Email from a buddy down there:
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Harvey - thoughts in no particular order:
I grew up in the Houston area and have seen this happen so many times over the years. Never to this extent, but many severe floods in the past.
While new residential and commercial construction requires better stormwater management, existing development is not going to be 'fixed' so flooding will happen repeatedly until an area is totally destroyed and rebuilt. Houston was DESIGNED to flood. They allow developers to build in flood prone areas to expand the tax base. So you end up with cities with too many people in them in areas they shouldn't be in. The State government here is no better.
State forces insurance companies to insure the people living in those areas, so they distribute the costs resulting in high premiums over the rest of the State. Years of unsound development has produced wide-ranging economic impacts. When too many people live in areas having established flood risk which the civil infrastructure is not prepared to handle, they're vulnerable and the Federal government ends up picking up the tab at taxpayer expense. This subsidy of stupidity needs to stop.
Why in a flood plain did the Great State of Texas design underpasses instead of overpasses into their road system? Every time it rains you have road closures.
• Did anyone predict this level of flooding and devastation?
• Well, yes, actually the National Weather Service and FEMA both did.
• There was plenty of warning time, but people didn't listen. Normalcy Bias...
• People must plan for worst case, not as was done here, the hopefull best case.
• Many people hadn’t planned ahead where to go, or didn’t have $ for bus ticket, hotel room to afford evac to motel, etc.
Reality is that despite media attention and repetition people ignore the warnings.
At I59 and Bennington St., a 23 year old person walking along the road fell into a drainage ditch and was swept away. Why was that person even out? Darwin Award nomination... People don’t listen. That is human nature and will never change.
The mayor told people not to evacuate. The Governor suggested it, but wouldn't make it mandatory. They decided that it was more dangerous to try to evacuate 6 million people without a practiced evac plan in place and have thousands exposed out on the highways, without established plans for where they should go, how they would get fuel, be fed, etc.
As far those people who DID leave, many were stranded in their vehicles, camping in shopping center or church parking lots of outlying areas because they didn't have money for hotels. But, at least they left. Better to wait it out the storm in a Wal Mart parking lot than under water.
One person interviewed on TV was asked why her family didn't evacuate. Her response? "Where would we go?" There are many, many people like that who either don't have the money to pay for motel rooms hundreds of miles away, or don't have family on high ground.
People bear at least minimal responsibility for their own well-being. While there will always be some for whom the state is required to take up the slack, that does not absolve average citizens, even those with limited resources, from exercising common sense so they are not in instant crises in terms of food and water. Even the poorest resident on public assistance could have filled some water containers or pots in anticipation of possible trouble with the water supply? Those on welfare could still afford to have 3 days to one week of emergency food in the house if they spent a few dollars less on cigarettes and beer.
If the water rises, you evacuate. If you have no car, you need another plan. Head to a shelter early rather than wade later. When citizens abdicate their well-being to the tender mercies of the State (and random others) they do so at their own peril.
Better municipal storm water management planning can help only so much. With four feet of rain it’s going to flood! That is the reality of an epic storm. The local economy is being devastated by this. Local commerce is dead. Those who live paycheck-to-paycheck are in trouble.
• A 2-week time frame is minimum planning standard for this event. There were no deliveries of food. Grocery stores mostly underwater and incapable of receiving and displaying groceries.
• 2-weeks is optimistic for basic services, water, electricity to be restored.
• The potable water situation critical as municipal supplies even when they come back will be subject to a boil-order for several weeks. One must have ways to filter water also chemically treat and/or sterilize it.
• People are being told to take an axe with them if they have to move into their attics, so as to be able to get out if water rises further. Do people have axes? Or other ways to pierce the roof and get out?
• Unless people already have flood insurance, which in many of these areas seems unlikely, anyone losing property to this flood is likely in huge trouble.
• There may be a huge outflow of population from Houston, if not permanently, then temporarily. Until the infrastructure is returned to some semblance of normal, and within a very short time frame, I wonder if Houston is a viable city for the near-to-intermediate future.
Regardless of people's thoughts about whether or not living along the coast is a wise decision our nation relies on those who are "willing to live with the risks". I [and many others] can tell you from firsthand experience that the entire economy feels the impact when traditional fuel (gas/diesel) prices rise due to one of these events.
If anyone is interested, check out this map of the nation's oil and gas pipelines and see for yourselves where the "soft spots" are.
https://www.eia.gov/maps/
In a flood, toilets don’t flush because there is simply not enough rise in your toilet to force water through, so have an alternate means of waste disposal. We used a camp toilet. Liquids were simply dumped outdoors. Solids were double bagged and disposed of in a trash container tied up outside the house.
I never would have thought I would need a boat, but one sure came in handy! Get at least a small inflatable raft that you can move supplies in as you walk and pull behind you to get to higher ground. Transporting luggage, children, pets was hard until we started using inflatable beds as rafts.
Prep for more than yourself, to help others. Our house was the highest in our neighborhood so we ended up being the staging area to watch kids as parents figured things out. We used much of our stored food and water for neighbors. We also had neighbors bringing animals in kennels to give them a place to settle, which brings me to my next lesson learned.
If you have dogs, buy a muzzle. Large dogs were very hard to keep calm even if normally friendly and were not so tolerant of strange people trying to handle them. People in boats trying to help were not willing to take on dogs that acted aggressive. A muzzle helps in this situation. Small dogs and cats keep in a carry crate.
Be aware that the worst flooding comes AFTER THE HURRICANE PASSES!
It was the rain from Harvey that nearly drowned us.
After the first high winds of Harvey blew through, people were out shopping and going out for dinner like nothing happened. After the rain started Saturday, if you went to bed, you woke up standing in water in your bedroom. The news warned everyone to prepare for flooding but it is hard to believe the media when ordinary news is so overly sensationalized. Unless I heard mandatory evacuation, I wasn't going to leave. That was the mindset of everyone. No businesses were closing down to let people leave if they wanted to keep their jobs.
On the plus side, I did see a lot of people helping people. If we do not stand together as a nation, America will fall. Harvey may be the wake-up call to bring others to the reality of their dependence on each other. There is a remarkable willingness of volunteers in Texas helping their neighbors, coming in relief from all areas of the country that is truly the American spirit that built this nation.
Tragedy can unite a nation.
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