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The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else
11–20 of 128 posts
Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else
#12Something like this happened a few years ago where I live.[0]
Basically, the Army blew the levee to save a town, Cairo, IL, at the expense of (a few) homes and (lots of) farmland on the MO side. Maciej (HN user idlewords) mentioned it in one of his interesting blog posts[1].
The blog post asserts:
> The farmers downriver got their fields fertilized with rich river silt and are wealthier and more resentful than ever. Like so many beneficiaries of big government, they remain its implacable foes.
which I've never been able to source, though I've been curious about it. AFAICT most of the farmers left and never returned to the area.
[0]http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/pat-gauen/saving-...
[1] http://idlewords.com/2015/07/confronting_new_madrid_part_2.h...
Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else
#13Interesting. So it's like a real-life version of the trolley problem, but with property damage instead of human lives.
Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else
#14My first house had flooding problems every spring and heavy rain.
Lesson learned: live on a hill.
Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else
#15Looks like a variant of the trolley problem, with the water playing the part of the trolley.
Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else
#16I find this article beautifully ironic. Climate change denying executives have homes and offices flooded by climate changed storm water.
Why? Houston was been flooded several times before. Particularly in 1929 and 1935 when the county finally decided to form a flood control agency. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harris_County_Flood_Control_... Climate change is real, but if every time we get bad weather you call it that it’s a little like crying wolf.
Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else
#17What a weirdly nice pick-me-up of a headline in this day and age here. Thoughts and prayers to the homeowners
> Thoughts and prayers to the homeowners
I can't tell if this is a genuine expression of sympathy for people who, while perhaps wealthy, have suffered significant loss of their time, homes, and heirlooms.
Or if it's a sarcastic jab at these same people who, when other, less wealthy people are suffering, send "thoughts and prayers" via Facebook chain messages instead of sending actions and dollars.
Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else
#18People are cheering at this, but what if we raise the stakes a little: The government lined up 50 random people and executed them, to appease a foreign government that was holding 500x people captive. We're talking houses vs houses, not people vs people, but how is the morality different? Scape goat. Since it is property, the engineers probably assumed they'd be sued, and I bet they knew exactly what they were doing, and it was still cheaper than the alternative.
If you like this, then you should also support eminent domain, where the government can take whatever it wants to make the neighborhood better.
It definitely irks me when people say "oh they're just energy sector republicans", as if political disagreements makes anyone less deserving of rights under the law. Equality, people, is something you must enforce ESPECIALLY when you don't like the person receiving equality. This was a true thing to say to racists in the past, and to republican haters of the present.
To really get side-tracked: Is it okay to hate haters? Are you justified to do to them what they do? No, I would say love your enemy, if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. Your gifts will be like hot coals on his head.
Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else
#19Zeeland (and other parts of the Netherlands) now have a similar strategy in place - they've spent billions over the years on sea defences, which are absolutely stunning to behold, but have now done the sums and realised they've entered diminishing returns. It's cheaper to let certain areas flood and compensate than it is to build ever more expensive defences.
Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else
#20What a weirdly nice pick-me-up of a headline in this day and age here. Thoughts and prayers to the homeowners
> Thoughts and prayers to the homeowners I can't tell if this is a genuine expression of sympathy for people who, while perhaps wealthy, have suffered significant loss of their time, homes, and heirlooms. Or if it's a sarcastic jab at these same people who, when other, less wealthy people are suffering, send "thoughts and prayers" via Facebook chain messages instead of sending actions and dollars.
Almost certainly the latter.