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Even if there had been a mass evacuation of the entire Harvey flood area before the storm made landfall, where would they have gone?
Evacuating storm surge areas and speculatively evacuating from a massive inland rain event that could very well affect where they would be going to are two different propositions.
Houston's one attempt at a mass evacuation was a debacle that killed more people than the hurricane that largely missed it. Even with better management, (like setting up contraflow lanes long before they thought to in Rita and not blocking off perfectly usable roads to herd everyone onto a freeway) there almost two million more people in the area now than there than in 2005.
It's a logistical non-starter.
It would take days for a fraction to get out, then good luck finding a place to stay.
It would take days for a fraction to get out, then good luck finding a place to stay.
I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the silence of IC_deLight who thought he knew where I've been spending my summers lately.
Flash floods in the Hill Country are legendary in their lethality. Fast moving water appearing out of nowhere in a matter of minutes unlike anyone on the coastal prairies see when it floods. Considering we have an enormous, unpredictable mass of rain projected to meander across the southern half of the state, it's probably not an ideal place to send four or five million people even if they did have a place for them to stay.
I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the silence of IC_deLight who thought he knew where I've been spending my summers lately.
What a pitiful snark. I never suggested I knew nor cared where you spent your summers.
You stated:
"I'm here for family business, one, and I'm right back out of here at the earliest opportunity. I hope against hope it's before summer sets in."
My point was if you don't like being in an area that is prone to hurricanes and flooding then leave and quit whining about it. Obviously the benefit to you in the short time you intend to be there is greater than burden of threat of flood and hurricane.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfre81
Flash floods in the Hill Country are legendary in their lethality. Fast moving water appearing out of nowhere in a matter of minutes unlike anyone on the coastal prairies see when it floods. Considering we have an enormous, unpredictable mass of rain projected to meander across the southern half of the state, it's probably not an ideal place to send four or five million people even if they did have a place for them to stay.
Well there's no governmental control over hurricanes. You complain about staying. You complain about trying to leave. You complain about leaving. If you are so fearful of doing anything perhaps you should relocate now before hurricane season starts. I can't imagine how helpful you are with the family business that brought to you the area at this time. Hurricane season officially starts June 1, 2018. May you endure it or take your whine elsewhere beforehand.
I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the silence of IC_deLight who thought he knew where I've been spending my summers lately.
Flash floods in the Hill Country are legendary in their lethality. Fast moving water appearing out of nowhere in a matter of minutes unlike anyone on the coastal prairies see when it floods. Considering we have an enormous, unpredictable mass of rain projected to meander across the southern half of the state, it's probably not an ideal place to send four or five million people even if they did have a place for them to stay.
Step off. I remember all of the people trying to be rescued and trying to find a place to stay after the high tide storm surge knocked their house off the foundation and there was no power for months. My storm was worse than yours doesn't play for me.
My storm was worse than yours doesn't play for me.
For the life of me, I can't understand where you get I was making a statement even somewhat suggesting minimizing your experience or comparing your experience with mine. Again I was in Michigan. I saw a half inch of rain not even from Harvey, but the system that made it stall out. My statement was about how the places to which coastal Texas residents typically evacuate from hurricanes are not good places to be if flash floods develop there. South Texas hurricanes cause more fatalities in inland flooding (particularly along the Rio Grande) than on the coast. The gist of this, of course, is that relocating masses of people to such a place without the infrastructure to support those people in even the most temporary capacity is an idiotic idea, even if it could be coordinated without creating a gridlock across a third of the state with a storm approaching.
I felt as bad for the people in the Rockport area who took a direct hit from a Cat-4 and the attention went to the higher populated areas up the coast. Really it was pretty helpless watching from 1,300 miles away.
Harvey was just a taste of what will happen if the dams and reservoirs fail, and they've rebuilt all the flooded houses where they sit instead of letting that land be a buffer for the next so-called "500-year flood." I'd say the ones that have happened in the last three years have changed whatever calculations they make for those terms.
IC didn't seem to care for my pointing out that it's the sprawl that's making the floods worse, which is why he went on his ad hominem berserker attack. But it's simple, new development makes old development flood, because it's built up higher than the older stuff for the most part to keep that new development from flooding, but it sends floodwater into the older development next to it that never flooded before. Times that by dozens and hundreds all across the region. The fact that you have some parks doesn't matter. Look at the historical images on Google Earth from the last 20 or so years and watch as that concrete pizza goes from a large to a jumbo.
IC didn't seem to care for my pointing out that it's the sprawl that's making the floods worse, which is why he went on his ad hominem berserker attack. But it's simple, new development makes old development flood, because it's built up higher than the older stuff for the most part to keep that new development from flooding, but it sends floodwater into the older development next to it that never flooded before. Times that by dozens and hundreds all across the region. The fact that you have some parks doesn't matter. Look at the historical images on Google Earth from the last 20 or so years and watch as that concrete pizza goes from a large to a jumbo.
You seem to want to blame "somewhere/someone else" for what you complain about. For example, you stated:
Quote:
Originally Posted by jfre81
It's not just Houston itself, but the region, and the region did not plan for a goddamned thing. This wasn't even the first event where people had to be pulled off their roofs this decade! It's particularly bad on the west side where, not surprisingly, there's a 24-lane ribbon of highway so people like you can get to work and back from your subdivisions 30 miles away, sitting on top of the rice paddies that used to hold all that water when it falls like that.
"People like you"? "Subdivisions 30 miles away"?
I'm sure they all commute in to the metropolis of Dickinson, right?
That 24-lane ribbon isn't in place for Dickinson.
No doubt Dickinson is considered sprawl by some ivory tower urbanophile.
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