Hurricane Harvey

[scott_vt]

We are still dry with utilities it is continuing to rain we are at 13+".

The flooding in Houston has been predicted for the last 5 days. Why weren't the low lying areas evacuated. I guess the mayor made the wrong call. This flood was not unexpected.

GOOD morning Don,
Im guessing that any FD emergency response on your part will be with a boat !
Very difficult watching TV coverage on nursing homes with elderly sitting in water up to their waist !

 

[houstonscott]

This why you don't evacuate Houston. 2005 shot during Rida

 

[rekees4300]

This why you don't evacuate Houston. 2005 shot during Rida

It's easy for the Monday morning MSM quarterbacks to judge the Houston Mayor but they conveniently forget how many were killed by the 2005 evacuation. IMO a city as big as Houston can't be evacuated quickly. It's simply logistically impossible.

 

[txdon]

It's easy for the Monday morning MSM quarterbacks to judge the Houston Mayor but they conveniently forget how many were killed by the 2005 evacuation. IMO a city as big as Houston can't be evacuated quickly. It's simply logistically impossible.

Most of the people killed during the last evacuation were on one bus evacuating a nursing home. That evacuation was a week after Katrina and everyone thought the same was about to happen to Houston. In fact many Katrina evacuees were in Houston.

I was in Houston during the last evacuation. I did not evacuate. Some of my co-workers did evacuate and were on the road for 12 hours and gave up and then returned home in 30 minutes. Houston can never be mandatorly evacuated but this time a voluntary evacuation of low areas and homes that have been flooded before would have been the proper call.

The Mayor did not even call for voluntary evacuations and he knew Houston did not have the resources to rescue thousands of people. By not issuing the voluntary evacuation he gave everyone a false sense of security. Many people today are still flooded in their homes cannot get food or water and it looks grim. The mayor said to get to the roof and don't call 911 unless your life is in danger.

". . .The public is being advised that we are not to go into our attics but rather wait on the roof for rescue."

A Houston Father ask: "How on earth would we get five children on our roof (three of them babies) if it comes to that?"

Houston father: 'How am I supposed to get five small children up on my roof?' | Fox News

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Congress Approves $51 Billion in Aid for Hurricane Victims - NYTimes.com That's for Sandy. This should be ten times that...

Texas has spend decades shouting, "We don't need no stinking planning," and bragging about their cheap real estate prices. I figure the bill just came due. They plated a few hundred square miles with concrete and asphalt, then act all surprised when it rains. I would be interested to see how rural areas are doing, if there are any left.

 

[rekees4300]

The Mayor did not even call for voluntary evacuations and he knew Houston did not have the resources to rescue thousands of people. By not issuing the voluntary evacuation he gave everyone a false sense of security. Many people today are still flooded in their homes cannot get food or water and it looks grim.

It was a tough decision for the mayor ... a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation. Voluntary evacuations may have been the proper compromise but without a crystal ball who can say what would have happened vs. what did happen? Time will tell if more consequences are forthcoming.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

If you can't beat em join em...

Silicon Valley - Wikitravel

As I type, looking south towards Santa Cruz mountains and across to Moffit Field and SFO and San Francisco with the towers of the Golden Gate in view and North to the Tamalpais...

Just because a lot of tech was invented here doesn't mean I have to get rid of my Zenith Console TV and Rabbit Ears... hey... I do have DSL

In all seriousness... the coverage from Harvey has been almost non-existent...

Virtually the entire ABC evening news last night was about Harvey. What do you expect?

 

[Larry Caldwell]

It was a tough decision for the mayor ... a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation. Voluntary evacuations may have been the proper compromise but without a crystal ball who can say what would have happened vs. what did happen? Time will tell if more consequences are forthcoming.

Oh, give me a break. Everyone in Houston knew Harvey was coming for days, but they just sat around with their thumbs up their butts. They couldn't even be bothered to fill a couple dozen 2-liter pop bottles with drinking water. You saw the same moronic behavior before Katrina. They knew the power would go out. They knew the water would go out, and the sewage treatment plants would quit working. They couldn't even be bothered to go to Walmart or a sporting goods store and buy an inflatable rubber raft or move their vehicles to high ground. They had enough warning they could have ordered flood equipment from Amazon and had it delivered in plenty of time.

The only people I feel sorry for are the poor. I saw an interview with a woman in Rockport. They asked her why she hadn't evacuated. Her response? "We didn't have the money." She wanted to go, but didn't have the means.

I see Ted Cruz voted to appropriate disaster relief funds for Texas. I guess now you will be hearing Texans sing the virtues of socialism. It's easy to be a rugged individualist until you are the one trying to breathe water.

 

[sseelhoff]

Oh, give me a break. Everyone in Houston knew Harvey was coming for days, but they just sat around with their thumbs up their butts. They couldn't even be bothered to fill a couple dozen 2-liter pop bottles with drinking water. You saw the same moronic behavior before Katrina. They knew the power would go out. They knew the water would go out, and the sewage treatment plants would quit working. They couldn't even be bothered to go to Walmart or a sporting goods store and buy an inflatable rubber raft or move their vehicles to high ground. They had enough warning they could have ordered flood equipment from Amazon and had it delivered in plenty of time.

The only people I feel sorry for are the poor. I saw an interview with a woman in Rockport. They asked her why she hadn't evacuated. Her response? "We didn't have the money." She wanted to go, but didn't have the means.

I see Ted Cruz voted to appropriate disaster relief funds for Texas. I guess now you will be hearing Texans sing the virtues of socialism. It's easy to be a rugged individualist until you are the one trying to breathe water.

Umm, no. Once again your knowledge is lacking. This went from a tropical depression to a cat 4 in under 24 hours. People died on the roads during a mass evac. This was a no win situation. Evac for no reason, which be largely ignored based on weather projection at the time, or try to evac once this thing bloomed and cause a disaster on the roads.

Pretty sad that anyone feels the need to go into attack mode to score political points during this event.

Sad.

 

[rekees4300]

Oh, give me a break. Everyone in Houston knew Harvey was coming for days, but they just sat around with their thumbs up their butts.

I don't know what the mayor did or didn't do except he didn't order any evacuation. My only point, based on 2005 history, is that a mandatory evacuation of Houston would have been impossible and the consequences could have been worse than no evacuation.