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Why does America's 4th. largest city continually flood?
I was watching Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel interview a gentleman tonight who moved to Houston in 1963 and said this is the 4th. time he has been in a major flood since then and said why hasn't the city of Houston prepared for such events.
He also went on to say that infrastructure is lacking including lack of sidewalks and it was embarrassing.
What's wrong with Houston?
Tasteless thread title and useless questions.
It's like asking why fire must be so hot.
Quote:
Originally Posted by American Expat
They're next to the Gulf of Mexico where massive hurricanes sometimes make landfall. Can you point to a place in the world that's set up to take 50" (1270 mm) of rain in 4 days and not flood?
This.
Until the bleeding gets stopped, folks and animals rescued, let alone getting fully back on their feet as additional rain totals continue to rise and artificial flooding take place to relieve stressed and perhaps failing dams...
... What good does it do to shame people for overpopulation, building in less than Utopian conditions, not paying enough taxes/infrastructure, etc.?
Friends in Austin tell us it was on constantly. I can't imagine Houston would be any different.
But how in the hell do you evacuate 6 million people?
You can't. Aside from the fact that many of those people probably had no way to get out and nowhere to go if they did, the traffic jams would have been horrendous. People are forgetting how quickly this storm grew in intensity.
Harvey looks to me like the kind of tragedy that really can't properly be blamed on any single person or group of people.
Seriously - If people in the Houston area are not reading/watching this channel, then they are clueless about what is going on. They are posting constant updates.
A lot of them have no electricity. By now, mobile devices will have dead batteries. How are they going to see that?
However most at risk should have been gone days ago!
1. Firstly, if I was in charge. I would have gone on air and told all 72,000 who had homes damaged in last event to move everything of value up high and packup and be on high way within 4 hours.
Further they should take neighbors and full cars.
Traffic on all major highways outbound only. Traffic on small highways in bound okay only for emergency vehicles and supplies. No residents allowed back into city on a highway.
2. I would have requested everyone else to sit tight for six hours to allow the first flow out.
3. Second round is only those residents with one story homes that have seen street flooding.
4. Third round is residents with two story homes that have seen street flooding.
Absolutely control number of vehicles getting onto the on ramps.
Sounds like a plan that may have lead to minimizing this disaster, but at what point does it become changing seats on the Titanic?
Why do that many people set down roots in such a place in the first place? Abundance of jobs? Living off of available resources? Etc.
No guarantees in this life. Floods are very dangerous.
Go look at City Data relocation threads of places like the Front Range of Colorado. Oh, it's not green enough, not enough trees, it's too brown, etc.
Truth be told, we don't have enough water to support the folks we've got.
But let's blame our Gov't for fighting wars in Afghanistan instead of building better infrastructure. Another argument for another disaster imo.
I'm going to continue to pray for these folks. If you want higher taxes, dig out your wallets and give some cash to Red Cross.
That would make sense IF the Evacuation was called AFTER all the rains came, AFTER all the roads were under water. BUT -- that wasn't the case. The advise to Evacuate areas was 2 days before Harvey hit 210.5 miles South of Houston.
You KNOW that, and so do those paying attention. It's not "hindsight 20/20 when the National Hurricane Center and NOAA were saying with certainty that Houston would get huge amounts of rain and even giving what turned out to be correct predictions of the amount of that rain.
It's fine to say "Houston Leadership chose to not believe all that" - it not fine to say "it's nothing but hindsight" because they were never warned. There is video tape of all those warning, there are 30 advisories by the NHC.
The advice from the governor was for people to evacuate themselves.You don't need local leadership permission to get in your car and leave town. They chose to stay. It is as simple as that. I do not think it is even possible to evacuate everyone in a city the size of Houston. Here in South Florida we understand no one can evacuate everyone from here either, and they typically advice against a mass-exodus. You keep talking about city leadership as if they are in control of your life. They are not. You are in charge for your self, and your family.
The Mayor of Houston told them they did not need to leave (he's a Democrat). My sister lives in Magnolia, TX, about 42 miles outside Houston (to the North and slightly West). She posted on FB that her yard was flooded twice (drained and flooded again) and she is trapped in her house, as the roads are all flooded around her. She says she has rolled up rugs and stacked her furniture, hoping for the best. So far her house (she says in the middle of her 2 acre plot) has remained dry. She is there with her two children. I had asked her why she didn't leave (she could have gone back to her summer home on Lake Chautauqua, NY, which she just left for the season). That's when she told me that they were not told they should leave. Stupid. Very sad.
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Can you point to a place in the world that's set up to take 50" (1270 mm) of rain in 4 days and not flood?
