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Houston and Hurricane Harvey - Overview and On-Line Resources
Houston, Texas (the 4th most populous city in the USA) is located in Harris County (the 3rd most populous in the country) and has been under the onslaught of Hurricane Harvey which was later downgraded to a tropical storm. Current rain totals over the course of the storm have exceeded 40 inches in some locations — additional rain of up to 10 more inches is predicted. Flooding is rampant and the damage to property is immense. So far, 5 people have been reported dead as a result of the storm. Gathered here are a number of on-line resources followed by a story questioning why mandatory evacuations were not called for earlier. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) reports the failure of a large number of cell towers, cable and phone lines.
Online Resources:
- Houston Chronicle — largest local newspaper.
- Advanced Hydrologic Prediction Service: Houston/Galveston — river, stream, and lake water levels... and forecasts.
- Harris County Flood Control District - Storm Center
- Harris County Flood Warning System — interactive map with water gauges
- NWS - Current Conditions and 7-Day Forecast
- NWS - Weather observations for the last three days — temperature, barometric pressure, wind, and rain amounts over the last 3 days.
- NWS - Graphical Forecast
- click2houston — collection of news and links (From local TV station?).
- How Harvey went from a little-noticed storm to a behemoth — appears in the Tampa Bay Times but originally appeared in The Washington Post
- US National Hurricane Center — part of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
- FCC - Hurricane Harvey — scroll down to "Communications Status Reports"
Why Wasn't an Official Evacuation Order Issued?
As I type this, a historic weather event is crushing south Texas with enormous amounts of rain and massive flooding leaving thousands of people in need of rescue.
So why wasn't an official evacuation order issued? Last Friday Governor Greg Abbott (R) urged people to evacuate, even if it was not mandatory. Shortly after the governor's press conference, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner (D) sent a tweet advising people not rush to evacuate, saying no evacuation orders have been issued. Mayor Sylvester also addressed what he called "unfounded rumors," releasing a statement that said, "...Rumors are nothing new, but the widespread use of social media has needlessly frightened many people today."
Harris County's emergency management office also tried to debunk via Twitter, what it called "false emails & FB posts" on August 24, suggesting people ignore the messages. The post it shared predicted 50 inches of rain (which experts are now also predicting) and 100,000 homes destroyed (it's not clear how many homes are currently flooded in Houston). All of which prompted people to wonder:
You said this was fake news but yet everything this "false" message said is happening. Two days ago we could've evacuated. https://t.co/ORtTyEodQt
— Pickle Heidy (@cheidyy_) August 27, 2017
To be fair, Mayor Sylvester had a good reason for not issuing an evacuation. In 2005 more than 100 people died during the evacuation of Houston for Hurricane Rita.
Source: Heavy.com
Why Evacuating Major Cities Before a Hurricane can be Deadly
[Ed Addition] The Houston Chronicle has an excellent piece, Why evacuating major cities before a hurricane can be deadly:
When Hurricane Rita barreled toward Texas in 2005, for example, an exodus of about 3 million people contributed to at least 73 deaths — though some have estimated as many as 107 — before the storm.
"Traffic jams stretched across hundreds of miles over two days, and many people ran out of gas," reporters Jim Malewitz and Brandon Formby wrote in The Texas Tribune. "Dozens died from accidents and heat-related illnesses, all before Rita even made landfall."
Had Harris County issued an evacuation order even several days in advance, a similar backup may have ensued — and it could have happened on roads that quickly got flooded with several feet of fast-moving water.
See the story for amazing pictures comparing dry and flooded highways.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @02:29PM (1 child)
What I really wish for people who say we needn't be concerned about sea level rise measured in fractions of inches per decade, is that the rest of us can collectively turn off our normal, instinctual sense of compassion for another human being in trouble when these people are in trouble due to storm surges, etc. We could all learn to be just a little sociopathic from time to time.
I have zero sympathy for the troubles of people who choose to live places where major floods are a 10 year event or so. Not sure what my cut-off is, haven't run any numbers to look at what the tangible consequences of choosing different cut-off values for my compassion are (sort of giving the compassion instinct another chance at a meta level), but I think I would have compassion for people who are victims of a 100 year event. Never a 10 year event. Maybe a lot of people just need to accept that they simply don't have the means to live somewhere they have to rebuild every 10 years.
The part where I have trouble switching my compassion off is when it's been, say, 25 years since the last 10 year event, then the next 10 year event hits only 5 years later. Maths, people! Fucking learn them! “10 year event” isn't a fucking bus schedule, even if it were, everybody fucking knows better than to trust a bus schedule! Maths are one of the things that separates you from a dumb animal! (Or maybe many humans really are just dumb animals, the only exceptional thing about our genus is that occasionally we give birth to people who aren't simply dumb animals with no capability to do anything but run on pure instinct 24/7, never taking time for quiet contemplation and meditation, never learning rigorous intellectual discipline, and living by it!) I really wish I had one of those simple on-off switches that sociopaths have.
Or maybe I'm just a sociopath to begin with. When you take enough abuse, sometimes physical, sometimes gaslighting, etc, well, at least I learned, after going through... things..., that this species is probably a failure if my metric for success is sustainable living in two different star systems.
At least mother nature is more lenient than I am. Success to mother nature is breeding. It's a very low bar, but it's a practical bar. From the smallest microbes to even the self-styled h. “sapiens,” they can all successfully execute their animal functions. Might be none of them are functionally literate or numerate or logical, but at least they're capable of fucking and reproduction.
Mother nature and her evolution has no goal. I only experience suffering because my ego gives me goals that the rest of h. “sapiens” have no interest in. Maybe we should call them h. propagandis or h. mensalveois (don't know Latin well, appreciate any corrections). They've evolved language, but they do not know what it is for other than creating a hive mind!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @04:23PM
https://weather.com/storms/severe/news/houston-flood-history-may2015-allison [weather.com]
http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/19/us/houston-texas-flooding/index.html [cnn.com]