In the beginning of the last week of August of 2017, the weather forecasters started their drumbeat of the hurricane forming in the gulf. This is nothing new for the people of gulf coast, we are used to this; so we thought. The earlier forecast kept changing from as low as Categories 1 (119 Km/hr) to as high as Category 4(250 Km/hr) hurricane. These predictions have serious consequences. The politicians on both sides use them to prove their points of believers and non believer of global warming.
I haven't watched any tradition news for years now. When I say a tradition news, I mean the like of CNN, FOX, MSNBC and all. I catch some news flashes on the radio on my way to and from work or when doing my errands and I take those precious time to catch up with what is going on around my surroundings. So at one of those times in the week leading to the events, I purposely decided to listen to a conservative radio station. You should have heard the way they were making fun of the weatherman and laughing their lungs out about global warming. Please remember majority of conservatives, especially down here in the south, are inclined to think global warming is made up bullshit.
As the week moved to Wednesday, the seriousness of what was coming our way became somehow obvious but still it depended on your location. Thursday it became clear that the city of Victoria, which is miles south of Houston was facing the eye of the storm, meaning the wind are strong enough to lift a trailer. A mandatory evacuation was issued for the entire city. This is a big deal. On the other hand, the weatherman said Houston you are facing the tail end of the storm brace for unprecedented amount of rain. So what does the city do? I know probably some geniuses out there are going like why don't you evacuate all people of Houston? Hold your horses cowboy, we have been there before. Few years back a mandatory evac for the entire city and its surroundings was issued in the hurricane like this, 48 hours later millions of people on the road had moved about 6 to 7 miles on the average! We ended up losing more people than this hurricane. So for the city of over 2 million people without counting the surrounding cities, staying in our houses was a right decision to make. But of course I will not be surprised to see angry people claiming to be mislead when this dust settles or I should say when the rain water dries out.
Houston is only 24 meters above sea level but that is not necessarily the reason for flooding. The city and surrounding areas are pretty flat and construction is taking away natural avenues of water drainage systems. Take for example, I live in a suburban just about 22 miles from downtown Houston. Less than 2 years ago this place was a farm land. All the trees and grass and cows are all gone replaced by beautiful housing and bunch of concrete and pavements. I am not one of those treehugger kind guy but this seems to be simple science that these kind of rain might have been around all along but the way in which water find no place to go is a man made problem. These floods did not just begin visiting the Houstonians, actually they have been around way before the city was here. Accord to Harris County Flood Control District, there was 16 major floods between 1836 to 1936. Take the flooding on 1935 for example, the city was devastated. The rain and flooding did not stop there, 1994, 1976, 2001 (I witnessed it and the rest of them), 2014, 2016 and now. Each time it becomes more powerful.
The lesson learned from the flood of 1935 resulted in the city building the first reservoirs (dams). These dams act as collection point for extra rainwater that can be released on a controlled fashion. This controlled release work well when you have regular rain. On the average, Houston gets about 49.77 inches (126 mm) of rain per year; Hurricane Harvey’s rain ranged from 32 inches for the lucky areas to some areas measuring as high as 51 inches (which is the nation record, the previous record was 48 inches) in those 5 nonstop days! The SouthEast Houston where the Hobby Airport is located, seems like went over the 51 inches.
These dams are now over 80 years old and according to the census of 1930 the population of Houston was 293,352, now it is almost four times that. If you want to damn the dam go for it; but I tell ya, the dams have not been kept up with our time. The flood of 2017 has been exacerbated by these dams. Over a week now, some neighborhood are still being flooded by these controlled dam releases. Civil engineers have a new challenge in their hand, so when you see them losing their hair they have to scratch those hair until they go bald. One thing I can tell ya, this is not New Orleans, the people of Houston will never leave.
As far as the catastrophe itself, there is a big lesson to learn from the entire situation. From the way regular citizens handled it, to the organized chaos that followed at the hospitals all way down to the temporary shelters. Right when it was obvious this place was devastated there were so many volunteers than there were victims. Temporary shelters were overwhelmed with people ready to serve others in the ratio of 2 volunteers for each victim, people had to be turned away. That is the spirit of Texans! Yes the flood zone was chaos, the emergency system overwhelmed, in some case we lost one of AT&T central offices (South East Houston), which is the main communications hub for the entire city. But still the ingenuity of regular people was in full display everywhere. The local mattress trader open his entire shop for people to sleep in, the football star raised $20M in less than 2 days. The biggest shelters housing over 11,000 people are so well organized you may as well call them small villages. Kids have places to play Teachers volunteer to keep kids busy while parents take a breath to plan their next move and so forth.
People came all over the state with their boats to save other people. There were no red, white, yellow, black people but all people who were in need and all those who could help out did their part. That is the spirit of humanity at best. When it was apparent that 911 was not working, technology came into play. A new App “ZELLO” which function as a walkie talkie saved so many lives and if I had to buy a stock, this might be the one to consider, because I think it will go global soon. When you look at the magnitude of the problem, it is hard to believe that less than 30 people died in Houston, you have to go as far as Beaumont for the death toll to climb to 40s. To those that Harvey decided to take from us, Rest In Peace.
The city is not out of the woods yet, the recovery is going to be hard and long. Some of those controlled releases may take three weeks, according to the Army Corp of Engineers. Our houses are built out of plywood which is pretty much boxes and the fancy carpets. The stagnant water will bring mold and healthy-Texas-mosquitos. Snakes, alligators, and all hidden creatures are out in the open. Waterborne and mosquito borne diseases to follow. Decisions to rebuild and or move is definitely in a lot of people’s mind. Some people got flooded last year and again this year! What to do? Most Houstonians used to look for flood zoning as they were looking into buying houses so that they can avoid flood zones neighborhood. In flood free zones it is not a requirement for homeowners to buy flood insurance. So many people are likely going to lose their houses as they will not be able to repair them from their pocket since they were not in flood zones and had no flood insurance. This hurricane has flooded areas that are supposedly in flood free zones. Not sure if the city planners are going to remap to show which areas are flood free and which areas are not. They may as well declare the entire region is not flood free anymore. There is a repercussion to all this. If you live anywhere in the continental United States and you own a house, check your mortgage insurance in three to four months from now, it is likely going to go up as insurance claims start to stack up insurance companies will try to recoup their losses from somewhere.
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