The Non-Winter Weather Thread

[visionary]

 

[visionary]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[twa]

 

getting it done 

[Springfield]

Is that your house?

[twa]

Just now, Springfield said:

Is that your house?

 

no, I'm poor....but dry

[Springfield]

Just now, twa said:

 

no, I'm poor....but dry

 

Haha!  Sad but also fortunate.

[twa]

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

 

1 hour ago, HoustonSkin said:

Headed to the GRB convention center with more supplies. Luckily I'm dry here on the north end of the Heights and have access to open portions of the freeways to get around and do what I can to help.

 

 

As far as the Mayor goes, I think he has done a very good job, especially a couple days ago when things started getting crazy and before state assets could move in.  It's easy to sit here and say "Houston should have evacuated", but we did a mass evacuation once during Hurricane Rita and we had a million cars stranded on the roads and dozens of people died in non-weather related incidents.  The areas where Harvey came ashore were evacuated.  Projecting where the flooding was going to happen and how extensive it was going to be was probably too sketchy to plan any specific evacuations.

 

 

 

I've been impressed with everything from the mayor to the county to the local news to the Coast Guard.

 

What keep emphasizing to everyone from outside of Houston is we had NO time at all to prepare for this. Harvery was a little tropical activity a few hundred miles away on Monday. It became a Depression on Tuesday and was a freaking Class 4 pummeling Rockport on Friday.

 

I'm glad Predicto is in Explainer mode already. Good to see him back. He's right of course, and this has pretty much totally convinced me that I need to get more involved in local politics because we are building ourselves into annihilation here.

 

But at the moment, I just want to make sure the Barker Reservoir does not end up in my living room.

[TradeTheBeal!]

Continued mojo to all our Texas friends.

[twa]

Just now, Lombardi's_kid_brother said:

 

 

 

But at the moment, I just want to make sure the Barker Reservoir does not end up in my living room.

 

That would be good 

I think I just saw a squirrel building a raft in my back yard.

 

 

[TheGoodBits]

This would be less than ideal... 

 

 

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

I have never been happier to have a ****ty backyard in my life. If you stepped in it right now, you would sink into the mud mid-calf. But it became a mud pie. It didn't hold any water and flood my house. That decision to forego landscaping for the last two years really paid off.

 

We're pretty dry at the moment. Streets were flooding to the middle of my driveway on Sunday night. We got 8 inches of rain in 3 hours. It wasn't even rain. It was Jesus throwing a bucket at us. It stopped for a few hours and receded fast. It rained non-stop for 30+ hours after that but never really collected.

 

I'm not in a zone that should be impacted by Barker. But I refuse to get ****y at this point.

3 minutes ago, skinsfan_1215 said:

This would be less than ideal... 

 

 

 

Yea, I read that over the weekend. I can't worry about that today. I'll worry about that tomorrow.

[Going Commando]

What's the spine in the harbor that people want to build?

 

I doubt there is much that any coastal city can do to improve resiliency in a meaningful way when we're staring at a combination of significant sea level rise and an increasingly intense storms.  Minor storms are going to cause massive property damage and waterfront property will be abandoned within our children's lives.  Our grandkids will face unprecedented mass migrations and the abandonment of coastal cities.

[The Sisko]

 

1 hour ago, Springfield said:

Is that your house?

Nah, that's him driving the jet ski.

 

9 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

What's the spine in the harbor that people want to build?

 

I doubt there is much that any coastal city can do to improve resiliency in a meaningful way when we're staring at a combination of significant sea level rise and an increasingly intense storms.  Minor storms are going to cause massive property damage and waterfront property will be abandoned within our children's lives.  Our grandkids will face unprecedented mass migrations and the abandonment of coastal cities.

This storm is a figment of the imagination. Just mass hysteria. There's no such thing as climate change.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

18 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

What's the spine in the harbor that people want to build?

 

I doubt there is much that any coastal city can do to improve resiliency in a meaningful way when we're staring at a combination of significant sea level rise and an increasingly intense storms.  Minor storms are going to cause massive property damage and waterfront property will be abandoned within our children's lives.  Our grandkids will face unprecedented mass migrations and the abandonment of coastal cities.

 

Houston has no zoning. No zoning means the entire city is covered in concrete. Concrete does not soak up rain fall. Thus a lot that needs to flow into the Bayous.

The Bayous and reservoirs are surrounded by housing. When the bayous overflow, the houses flood.

