HURRICANE FUCKSTICK 5001: MORE IRMA, MORE CANE

[MahrinSkel]

Yeah, flooding is a different kind of problem than most natural disasters. A tornado, an earthquake, even a normal hurricane, these are point events. They happen, over the course of hours, and they're over. The normal rule is that they have 72 hours to restore order, before the shock wears off and everything goes to hell.

This is a disaster in slow motion, we're more than 72 hours from the beginning and it is still getting worse. People are going into "me and mine" survival mode, turning on the aid providers because they aren't at the front of the line.

--Dave

[Morat20]

The damage area is freaking huge. And it's so variable. I'm sitting dry and in no danger of flooding (knock on wood) about 6 or 8 miles from flooded out neighborhoods. My town will be up and running, fully back to business, 12 hours after the rain stops -- but I won't be able to get to work (only 15 miles away) for a day or two after that, minimum, because of flooded rivers and bayous.

My sister-in-law is an hour's drive away, north of us -- and she's hovering on the edge of having to get her canoe and paddle out. She's still got a lot of room for the water to rise without getting into her house, but there's no driving out of where she lives. A good chunk of her town is flooded out.

I've cousins out in Katy, which has been getting hammered -- who are dry. Friends in the Woodlands who just saw their first real flooding today (as rivers crested suddenly, water flowing down from rainfall past them).

A friend of mine just sold his house inside the loop a few months ago -- from what I've heard, the water was feet deep in there.

Friends out in Victoria, 120 miles away -- that just got power back, don't have clean water, and of course are waiting to see if their cresting rivers will flood them when the hurricane proper failed.

It's a giant clusterfuck and it's gonna cost billions and billions.

And cutting off of communities is the worst. It's pretty fucking shitty to be sitting here dry and with power, and unable to offer a bed or a shower to people because they can't get here without a helicopter.

[Abagadro]

Hey, Trump's showing up tomorrow so everything will be fine.

[SurfD]

Someone on another forum has been commenting on the fact that Harris county has (a) High taxes and (b) been spending that money on infrastructure.

Anyway photos of flooding in Baytown.

http://baytownsun.com/local/collection_ce7a654e-8b34-11e7-a2e1-6bc181d57aec.html

Jesus, that cemetery pic.  Just reminded me that burial in wood boxes is still our common practice.  Going to be one hell of a thing if the ground softens enough for coffins start floating all across the state.......

[MrHat]

https://www.houstoniamag.com/articles/2017/8/28/before-and-after-photos-of-hurricane-harvey-flood-waters

Dramatic shots from downtown.  We are over the worst of it in the city, but most of Greater Houston will be a lake of varying sizes for the next couple weeks.

[amiable]

Word is now that there is a massive chemical spill into the waterways.  Everyone in the area smells it and a lot of folks are getting sick.

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Chemical-leak-adds-to-catastrophe-in-Ship-Channel-12097384.php

[MrHat]

Word is now that there is a massive chemical spill into the waterways.  Everyone in the area smells it and a lot of folks are getting sick.

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Chemical-leak-adds-to-catastrophe-in-Ship-Channel-12097384.php

Updated 8:32 pm, Monday, August 28, 2017

"La Porte police and the city of Shoreacres signaled shortly after 7 p.m. that the incident was resolved.  No injuries were reported."

[Morat20]

It looks like Harvey is deciding to go fuck Louisiana. The rain levels and winds are already shifting here in Houston. Still raining, far windier, but not as much rain as best I can tell.

Still ridiculous levels, but not as staggeringly horrible as before.

Edited to add: So fun question -- I have (no dried) water stains coming from a light switch. Now it looks like the same leak that was previously dripping out of my ceiling has moved six inches and then gone down a wall, and only happens during the most intense rains. The wiring should be insulated and it's dry now, but....can I use that switch?

[Chimpy]

If water is coming from inside the switchbox, definitely don't use it.

[Brolan]

Turn the power off to that switch and take the plate off and look inside and see if it is wet.  Likely you can blow it out with shop vac or compressed air can and get any water out of it.

[Yegolev]

How about them ants?

[MrHat]

How about them ants?

Fuck the ants, Houston is about to be Mosquito World.

[TheWalrus]

Just saw "All cities matter", good for a chuckle.

[Yegolev]

How about them ants?

Fuck the ants, Houston is about to be Mosquito World.

Those mosquitos need to bring their A game.
https://twitter.com/i/moments/902172033345257472

Also "supercolony" may be a thing.
https://twitter.com/The_Reliant/status/902536760038711296

[WayAbvPar]

Hey, Trump's showing up tomorrow so everything will be fine.

[Yegolev]

Third & final landfall was this morning at 0430 near Cameron, LA.

[Chimpy]

Third & final landfall was this morning at 0430 near Cameron, LA.

