Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Nothing worth doing is easy.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

You cannot shame the shameless.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

After roe, women are no longer free.

This fight is for everything.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Open Thread: More About the “Natural” Disaster in Houston

Open Thread: More About the “Natural” Disaster in Houston

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For informational purposes, a couple of tweet-threads from the ground. Clicking on any of these tweets should take you to the entire series, including more links & photos / maps:

(I know some of y’all don’t care for extended tweet-reading, so feel free to let me know if there’s a more concise traditional link with the same information I can link.)
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And yet…


Reader Interactions

53Comments

  1. 1.

    lamh36

    Another example of what I commented about in the previous thread, on CNN, this time Don Lemon had another person called into the station saying they are stranded…makes me wonder how they decide who to feature on air and who they don’t…another reason why I doesn’t sit well with me.

    Here’s an idea of the type of things I’d loved to see more from reporters instead…

    @meetmissjoness
    Incredible, watch as @BrandiKHOU flags down a rescue boat on-air, saving this truck driver’s life http://thebea.st/2wg4TLd

    This is what I’m talking about…I need to see more of this from the NATIONAL MEDIA…not just the local…put down the damn mic for a minute and help people!

    The full video including the rescue: https://twitter.com/JMKTV/status/901842756829679616

  2. 2.

    Adam L Silverman

    There is a significant national security issue in regard to proactive disaster mitigation. This is partially rooted in the questions about whether to issue/not issue an evacuation order. I’ll have more on this tomorrow, but there is significant complexity involved with this. Ranging from the actual ability of the infrastructure to bear the load of evacuating a metropolitan area the size of Houston to having the infrastructure to bear receiving a significant portion of the population of a metropolitan area the size of Houston to the ability of the vast majority of people in the greater Houston area (or any other area) to actually evacuate. This itself includes the financial ability, connections in their familial, social/personal, and/or professional networks to take them in, transportation issues, etc.

  3. 3.

    lollipopguild

    We are going to see more of this and cons and their media will simply ignore/downplay it just as they did with Sandy and Katrina. They are set in concrete on this.

  7. 7.

    debbie

    @lollipopguild:

    We cannot allow that to happen. Abbott et al. must be held accountable for their lack of leadership in regard to strengthening the city’s infrastructure.

  9. 9.

    machine

    Contrary to pundit opinion, Houston and the surrounding counties *do* have an evac plan: ZIP codes closest to the “event” are evacuated first, proceeding up freeways and major roads that have been opened on both sides for one-way contraflow. The state is supposed to position food, fuel and medical points along those routes.

    In other news, we are very closely watching the overflow from the Brazos River southwest of here. I have coworkers in that area that were under mandatory evac earlier today. Folks in town along the Buffalo and White Oak bayous are getting hit very hard.

  12. 12.

    efgoldman

    @debbie:

    Abbott et al. must be held accountable for their lack of leadership in regard to strengthening the city’s infrastructure.

    Abbot is a flaming asshole and represents some of the worst that RWNJs have to offer, but no amount of planning could handle this level of catastrophe.
    The things that needed to be done would have been decades ago – not pave over so goddamned much land. zone against certain kinds of sprawl. Of course, in Texas, even suggesting such a thing will get you tarred and feathered and ridden out of state on a rail.
    The citizens of Texas are getting exactly what they voted for – or didn’t bother to vote at all.

  17. 17.

    lamh36

    I said elsewhere and I’ll say it here.

    Why da fuq is Chump going to Houston tomorrow…many of the major rodeways are flooded, folks are still stuck, some folks are still evacuating…and more inches of rain is expected…and I’m sure he’ll likely make sure to go to a “good area” for the best photo-op…hell, maybe he’ll go to Joel Osteen’s church (apparently after outcry, they are prepping to open their doors, we’ll see if they actually do let folks inside)

    The FUQ’N Governor should have said MR CHUMP, please come after the water is down…smh…but naw, the dirty Republican Gov surely wants the photo-op experience too…

    It’s disgusting

  19. 19.