 

Urban flooding is pretty simple. Where does the water collect, where does it flow, and where does it empty? And then, how long does all this take?

 

Nearly all our rain now has to flow into a Bayou or tributary, because it collects in the roads, not in the soil. Buffalo Bayou goes to the Gulf, which is quite a distance. It can't handle it, it overflows and immediately floods the houses on the Bayou. Then it makes up flooding everything that flows into the Bayou.

 

The Brazos floods when people take a heavy piss now. I have a friend on it who has had a mandatory evacuation twice this year. It's insane.

[twa]

Just now, stevemcqueen1 said:

What's the spine in the harbor that people want to build?

 

I doubt there is much that any coastal city can do to improve resiliency in a meaningful way when we're staring at a combination of significant sea level rise and an increasingly intense storms.  Minor storms are going to cause massive property damage and waterfront property will be abandoned within our children's lives.  Our grandkids will face unprecedented mass migrations and the abandonment of coastal cities.

 

to prevent storm surge from the gulf, also talk about flood gates further up the bay.

 

would not help this kinda flood, but that kind combined with this kind of flood would be much,much worse.....just a matter of time.

[FanboyOf91]

Guys, take it to the climate change thread:

 

This is for news.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

I'm a believer in climate change, but that's a long-term problem.

 

The short term problem is Houston is we no longer have a place for the water to go when we get a big storm.

 

We do not sit on the coast. We're 40 miles inland from nearly any direction. Rising seawaters won't impact us as directly as New York or Miami or Baltimore.

 

We can't get the water out of the city any longer.

 

Fill your bathtub and drain it. Now cover 3/4 of the drain with metal and then drain it again.

 

That's what we've done.

[LD0506]

Well I am transfixed by the coverage of this disaster, as many Americans are, but I am holding onto hope that this can have some positive effect on people and their attitudes. This is why we have to pull together instead of all the efforts to pull us apart. I am watching people of all possible types, creeds and colors rise up as one to help out, good ole boys thanking their latino neighbors, Cajuns shuttling boats of African Americans, many examples of people that were themselves rescued recently pitching in to lend a hand saving others, this is heartwarming in so many ways, especially the way so many pets are being rescued too.

 

Why do we always only seem to see this in the face of disaster? The truest expression of America is streaming across our screens today, is there any hope it won't drain away as the water does?

[FanboyOf91]

 

[Sticksboi05]

The worst scenario is when a storm intensifies so rapidly local officials cannot prepare adequately. That's what makes living in the midwest during Spring so nerve-wracking.

 

If this had been forecast to become a Cat. 4 things wouldn't be in such dire straits. At the very least, you could've gotten people out of their homes to local facilities. But Texas basically had less than 24 hours to prepare, and as much as it looks dumb now, asking millions to evacuate in less than a day with insufficient infrastructure would've created its own cluster****. We saw that during Rita and the population is way bigger now than in 2005.

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

I don't think people grasp the size of the Houston Metro Area. I'm in the Western Suburbs. TWA is in the Eastern Suburbs. I am 50 miles away from him on a straight line.

 

Alexandria to Baltimore is 47 miles. on

 

I live on 99, which is our third beltway. The other side of the beltway on a straight line is 75 miles.

 

I'm 85 miles from Galveston to the East.

 

So, coastal surge and rising sea levels aint't exactly my problem. Yet all of Old Town Katy to my north and all the developments to my south are currently underwater.

 

[Going Commando]

13 minutes ago, Lombardi's_kid_brother said:

Houston has no zoning. No zoning means the entire city is covered in concrete. Concrete does not soak up rain fall. Thus a lot that needs to flow into the Bayous.

The Bayous and reservoirs are surrounded by housing. When the bayous overflow, the houses flood.

 

A massive parks building initiative and rezoning and reclamation of waterfront property would help alleviate the impact of nuisance flooding, a worthwhile endeavor.  But it's not going to stop this.  This is destroying communities that aren't massive concrete jungles, and this kind of storm is the real issue.

 

40% of the country lives directly on a shoreline.  This kind of disaster drives home the necessity of a sobering conversation about either abandoning habitation of the coasts or finding the money to turn them into the Netherlands.

[Bang]

This is terrible.

TWA, LKB, glad to hear y'all are still somewhat dry.

 

Good luck, I hope it stays that way.

 

~John

[twa]

you don't see this often