Ed The Hurricane [or Tropical Storm] Harvey Thread

[Darth Rotor]

Nature is trying to kill us and liberals want to protect it. #WakeUpWhiteMan

Cain, that made me laugh. Thanks.

Only about 8% of hurricane deaths occur because of the winds. All the others drown. The prediction is a 13' storm surge and the sea will invade the land for miles.

They were wrong about that in the Corpus Christi areas. (And wrong about much else).

If you put all people in cars, six apiece, you'd need about 1 million vehicles to take them all out. A typical three line road can cope with perhaps 5000 vehicles an hour going in one direction. Suppose you double that by closing the line the other way and you have 5 such roads available, the evacuation still takes around 20 hours, assuming there are no bottlenecks, such as those from flooding, accidents or roads leading to your destinations being clogged by traffic.

After you've done that, you just have problems with providing about 6 million people with food, water and shelter for the next week or two. The population includes very young, very old and sick, so it's about akin to the effort Germany put in fighting the Eastern front during WW2.

That's a tad difficult to pull off on two days' notice.

McHrozni

One of the few people in this thread with a clue.

Not all of the six million (or two point six million, specific to Houston) would choose to leave. Choice is the operative word.

People should have been given the full risk factor, as Governor Abbott of Texas provided. One can't help feeling that Democrat Mayor Sylvester Turner instructed Houston residents to 'stay put' just to oppose the Republican advice and bash Trump over the head with 'lack of funds' later.

Looks to me like the Mayor understands what MChrozni understands, and that you don't. Mayor did OK, based on what he was confronted with.

What was the Mayor of Houston thinking when he seemed to give the message all of this would somehow bypass Houston itself? Even I can still remember Ike and I am 7,000 kilometers away.

He might have been thinking that someone 7000km away ought to STFU since they are clueless.

Parker has been out of office for over a year, right? With the current GOP can't they just blame it on electing a black liberal mayor? Or just a black mayor? Maybe he's Kenyan? Sylvester is an odd name, no?

He seems to have done as well as could be expected given that this is, no kidding, the storm of the century. Maybe he did a whole lot better than could be expected.

I boarded up my house (don't live in Houston, a bit further south) and the Missus left with my son. I and the dogs rode it out. I made a risk based decision that I could not have made 20 years ago. There are 9 weather models that each have a different forecast on storm track. They were each a bit wrong, but in aggregate gave me enough to work with.

My wife is originally from Corpus Christi. She lived through Hurricane Celia (Look It Up) in 1970, and had no desire to do the same again. I briefed her that I expected to need to use the generator once the storm had passed, and that we have two weeks of food, and 10 days of water (not including two full bath tubs) on hand. So, in a survival situation, I was not in the least bit worried. All four cars had full gas tanks, I have a spare 14 gallon tank, and I know how to siphon gas.

She thinks I'm nuts. (OK, I am).

She and my son went North.
Storm hit. House still standing. Others not so lucky as me. Dogs OK, I am OK, and now family is back.

Houston: oh man, that storm heading back east and continuing to generate rain: like Tropical Storm Allison on steroids. (For those unaware, Look It Up).

Harvey had the experts wringin their brain cells out. A good friend worked in the Corpus Christi Emergency Operations Center. We were talking about these things yesterday, on the phone. The amount of wrong and erroneous information NWS passed to them was staggering. Well intentioned, but wrong.

Most of the people on the first responder/emergency responder circuit have done amazing things. Glad to be in the same human race as these good folks.

I was able to help out a few neighbors once the major crap blew through, thanks to having charged up my battery operated tool batteries, and having a generator, but nothing TV worthy. We all take care of each other when crap like this happens.

Something sort of like this will happen again. Be ready.

 

[Giordano]

My bad. In An Inconvenient Truth, Gore claims that the effects of global climate change can be reversed by reducing CO2 emissions. I apologize if I got the reduction targets wrong.

Although I am tempted to debate the specifics of Gore and climate change, that topic is relegated by the mods to another thread.

More to the specifics of this thread- it is amazing just how much water can be carried as vapor and fine condensate in a hurricane! All of these feet and feet of liquid water deluge began as gaseous H2O molecules somewhere over the ocean!.

 

[Giordano]

Here's hoping your economic output is high enough to produce a surplus you can use to adapt to the changing climate. Might want to take another look at your emissions output.

Actually it is and I can, but not all my neighbors and friends have the resources to do so if they need to. So I kind of feel responsible in terms of how my actions affect others.

As to my emissions output: I have looked at it and in fact I've reduced it substantially. It seems like a win-win to me. It also leaves my kids and their children a bit more oil and gas than they would have if I selfishly burned it all now. And surprise- it didn't hurt a bit to reduce my emissions and I've even saved myself quite a bit of money doing so!

Again- this is not the topic for this thread, so I suggest we both quit this derail.

 

[Agatha]

Hurricane Harvey/Tropical Storm Harvey is best discussed in this thread, which will have all your Harvey-related news and views.

General climate change discussion is best placed in SMMT, and posters are free to add to existing threads there or create new ones.

Thank you for your understanding.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Agatha

 

[Dr. Keith]

Mayor did OK, based on what he was confronted with.

Apparently Turner has been a pretty decent Mayor. I remember him as more of a joke candidate back when I lived in Houston, a bit on the fringes even within his community. I'm glad to hear he has proven to be better than that.

She thinks I'm nuts. (OK, I am).

Who are we to disagree?

All the same, keep your head about you. Lots of people get hurt cleaning up. They forget that they aren't as young as they were last time. Not you, of course, but you know, other people.