    Adam L Silverman

    @lamh36: @Major Major Major Major: Abbott has already stated that the President will not be going to Houston or even near Houston. My guess is that they fly him into San Antonio, which is where a significant chunk of US Army North is headquartered. They’ve got a command post set up to help coordinate the DOD assistance response to Harvey. They can fly him into Lackland and then they don’t have to disturb anyone.

  20. 20.

    Matt McIrvin

    @efgoldman: Noel Maurer pointed out that the total lack of zoning in Houston probably actually helped, because in practice zoning tends to be pro-sprawl, not anti.

  21. 21.

    Bill Arnold

    @Adam L Silverman:

    He’s a NeverTrumper who works for Rupert Murdoch.

    He can f-off. The Republican Party is the major political entity in the world that deep-embedded global warming denialism in its political canon. Elsewhere, it is science, not politics. (High latitude petro-states like Russia have their own selfish excuses, but they at least recognize realities.) Sure, the science-based arguments can be assembled and honed for a few days while we wait in hope that dams don’t fail and etc. But, as an American taxpayer, I want accountability, at least going into the future. Repair of Texas will cost me real tax money. Willingly paid because I’m an American too.
    E.g. (at random) Gridded National Inventory of U.S. Methane Emissions
    Figure 1. Texas is a big culprit – agriculture, oil, gas.

  22. 22.

    machine

    Odious Osteen hasn’t opened up Flakewood Church because the lower levels are flooded. Evidently the Greenway Plaza area is getting hammered as well.

  23. 23.

    Amaranthine RBG

    Noel Maurer pointed out that the total lack of zoning in Houston probably actually helped, because in practice zoning tends to be pro-sprawl, not anti.

    Maurer is a Kochbot (formerly of GWU) who likes to gripe about how zoning is evil and the best things that cities could do is just let the market thrust its invisible hand up their rectums.i

    You can read a bit about what a twisted little fuck he is: http://thecounterfactualhistoryreview.blogspot.com/2016/12/ive-always-been-big-fanof-jane-jacobs.html

  24. 24.

    lamh36

    @Adam L Silverman: Why even do that at this point Adam…smh…let the city and state get fuq’n dry and stable…da fuq is the point of going to San Antonio?

    What is the hurry for the photo op and if the Governor was worth anything…he’d also wait at least until the damn storm moves da fuq on…smh

  27. 27.

    notanevillawyer

    Rumor in Corpus Christi is that Trump will be coming here and touring some of the damage in Port A and Rockport. I have not heard that he was going to Houston. I can’t see him doing more than a photo op. Port Aransas and the Rockport area are overwhelmingly white and Republican. Corpus Christi has a huge Hispanic community and just leans Republican. Also about a third of the county is still without power so I doubt he will be here long.

  30. 30.

    Vhh

    I favor aid for Texas in recovering from Harvey, but with a condition. The amount fir Texas should be tied by formula,dollar for dollar to what has been and is being spent helping NY and NJ recover from Sandy. If the GOP wants more for Texas, it has to match that sum with rebuilding support for NY, NJ.

  32. 32.

    dmbeaster

    Houston has now had three episodes of massive flooding in three years, as well as a long history of flooding. Indeed, all of southeast Texas is prone to major flooding, with the Brazos being a major culprit in the past and a threat this time too. It is flat, and usually dry. Natural water channels are puny, and cannot handle any significant volume. And tropical storm flooding is something to be expected on some regular basis.

    Houston has basically decided not to plan meaningfully for it. Its conservative urban planning at its finest for a city famous for not having any zoning laws. Southern California had a similar problem, though somewhat diminished risk of frequency. It has coastal mountains that wring wet storms dry, and promptly dump massive amounts of water onto a flat plain with puny natural waterways. Because of the semi-arid climate, rainwater naturally does not sink in, but sheets off the land. It is capable in wet years of massive multi-day subtropical storms bringing huge rainfall totals. Historically, Southern California was prone to massive catastrophic flooding, as in 1938.

