Straightforward, methodical, and it will get you up to speed on conditions. It also isn’t pointing any fingers, which is something that I have regretfully seen a little of. Short version: Houston is on a flat plane, and they’ve been actively working to do what they can with improving drainage for several decades, but this storm’s just been too much for them. If the thread is correct, it’s not a corruption problem (which is what more or less drowned New Orleans, back in the day). It’s a not-enough-time problem, made worse by population growth. Which makes sense to me.
So, check it out.
A Houston floodsplainer:
(caveat, I'm not a pro, just someone interested in how my city works. If a real pro finds an error, please LMK)— Matt Corbett (@CorbettMatt) August 28, 2017
Still, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner should have made that evacuation call. It is the only thing I will fault what happen. Things can be rebuilt/replaced, lives cannot. Florida have mandatory evacuations over Tropical Depressions.
A lot of people disagree with the assertion that there should’ve been an evacuation. You can see them and their arguments on a post on Instapundit where Glenn called out the Mayor’s “stay where you are” tweet.
A Houston blogger I read pointed out the roads don’t have enough capacity for a massive evacuation, and even if they did, there’s hundreds of closures due to the flooding.
I read an article that said that ~100 people died in the evacuation of Rita. Given that this storm turned nasty at a much later stage, I suspect that the death toll from an evacuation this time would have been much higher. We still don’t know what the death toll will be without the evacuation, but it may turn out to be a fairly close call.
Sounds about right.
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It’s been interesting watching my street flood under heavy rains, reach a sort of peak, and then rapidly drain when the rain stopped. That’s happened several times since over the weekend, and the rain this afternoon might as well have been a regular rainstorm for how little it impacted the streets. All that flood control money was well spent.
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The key here, I think, was the fact that the heavy rain *wasn’t* sustained, like it was during Allison.
So, I’ve lived in the Houston area for almost 20 years. Where I live is fine, flooding on the street, never lost electricity. I bugged out, so I’ve been out of touch, and it’s hard to tell exactly in which areas the houses will have flood damage and which won’t. But the parents of a close friend have a flooded house, and a family has moved into what was my friend’s business office. It’s a mess.
And given that I got stuck in a previous evacuation mess, taking 22 hours for a drive that normally takes 6, it wouldn’t surprise me if a formal complete evacuation would have killed more people with car accidents and stress heart attacks.
Man. Stay safe, you and your neighbors.