensure maximum preparation for whatever disasters they are at risk for. Therefore, it ultimately doesn't matter if other cities could handle 50 inches of rain or not. All that matters is Houston's ability to do so.

Hong Kong and Miami are just some other cities that deal with the types of heavy storms that Houston sees. Thus, they have a very real chance of getting hit with a cyclone that drops 50+ inches of rain. Now, Houston may very well have the most advanced flood control infrastructure on the planet. But the important thing is that those are just two cities that provide good guidance.

Push back all you like. The hourglass is still draining....

Like I said, lots of talk but no real examples. Without examples, your opinions on what Houston needs to do to prevent future Harvey-style flooding are just opinions not backed by performance.

Another city that provides good guidance is... Houston. We routinely brush off 6 inch rainfalls that result in major damage and flooding elsewhere. Like the cases you attempted to pass off as examples - Hong Kong on it's back from 3" of rain in a typhoon and Miami shut down because of 4" of rain in a hurricane. Those amounts are laughable here and wouldn't even result in a kindergarten field trip being postponed.

Houston is still sprawling...

[LocalPlanner]

What a silly conversation, though I guess it has to be had. As long as Houston is economically successful, it will continue to both sprawl and densify. Neither should be prevented through government policy.

I agree we need to improve street design and reduce (or better yet eliminate) parking requirements to facilitate pedestrian mobility. Lots of folks don't like that, but they're wrong.

We should continue to allow single family development on the periphery to satisfy demand for that, and faciltate them through MUDs.

Folks in low-density areas should not be able to prohibit conversion of strip commercial sites into denser residential or mixed-use. Traffic and "community character" are NOT valid reasons for regulating development.

[NTexas2010]

Originally Posted by detachable arm

Ynohtna, B00ST, Wipe0ut, Wipe0ut2020, Shake&Bake, Cybersamurai, CyberneticGhost, Viral, Zanzebar and Texyn are all the same person.

Lulz those are some classic CD troll accounts.

[Texyn]

Originally Posted by oceangaia

Like I said, lots of talk but no real examples. Without examples, your opinions on what Houston needs to do to prevent future Harvey-style flooding are just opinions not backed by performance.

Another city that provides good guidance is... Houston. We routinely brush off 6 inch rainfalls that result in major damage and flooding elsewhere. Like the cases you attempted to pass off as examples - Hong Kong on it's back from 3" of rain in a typhoon and Miami shut down because of 4" of rain in a hurricane. Those amounts are laughable here and wouldn't even result in a kindergarten field trip being postponed.

Houston may very well have the most advanced flood control on the planet. Still doesn't change the fact that there's room for improvement. Miami and Hong Kong still provide good reference, as they also hold the same risks for tropical cyclones. No, not saying that they are ahead of Houston, just that they are two cities for guidance. They may utilize flood control techniques not seen in Houston that will benefit the city if implemented. Always good to have an open look.

Keep in mind that while both cities didn't get as much rain from their cyclones, they did get receive more direct landfalls. So they ended up with harsher winds and greater power outages, while still getting flooding from storm surge (more sudden than Houston's gradual flooding from heavy rains).

Ultimately, much of the improvement to flood control, including the ideas I post, fall under common sense. As a result, there really is no need to worry about other cities regarding this. It doesn't take a Civil Engineer to know that paving over natural habitat will reduce the amount of flood waters absorbed by the land.

Houston is still sprawling...

And will get drowned by the next major storm unless some type of change is implemented going forward. And just know that the change, whether it is higher density or not, will still require sacrifices.

Originally Posted by NTexas2010

Lulz those are some classic CD troll accounts.

All just speculation, and still would depend on what they posted.