    Guess what? They committed massive dollars to enlarge and channel the rivers, as well as building a number of large cache basins for emergency storage of flood waters. They look like dry dams impounding nothing, with nice wild undeveloped areas behind the dam, but they are essential for flood control. No more flooding even in later years with greater rainfall events.

    Houston has not troubled itself to undertake the same effort. Compare Buffalo Bayou (the main river through central Houston) with the channeled Los Angeles River or San Gabriel River. On Saturday, Buffalo Bayou in ridiculous flood stage was moving 3800 cubic feet per second. In flood stage, the LA River can move 129,000 cubic feet per second. Buffalo Bayou is 53 miles long and drains 500 square miles. The LA River is 48 miles long and drains 827 square miles. Los Angeles has an advantage with a greater gradient to the sea, but not by much. And this event was made worse in Houston by storm surge into Galveston Bay helping to back up run off from Houston.

    But still, Houston’s leadership has basically decided to just lump it when it comes to predictable flooding.

  36. 36.

    WestTexan

    @Omnes Omnibus: Other than not building the 4th-largest city in the nation on a swamp …

    I lived there for a decade — it is definitely a swamp. My Houston-native wife agrees. There’s not enough money in the world for her to live there again. She’s got a PhD in Environmental Science with a specialization in water control and has told people to get out of the city for three decades. It’s not a sustainable city with the climate changing as it is.

  38. 38.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    There are 3 or four posts in this thread (as well as Loomis’ over at LGM to which I linked) explaining why Houston’s land use policies have have been disastrous and have contributed to the severity of the current disaster.

    You’re simply ignorant. ‘

    That can be fixed, but with you attitude, I doubt you’ll take the time to do so.

  39. 39.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Amaranthine RBG: I don’t care about judging Houston’s land use policies. I care about people who could die. If you see it otherwise, there is something wrong with you.

  40. 40.

    Amaranthine RBG

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    That’s fine. Good for you. Perhaps you can take a breath and realize there is a difference between saying “I care about helping people” and saying “Fuck off you ignorant troll, there is nothing that could have been done to prevent this.”

  42. 42.

    Interstadial

    The ‘fourth-largest city’ trope being bandied about on the internets is nominally true but a little misleading. In terms of population within the official city limits, Houston is the fourth-largest city. In terms of the much more meaningful metro area population, it’s only tenth. Still huge, but not quite as impressive. Contrast this with San Francisco, which is only thirteenth-largest within city limits but is part of the fifth-largest metro area. Floodwaters don’t respect political boundaries.

  43. 43.

    Ruckus

    @dmbeaster:
    There is an additional thing that makes the LA area work. Where the water comes from is not at sea level. There is enough gradient to make large flood channels and drainage work. And there have been times that it almost didn’t. I’ve seen mud flows and major drainage channels, like the LA river, absolutely full. I’ve driven across lessor channels where the water was right up to the bridges. Any more and water would have been flowing over them as well as under. It works for LA, but Houston is at or very close to sea level. The only way to drain it is to pump and where you pump it to just sends the water right back. As long as the area is not fixed like The Netherlands has done it will flood. New Orleans has it even worse, most of it is below sea level. And of course we can’t possibly maintain it so that it doesn’t flood, why the hell would we do that, spend money on infrastructure. Never heard of anything so ridiculous as to spend money that rich fuckers can steal on infrastructure for normal people.

  44. 44.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @lollipopguild: Don’t you listen to Republicans? They’ll LEAVE. In SCHOOL BUSES. Because, hey, remember those flooded school buses in New Orleans? Besides: nothing says “we’re concerned about our citizen’s welfare” like dumping them on the side of the road, outside of city limits, with no food, shelter, medical supplies, security considerations, or, dare I say, toilets… oh, and, before I forget: WHILE A FRICKIN’ HURRICANE IS BEARING DOWN ON THEM!!!

  45. 45.

    Fair Economist

    @Interstadial:

    The ‘fourth-largest city’ trope being bandied about on the internets is nominally true but a little misleading. In terms of population within the official city limits, Houston is the fourth-largest city. In terms of the much more meaningful metro area population, it’s only tenth

    According to Wikipedia it was sixth, not tenth, in 2010. I’m pretty sure it’s passed Philadelphia since to #5 at least.