 

[Beerina]

Saw some people being airlifted in a helicopter. One raised her hands up, but I couldn't tell if she was saying, "Praise Jesus!" or "Praise Gee Eee!"

 

[quadraginta]

Saw some people being airlifted in a helicopter. One raised her hands up, but I couldn't tell if she was saying, "Praise Jesus!" or "Praise Gee Eee!"

"Get me out of this thing!"?

 

[Marcus]

It seems we aren't allowed to discuss Houston on a thread with Houston in the title, an issue for FM, I suppose.

A 100 year flood is one thing, this flood, the largest flood in the history of the US, they are now saying exceeds the 1000 year flood levels. I don't disagree with criticisms of impervious cover requirements in Houston, it's just that the signal pales to insignificance in comparison with the volumes of water we are talking about here, over 50".

 

[Rolfe]

It's heartening to see animal rescue being taken seriously this time, unlike with Katrina.

https://twitter.com/vaughanabuse/status/903032164001951744

During Katrina people were being told that they had to leave their animals behind and there would be no place in the rescue centres for them. This caused many people to refuse to evacuate and I can totally understand why. Some of the rescue teams were quite brutal with distressed pet owners.

It was all bad communication because the vet school at Baton Rouge was co-ordinating animal rescue and had shelter accomodation ready to evacuate pets. (I later read a paper in a veterinary journal documenting the rescue effort and making recommendations for future similar operations.) However this wasn't being communicated out in the field and there was a lot of distress and bad feeling. The official line seemed to be that only human life mattered and animals were to be abandoned. However, pet owners simply won't co-operate with that and that creates problems.

Nice video there, even some wildlife being rescued.

ETA: Here's a more professional clip. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-41097253/hurricane-harvey-saving-displaced-pets

 

[casebro]

My brother got stranded in the Big Thompson River canyon four years ago. Helicopters came in after a few days, and picked up the residents- AND their pets. Directions were very specific to bring pets along.

 

[Rolfe]

It's only practical. Experience demonstrates that significant numbers of people will not leave their pets and so may remain in dangerous situations. Reasonable evacuation facilities for pets are necessary to avoid this risk to human life, even if you take the view that animals should be expendable in an emergency.

 

[casebro]

Water level dropping in Houston. About 30 dead. Six in one car, they just couldn't hold out any longer. Bad decision- the water was not so deep their car wouldn't start.

 

[Rolfe]

BBC is saying the worst isn't over yet.

 

[Marcus]

It's heartening to see animal rescue being taken seriously this time, unlike with Katrina.

https://twitter.com/vaughanabuse/status/903032164001951744

During Katrina people were being told that they had to leave their animals behind and there would be no place in the rescue centres for them. This caused many people to refuse to evacuate and I can totally understand why. Some of the rescue teams were quite brutal with distressed pet owners.

It was all bad communication because the vet school at Baton Rouge was co-ordinating animal rescue and had shelter accomodation ready to evacuate pets. (I later read a paper in a veterinary journal documenting the rescue effort and making recommendations for future similar operations.) However this wasn't being communicated out in the field and there was a lot of distress and bad feeling. The official line seemed to be that only human life mattered and animals were to be abandoned. However, pet owners simply won't co-operate with that and that creates problems.

Nice video there, even some wildlife being rescued.

ETA: Here's a more professional clip. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-41097253/hurricane-harvey-saving-displaced-pets

My Dad and stepmom were rescued yesterday along with their two dogs so I can attest that no one was excluding pets.

 

[newyorkguy]

What I don't understand is the relatively small number of people in Houston reported in shelters. ABC News (among others) reported that "32,000 people were in shelters across the state, emergency officials reported." That's 32,000 statewide and, even if they were all from the metropolitan Houston area (and they're not), that is less than one percent of the metro Houston population. What happened to the other 6,468,000 people?

Best news is, Houston is beginning to dry out! The photo below is of the sunset tonight.

.

 

[Vixen]

BREAKING: Now there's been two explosions at ARKEMA chemical plant, outside Houston.

An explosion was expected and deemed 'ineveitable' yesterday.

Black smoke can be seen.

 

[Travis]

I read that the chemical plant is in proximity to residential communities.

 

[Dr. Keith]

What I don't understand is the relatively small number of people in Houston reported in shelters. ABC News (among others) reported that "32,000 people were in shelters across the state, emergency officials reported." That's 32,000 statewide and, even if they were all from the metropolitan Houston area (and they're not), that is less than one percent of the metro Houston population. What happened to the other 6,468,000 people?

Best news is, Houston is beginning to dry out! The photo below is of the sunset tonight.

.

A lot of people simply moved in with friends or family on higher ground or further inland.

As a kid we moved into a neighbors house during a minor flood when our power was out for several days. Friends in Central Texas were hosting lots of folks from the Corpus area over the weekend. I met a couple from the coast Thursday night heading up to Oklahoma to stay with family. Talking to my family north of
Houston it sounded like they were hosting a slumber party. People find their own solutions as much as possible. We feel responsible for ourselves. Most of the time it works. Going to a shelter or asking for evacuation is a bit of a last resort.

I was on the phone with my mom the other evening when the first sunlight was breaking through the clouds a bit before sunset. She was so excited I thought she was going to cry.

 

[casebro]

And, define flooded? Transportation ceased, (City Flooded!) or standing water in your house ( Person flooded)?

So, what percentage of the homes in Houston's county were flooded?

 

[Rolfe]

I'm hearing about 18 to 20 deaths at the moment. The specific cases I've seen reported (nine) are all drownings in vehicles while trying to evacuate. Has anyone who stayed put been killed because of that decision?