Geeze, that’s pretty scary. Glad they’re alright all things considered.
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This picture really expresses well what Houston feels like on most summer nights.
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Now, THAT’S allot of water!
Well, they didn’t say where they were going to drain the swamp into, did they?
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I cannot imagine this. How awful!
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It absolutely was, 100%.
And as usual, it’s idiot free marketeers at fault:
Scientists say the Harris County Flood Control District, which manages thousands of miles of floodwater-evacuating bayous and helps enforce development rules, should focus more on preserving green space and managing growth. The City of Houston, too. And they say everyone should plan for more torrential rainfall because of the changing climate. (A host of cities in the U.S. and around the world are doing so.)
But county and city officials responsible for addressing flooding largely reject these arguments. Houston’s two top flood control officials say their biggest challenge is not managing rapid growth but retrofitting outdated infrastructure. Current standards that govern how and where developers and residents can build are mostly sufficient, they say. And all the recent monster storms are freak occurrences — not harbingers of global warming or a sign of things to come.
Especially this guy:
The longtime head of the flood control district flat-out disagrees with scientific evidence that shows development is making flooding worse. Engineering projects can reverse the effects of land development and are doing so, Mike Talbott said in an interview with The Texas Tribune and ProPublica in late August before his retirement after 18 years heading the powerful agency. (His successor shares his views.)
The claim that “these magic sponges out in the prairie would have absorbed all that water is absurd,” Talbott said.
He also said the flood control district has no plans to study climate change or its impacts on Harris County, the third-most-populous county in the United States.
Of the astonishing frequency of huge floods the city has been getting, he said, “I don’t think it’s the new normal.” He also criticized scientists and conservationists for being “anti-development.”
“They have an agenda … their agenda to protect the environment overrides common sense,” he said.
Hope there’s some nice big fat lawsuits coming his way, but I’d invest in East Texas land before I’d expect that to happen.
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I’m going to officially label this storm as a Chinese Hoax.
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They have corrected the graphic to say “four square miles” rather than “four miles square.”
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Who’s to say the Chinese didn’t seed the Gulf?
It’d be a pretty sneaky way to cause havoc no? (Filed under: Tinfoil Theories)
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Talk about intimidation…
Have you noticed how mainstream news media are so intimidated by conservative nutbars nobody dares mention that this kind of weather pattern was predicted by Global Warming models?
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Sweet finny Dagon. I wondered if the response to this disaster wouldn’t be “oh, it’s a 500-year flood, so we don’t have to worry about it every happening again” (while it ends up happening again in 10 or 20 years). Looks like I have my answer.
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Waiting for Trump to say something about how much money he could make if he owned all the hotels in the area … generally, how he could profit from this tragedy. Cuz you know he’s thinking it.,
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I was going to link that. 
I’m in Houston - Mom and I are both in areas with zero standing water right now. I know 4 people that have been flooded out of their homes, though. One of them had only recently moved back into his house after a year of repair work following the Memorial Day flood. I told Mom that it’s time for David to sell that fucking house - move, dammit.
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Several reasons Houston wasn’t evacuated. First, evacuating 7 million people is only barely possible. It has to be staged, and there has to be someplace to put us. It’s like a 4 day process, even with contraflow highways. Second, the memories of the Rita evacuation are still strong here in Houston. More people died in the evacuation than did in the storm. 24 hour traffic jams - just awful. I think Rita is why we have contra-flow signs and preparations on the highways now.
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Here’s the story I was trying to find on the Rita evacuation: http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Hurricane-Rita-anxiety-leads-to-hellish-fatal-6521994.php
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A co-worker’s daughter had her home flooded in those same floods but it was the surrounding Austin area. Her daughter went through a lot of issues getting the house renovated, knowing that the place could flood again. Now any time it rains she panics and it just doesn’t seem worth it. Sell the damn house.
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