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The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else

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Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else

#91

Post by jessaustin »

losvedir wrote: post #12

Something 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.…

Yeah there's a lot left out of that blog post. The assumption seems to be that flooding fields is always a good thing. That's goofy on its face; destroying all the crops in the field is at least a short-term harm to the farmer. Even if crop insurance covers most of the crop destruction, the field will also require regrading of some sort. If the field is inundated so that there is a current flowing over it rather than just still water backing up, which is very common around structures such as partially destroyed levees, topsoil is removed rather than deposited.

The weird thing about this point of view is that the US Army Corps of Engineers are lionized for their continued mismanagement of the War on Flowing Water (like all Wars the army fights, it loses this one too!) while private entities like Little River who have done a better job for a longer time are sneered at for their presumed lack of earthquake preparedness. (Why worry about excess rain it only comes once every couple of years; the earthquake that happens once a millennium should be the big worry!)

Blog post says more about the philosophy of blogger than about reality.

Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else

#92

Post by greedo »

jccc wrote: post #83
tdb7893 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun Midwest fact: The name of Cairo, IL is pronounced differently than the city in Egypt. I've always heard it pronounced more like "Care-O"

And in Missouri we have New Madrid ("New MAD-rid") and Versailles ("Ver-SAILS") among several other similar re-pronunciations. Many locals pronounce Johnny Carson's teenage hometown Norfolk, Nebraska as "Norfork." I don't think it comes from ignorance though (and I'm not saying you're saying it does) but instead just a way of taking local ownership.

Sinai South Dakota is pronounced "Sign Yi."

Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else

#93

Post by jccc »

kyleblarson wrote: post #87
jccc wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in Missouri we have New Madrid ("New MAD-rid") and Versailles ("Ver-SAILS") among several other similar re-pronunciations. Many locals pronounce Johnny Carson's teenage hometown Norfolk, Nebraska as "Norfork." I don't think it comes from ignorance though (and I'm not saying you're saying it does) but instead just a way of taking local ownership.

My grandfather in Kentucky pronounced Missouri 'Mizurah'.

I lived in the middle of Missouri from 1994 through 2014 and never once heard a voice say Missour-ah that wasn't coming from a candidate for office on TV.

(To be fair, there might have been some people in rural parts of the state who did talk like that. But usually it's coming from people who probably shouldn't.)

Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else

#94

Post by amaranth »

yardie wrote: post #65
murtnowski wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Before flood mitigation was installed Houston rarely flooded. After flood mitigation was installed Houston flooded even less. Now Houston, even with flood mitigation, is flooding. So what has changed?

A lot of what has changed is more development happening. Pavement doesn't absorb water all that well. When the flood mitigation talked about in this article was put in place the area they chose to flood to handle overflow was undeveloped and so was all of the surrounding area.

Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else

#95

Post by ChristianGeek »

jccc wrote: post #83
tdb7893 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun Midwest fact: The name of Cairo, IL is pronounced differently than the city in Egypt. I've always heard it pronounced more like "Care-O"

And in Missouri we have New Madrid ("New MAD-rid") and Versailles ("Ver-SAILS") among several other similar re-pronunciations. Many locals pronounce Johnny Carson's teenage hometown Norfolk, Nebraska as "Norfork." I don't think it comes from ignorance though (and I'm not saying you're saying it does) but instead just a way of taking local ownership.

California is rife with towns having mispronounced Spanish names.

Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else

#96

Post by mikeash »

briandear wrote: post #37
zzzeek wrote: post #6

> total damages claimed could reach $10 billion or more, especially if the big energy and oil companies—whose presence in one section of West Houston gave it the nickname the Energy Corridor—sue over their flooded headquarters. the irony that the home neighborhood of many of the worlds largest oil companies would want to sue because the global warming they're at the core of causing contributed towards the damage of t…

Crazy. All those oil companies forcing you to buy stuff that gets transported by trucks that use oil. You’re blaming the drug dealers for people choosing to shoot heroin. Feel free to stop consuming oil. Even your Tesla has plastics made from oil and uses power generated using oil. If you buy a single thing made in China, you are buying products generally made using coal-fired electricity. Unless you live in a grass…

It's more like: you're blaming the drug dealers for telling people drugs are healthy and suppressing research that says they do any harm.

Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else

#97

Post by polartx »

dcole2929 wrote: post #82

I'm sorry these people lost their homes, but it does seem pretty straightforward that if you build in a flood plane your home might flood. If there is any failure here it's that they weren't given adequate warning before they flooded the neighborhoods. It sounds like they announced it for the next morning but because of the pace of the water rising they had to blow it over night instead. That's something you start an…

I agree, for the folks that built in a 'flood pool' plain, even if they feel that wasn't adequately communicated to them when they purchased.

The folks outside of that pool, however, whose homes were only flooded because the Corp of Engineers decided to open the reservoir floodgates, have a reasonable claim for damages.

Their attorney is basing this claim on a violation of the 5th amendment, specifically relating to the state 'purposing private property for public use'.

Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else

#98

Post by mcbits »

mdemare wrote: post #57
thedaemon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are more people born each day (400,000 a day) than there are houses built each day (4,657 a day). So I'd say no, houses are harder to replace than people.

I'm pretty sure more than 1.7M houses get built every year worldwide.

If you count "dwellings" or "housing units" then surely yes. Many/most of those will be apartments and multi-tenant buildings rather than houses per se.

And then there are all the "houses" built from salvaged materials in poor countries. Not sure if you'd want to count those. A person living in such a structure would still be considered homeless in many places.

Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else

#99

Post by MSM »

kodablah wrote: post #88
dcole2929 wrote: post #82

I'm sorry these people lost their homes, but it does seem pretty straightforward that if you build in a flood plane your home might flood. If there is any failure here it's that they weren't given adequate warning before they flooded the neighborhoods. It sounds like they announced it for the next morning but because of the pace of the water rising they had to blow it over night instead. That's something you start an…

> The other issue I see is that for some reason Houston didn't require all of these people to have flood insurance. They do for 100-year plains, just not 500-year. Are these requirements common elsewhere for 500-year? I am not sure, but I assume so since there is surprise that "for some reason Houston didn't require" it.

I didn't understand this comment until I started to check out the FEMA maps myself. Indeed, almost all of Houston is in the "0.2% annual chance of flooding" zone (once every 500 years). To help put that in perspective, you can zoom into almost any area in the US and there will be a 20-30' zone on either side of almost any waterway (I'm talking very small rivers / creeks in my area) that has the same risk of flooding and I'd bet good money no one would criticize someone for not buying flood insurance in these zones.

Really nails home how overly critical we can be.

Re: The U.S. Flooded One of Houston’s Richest Neighborhoods to Save Everyone Else

#100

Post by jtuente »

todayiamme wrote: post #77
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the beginning of your post, you mention the 12 year gap as a result of seasonal variation between cold and warm cycles. Then your source points out that the current warm phase has been going on since 1995. This is a waste of time.

I don't understand the point you're making. Also to be clear, your statement; > Harvey was the first cat3+ hurricane to hit the US in 12 years. is patently false, because in that time period we've had (and I'm including 2005); Katrina Cat. 5 (2005) Rita (2005) Wilma (2005) Ike Cat. 4 (2008) Sandy Cat. 3 at peak (2012) I didn't bother to correct you earlier, because Cat. 3+ hurricanes hitting the US are more or less a…

He specifically mentioned hitting the US. Ike hit Texas as a Cat 2 storm, Sandy hit the east coast as a Cat 2 storm. Their peaks (4, 3) were out in ocean/sea waters near the island nations. Of course, you don't have listen to me or the weather people who repeatedly say that storms have not increased in frequency or intensity (beyond their normal cycles) [0].

[0] - https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/908030951975989261

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