Brothers and Sisters,
Please be cautious and safe. We in EU are really concerned about your fates in America regarding to Harvey.
I'm not sure if I'm not a fool, but ... why not to ask architects to design the personal houses according to the car designers' methods - to put the house models into the wind tunnel first prior to make final decisions on the shape of a structure so to protect them from tremendous wind speed from either direction. It won't help from flooding, but it could save from hurricanes.
Thank you sir for your concern. Hotels that build on the beaches adjacent to "the high seas" do that. Individuals don't have the means. About all they have going for them is that they build a lot of houses on stilts putting them 10 foot (give or take) above the ground which is some distance from the normal high tide level. However, this doesn't protect whatever they happen to have sitting on the ground below the house. On stilts (utility poles usually made from chemically treated Pine Trees), you are limited as to what you can build.
The big problem is that people are obsessed with building houses adjacent to the water. In Rockport for example, Google Map Rockport, TX. and scan North East from down town past the boat basin to the resort area there on the bay.
Go to the street view and set the little man on one of the most Southern streets. Do a 360 scan. Check out the bay water level, the grass between it and the street and the dwellings on the other side of the street. It's not just Rockport; go most anywhere that there is water frontage and you find the same thing....Miami, FL. is full of it. When you build like that with no protection sooner or later you are going to get WHACKED!
On Houston and the Texas Gulf Coast, it's flat land and there is a lot of exposure to the Gulf. There is no place for the water to go like in hilly/mountainous areas. Another problem is that the ground is sinking. New Orleans is actually below sea level. They have numerous pumps and leavees to assist in keeping the city dry. That aggravates an already bad situation in that older "things" tend to be lower than newer ones which adds to their plight.
The gulf (Gulf of Mexico) is responsible for our weather. The gulf moisture is responsible for most of the moisture that we need to survive in terms of crops, livestock and all. We need it. The interaction between the moist warm Gulf air and incoming cool dry air, when cold fronts come through, produces a significant amount of moisture that would be unavailable if it weren't for the gulf.
In some dry years, in the latter summer months, a hurricane (for those of us not immediately impacted) is a saving grace. It brings in moisture needed to get fall crops germinated and reduce the occurrence of forest and grass fires.
Thanks for your concern sir.
Mark