Don't say final, this thing might surprise us and keep slowly skipping East along the gulf coast like a stone until it gets to the Florida Keys.

[Yegolev]

You know where I work, yes?

[calapine]

No?

[rattran]

The Weather Channel, and once the prediction maps all line up, it's a fairly sure thing.

[Yegolev]

We were pretty much dead on this time.  Much like Snowmageddon in ATL in 2014.  Unfortunately, local authorities didn't believe us.

[Morat20]

We were pretty much dead on this time.  Much like Snowmageddon in ATL in 2014.  Unfortunately, local authorities didn't believe us.

Four feet of rain is hard to swallow.

In any case, I'm starting to worry about the structural integrity of some of the reservoirs. I'm not, AFAIK, in the line of fire if one of those lets go but they're all old and I think they're all using the emergency spillways for the first time since they were built in like the 40s.

[Nebu]

I really hope that this wakes people up to the importance of infrastructure investment.  Sadly, I don't think it will.

Hope all of you Texans are ok. 

[Morat20]

I really hope that this wakes people up to the importance of infrastructure investment.  Sadly, I don't think it will.

Hope all of you Texans are ok. 

I dunno, Houston has been working pretty hard since Ike and Allison. (I think I said before my city took out a huge bond to pay for it's own massive upgrades). The problem is, well  -- a lot of stupidity is already baked into the cake. Designs from the 40s that were sufficient, until people started building in the 60s and 70s in places where they...weren't supposed to. Back when we thought the Army Corp of Engineers could overcome nature given enough money.

Now...it's incredibly expensive to fix. Natural disasters like this often make it strangely easier (it both gives you the potent reminder work needs to be done and -- bluntly -- often trashes the fuck out of the property that needs to be torn down and used for flood mitigation. It's so much easier to pay people for their trashed homes than to seize perfectly good ones and tear them down). Katrina's devastation opened up Louisiana's ability to restore a ton of marshlands. Because the fucker razed everything previously built there and no one wanted to rebuild.

And in the end -- four or five feet of rain in less than a week. Is that something you should even engineer for? Can you engineer for it? Where do you make the trade-offs? Houston's clearly got some serious work to do (this is the third massive flooding event in the last few years. Harvey might have been a freak of nature, but the last two massive sets of flooding weren't stalled tropical storms), but how far do you take it?

Although I did read some guy's idea to start building diesel powered thrusters along the bottoms of bayous and rivers -- for when gravity doesn't cut it, you engage the independent thrusters to to force water to the sea faster...

In other news: Harvey's last hurrah was to fuck the Port Arthur area as hard or harder than Houston. I think almost two feet of rain in just a day or two. People went from fine to on their roofs in hours. Fuck Harvey.

[WayAbvPar]

Any chance this wakes up even a few Texans about climate change?

[RhyssaFireheart]

This was published in December 2016 and it's an excellent read, IMO.  Gives a good explanation for why Houston is flooding so badly, in addition to the whole "flat and built in a swamp" part of things.

https://projects.propublica.org/houston-cypress/

[Sir T]

Someone's Sim City Project is starting the "exploding chemical plants" phase of his "fuck this city" disaster.

A flooded Texas chemical plant is about to explode

[Brolan]

Jesus, it sounds like the plot of a disaster movie. 

[TheWalrus]

We might get a Toxic Avenger sequel.

[HaemishM]

Jesus, it sounds like the plot of a disaster movie. 

Well, we have a TV star for President, so why the fuck not?

I've been half paying attention to the coverage of this and I am ASTOUNDED at how many complete fucking idiots are getting caught on live camera driving their truck into water, getting swamped and having to be rescued by fucking reporters. These fuckers get this truck and suddenly think it's a APC that can literally go over or through everything until Harvey presents them their fucking Darwin award.

[Morat20]

People are fucking idiots about floods. They really are. Houston had to resort to putting depth gauges on underpasses. it's rather shocking to see a video of an underpass with the water at the "10 feet" label...

I grew up driving in floods. I don't get how so many people can be so stupid, unless' it's just the assumption that as you're in a truck or SUV, clearly the water is always low enough....

Fun fact I learned this flood: My city has a fine for "wakes" -- if you drive down flooded streets and leave a high wake, sufficient to cause damage (or further damage) to vehicles or property, you can be fined. 2000 dollars per incident. They're not fucking around.

[Chimpy]

Viaducts that have a lower elevation than the road approach always have depth gauges in most parts of the world.

[Teleku]

Today's prediction models for Harvey...




 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Looks like the inner workings of a dice tower.

Looks like COTI wins the prize for coming the closest.  We should have had a pool going!

[Sir T]

That Chemical plant has begun exploding

[Merusk]

Remember the last time a chemical plant exploded in Texas and there was all that awesome video? Remember how people said, "Surely this will change Texas law about storing volatile chemicals and explosives near residential areas!"

Hah.. fools and their optimism.