  46. 46.

    Aaron

    Per the second guy Matt Corbet’s twitter story: Houston is 35-40 feet above sea level. ROADS HAVE BEEN DELIBERATELY DESIGNED TO DOUBLE AS FLOOD OVERFLOW PATHS. This means having huge numbers of people stuck on roads as the water rises is potentially way worse then sheltering in place.
    read his tweet story. good explainer.

  47. 47.

    West Texan

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m not defending a troll – I am trying to get all of us to do something that will stop this kind of disaster from repeating. Idiots like yourself get all “oh, don’t bring up things like better land use when there’s a disaster happening” instead of noticing that this is the only time you can get people to notice the problem. Instead, Houston and the US will rightly spend billions of dollars to get people back into homes, but will do jackshit about making the area less flood prone. And we will be right back in the same predicament in less than a decade. You think you want to help people in a disaster — that’s wonderful. I want to do the same. However, only one of us wants to make sure it doesn’t happen again. So, kindly go fuck yourself since you can’t seem to understand my meaning.

  48. 48.

    Jay S

    @Adam L Silverman: As part of your analysis, would you address the viability of evacuation to higher ground within the greater city limits? While that wouldn’t be a general solution to evacuation, it might be viable for flooding. A Redstate poster has asserted that the median height above sea level for Huston is 60 feet and claims that there has been no planning for evacuation limited to low lying areas. I wonder if the high(er)lands could accommodate many of those displaced with the proper carrot and stick incentives.

  49. 49.

    Sister Golden Bear

    FWIW, the “Huston as poster child for unregulated development” aspect has been more a bit overblown, according to a friend who’s a civil engineer in Austin, who’s done quite a bit of work in Houston:

    Houston is an imperfect place. Yes, the lack of zoning is a bit alarming. Yes, it did have a history of haphazard development regulations. The truth is that Houston (Harris County Flood Control District) has some of the most stringent drainage development regulations of almost anywhere in the country. Not just floodplain development, but all development.

    They are working hard to quantify and manage risks, against a series of very complicated realities.
    1. Sea levels are rising, and the most vulnerable parts of the city are only a few feet above sea level.
    2. The city has experienced significant subsidence (lowering of all elevations) from a history of groundwater pumping. Again, the pumping has been largely stopped.

    On every project I design for TxDOT in Houston, every square foot of impervious cover is accounted for and mitigated with drainage storage. Every cubic foot of material placed in ANY flood zone is balanced by another cubic foot.

    Climate change is real, people. We are seeing ‘historic’ rain events with much greater frequency even in my 25 year career. More energy in the atmosphere, a warmer ocean, means more rain.

    We are constantly working towards resiliency, but it is very difficult to simply tell people to sell their homes. The National Flood Insurance Program has done enormous good. Mapping risks and updating those risks as they change.

    It’s not legal to rebuild a house in a 100 year floodplain after it has been more be than 50% damaged. I’m sure thousands of houses in Houston will fit this situation. These are be people’s homes. And the government…. yes even in Texas…. will tell them they are not allowed to rebuild.

  51. 51.

    nycmt

    @Amaranthine RBG: I know Noel. He was at my wedding. Your comment does not reflect Noel’s philosophy or intellectual rigor. He is no Kochbot, unless all econometricians are Kochbots.

  52. 52.

    Dmbeaster

    @Ruckus: This is true for the upper part of the watershed. It is not true for the last 20 miles across the LA basin. The gradient and distance is basically the same. All you have to do is compare the flood control improvements for the LA River to Buffalo Bayou, both of which go through the respective city centers. The current Houston flooding is truly historic, but it also shows the lack of infrastructure to address a known problem. How many times do you just have multi-billion dollar casualty events but not get real about the drainage issue? Sister Golden Bear above has an interesting post above things they are doing on the problem, but what has not been done is pretty startling.

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