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Houston is Flooding....

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Skeptic Ginger said:
That's a nice hypothesis. But unless you have personal knowledge, I'm not sure you should state it as a fact.

Mind you I am not saying the photo is fake, I'm saying I'm skeptical.
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Local authorities made public statements when those particular nursing home residents were finally rescued, so it is unlikely the incident was a hoax.
 
Real incident, fake photo?

But on the other hand, at that age the residents are used to sitz baths. :D
 
Checkmite said:
Local authorities made public statements when those particular nursing home residents were finally rescued, so it is unlikely the incident was a hoax.
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All I saw in the news was that they were rescued and that the officials claimed they were planning on the rescue before the image went viral.

I saw nothing that said they indeed found what the image depicted.

Again, I am not saying it was a fake photo. I am saying I'm not quite convinced.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
All I saw in the news was that they were rescued and that the officials claimed they were planning on the rescue before the image went viral.

I saw nothing that said they indeed found what the image depicted.

Again, I am not saying it was a fake photo. I am saying I'm not quite convinced.
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Well no; if you're "not quite convinced" what you are implying is that it's plausible the photo was faked. I really don't think that's plausible at all; for one thing, it would require somehow sealing and flooding a fairly large room with visibly dirty water and getting a number of elderly participants to sit in it so that someone could take a picture, in anticipation of a disaster scenario featuring a flood with water levels conveniently identical to those depicted.

Perhaps you'd like to articulate what you think makes a hoax plausible, beyond purely qualitative judgments like "they look too calm", or uniformed ones like "they don't look cold enough".
 
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Marcus said:
I thought my Dad's house was safe, but they are telling them 2-3 feet of water in the house tonight. They are not in the 100 year floodplain, or the 500 year. This is more like a 1000 year flood.
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What part of town is he on?
 
Checkmite said:
Well no; if you're "not quite convinced" what you are implying is that it's plausible the photo was faked. I really don't think that's plausible at all; for one thing, it would require somehow sealing and flooding a fairly large room with visibly dirty water and getting a number of elderly participants to sit in it so that someone could take a picture, in anticipation of a disaster scenario featuring a flood with water levels conveniently identical to those depicted.

Perhaps you'd like to articulate what you think makes a hoax plausible, beyond purely qualitative judgments like "they look too calm", or uniformed ones like "they don't look cold enough".
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Goodness, you sound a bit defensive.

It would only require photoshopping.

There was an interview on public radio with the daughter of the owner of the assisted living home. It gave the pic more cred.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Goodness, you sound a bit defensive.
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You may be projecting.

Earlier you rejected the need for photos corroborating the level of flooding in the area; but if you watch them, you may notice something else pertinent - people wading about in their flooded homes, calmly and not acting as if they are cold.
 
Checkmite said:
You may be projecting.

Earlier you rejected the need for photos corroborating the level of flooding in the area;
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No, I rejected the assertion proving the flooding proved the photo.

Checkmite said:
but if you watch them, you may notice something else pertinent - people wading about in their flooded homes, calmly and not acting as if they are cold.
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Still not evidence the assisted living home image wasn't photoshopped.

I did find the interview of the daughter of the home's operator was supporting evidence.
 
It may be a bit posed, I suppose. I don't mean set-up, I mean that the photographer might have asked the ladies to do certain things, like the sewing, and persuaded the cat to be in the shot, rather than it being a pure candid camera snap.
 
Sherkeu said:
Don't hold your breath on that. Houston has been in denial about their situation for a while.

From an article 8 months ago:
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Sweet... pave over the open ground in a flood plain with hardly any grade to it, that relies on the ground absorption to take up the slack.

And these bureaucrats, more concerned with continued rapid development for its tax revenue, claim it's the other side with "an agenda".

Outstanding. :rolleyes:
 
Things to consider:

1) Texas politicians have in the past blocked federal government aid to disaster regions.

2) Trump has proposed cutting FEMA's budget by almost a billion dollars.

3) The federal government is about to go into a shutdown over Trump's wall.

All these things mitigate against massive relief funds being available anytime soon. Which is terrible but true. Will the Red Cross and others be able to keep things stable in the meantime? And I have to wonder what the impact on the economy will be for America's fourth largest city to be underwater with no money coming for rebuilding on the horizon?
 
Tony said:
What part of town is he on?
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Upstream of Addicks Reservoir, Lakes on Eldridge. They are releasing water from Addicks but not fast enough to keep up with incoming flows, the level was projected to overtop the northern spillway early this morning, inundating several neighborhoods.

ETA: Water up to the doorstep but not in the house yet
 
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3point14 said:
I wonder if the US will turn down offers of aid for this one.
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If I was a senator I'd tell Ted Cruz to "suck it" when he comes asking for relief funds.

This is why it is a good thing I'm not a senator. I'd also probably drop GOT spoilers when speaking about Department of the Interior budgets.
 
Travis said:
Things to consider:

1) Texas politicians have in the past blocked federal government aid to disaster regions.

2) Trump has proposed cutting FEMA's budget by almost a billion dollars.

3) The federal government is about to go into a shutdown over Trump's wall.

All these things mitigate against massive relief funds being available anytime soon. Which is terrible but true. Will the Red Cross and others be able to keep things stable in the meantime? And I have to wonder what the impact on the economy will be for America's fourth largest city to be underwater with no money coming for rebuilding on the horizon?
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Republicans generally fully support disaster relief to places that typical vote Republican.
 
I find it astounding that they allowed housing developers to build subdivisions in areas that flood control dams to inundate in a flood.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Notice the ceiling light is on in that flooded nursing home picture.

Could be emergency battery powered but there's still a lot of light in that room if the power were off.

And calm I can understand but they would all be freezing and they don't look cold.
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The flood water would not be cold that first night. This time of year it is very warm and moist in Houston. (Other times of the year it is just somewhat warm and moist. And then a few days of cold and moist, but I digress.) Now that it has been overcast and raining for a few days I bet it is a bit cooler, but that first night I bet the water was well into the 80s. I wouldn't enjoy sitting in it, for lots of reasons, but temperature would not be one of them.

Flood water is nasty in ways that are easy to forget. First you have typical nasty bottom of the ditch and storm sewer water, then you add all the dirt and grime form every surface the rain falls on, add in a several tons of raw sewage, every displaced rodent and snake that can't find a tree, and throw in floating islands of fire ants. Have the whole mess flowing in ways that are hard to predict and it is a good recipe for people getting sick or injured.
 
Marcus said:
Upstream of Addicks Reservoir, Lakes on Eldridge. They are releasing water from Addicks but not fast enough to keep up with incoming flows, the level was projected to overtop the northern spillway early this morning, inundating several neighborhoods.

ETA: Water up to the doorstep but not in the house yet
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Best of luck. Looks like a nice neighborhood.

I think one of the places I used to live in the Houston area is currently being evacuated. When I lived there a hydrologist I worked with assured me that it would never flood. She had over designed the levee system because a colleague had messed up the flow predictions. It was designed to 500 year specs instead of the required 100 year specs.
 
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