Posted on 05/20/2016 8:38:47 PM PDT by Lorianne
With clay soil and tabletop-flat terrain, Houston has endured flooding for generations. Its 1,700 miles of man-made channels struggle to dispatch storm runoff to the Gulf of Mexico.
Now the nation's fourth-largest city is being overwhelmed with more frequent and more destructive floods. The latest calamity occurred April 18, killing eight people and causing tens of millions of dollars in damage. The worsening floods aren't simple acts of nature or just costly local concerns. Federal taxpayers get soaked too.
Extreme downpours have doubled in frequency over the past three decades, climatologists say, in part because of global warming. The other main culprit is unrestrained development in the only major U.S. city without zoning rules. That combination means more pavement and deeper floodwaters. Critics blame cozy relations between developers and local leaders for inadequate flood-protection measures.
(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...
Build on a flat coastal plain and don't expect flooding?
This stuff bugs me. Places like Palm Beach, Florida they are worried about climate change ... but they've built on a %$#*& flat barrier island. Now they want billions in taxpayer dollars to build a tidal barrier. Hello? The island you build on was the tidal barrier.
Same for people who build in floodplains along rivers and creeks. There have always been floods. Plus, when you build up an area there is less soil for the water to peculate through and less vegetation to uptake water.
I'm not against building but building dumb and then blaming the result on "climate change" ... well that just takes the cake.
Lies.
There were never any floods before Al Gore.
They need to follow the example of New Orleans...
Build it BELOW sea level!
/s
(remember the advice of your favorite realtor - Location, Location, Location!)
Y’all bail fast, ya hear!
Strange how global warming is whacking Houston while we haven’t had a decent hurricane make landfall in Florida for over ten years.
The SF Bay area has what is called micro-climates. Maybe the whole world does. Or not.
Seth Borenstein, the king of AGW BS.
The Houston area has been subsiding for decades due to the tremendous amount of groundwater pumped above ground for the water supply.
I know they’ve had big problems with the ground sinking since the early 1970’s, and things haven’t gotten any better.
I will say unrestrained development is THE culprit. Period!
Our rains aren’t caused by climate change. Houston’s debt level is huge. City council is only too happy to authorize the tearing down of a small, older home with a yard so that a developer can build a multi-story townhouse with no yard - have to generate those extra property tax revenues from somewhere. Some pretty major changes were made in the bayou drainage system to protect the downtown area but that causes suburban and urban areas to flood, some for the first time ever. Sheila Jackson Leigh’s area was protected but the surrounding counties really took it on the chin.
Houston is bursting at the seams. They absorbed a lot of people from Louisiana after Katrina, plus half of Mexico and Central America’s illegals as well as a huge influx of muslims. Crime and taxes are both up significantly, infrastructure cannot keep up with the huge traffic demands.
The Chairman of the Harris County GOP is a muslim and the Houston Independent School District opened its first Arabic immersion school last fall. Just another big sanctuary city. The only good thing that happened was that the lesbian Democrat mayor is finally gone due to term limits.
I am 100% sure that Global Warming was the cause of the drought that was never ever ever going to end just a few years ago, that was until global warming caused the floods that ended the global warming induced never ending drought
I’ve always said Houston was the armpit of Texas.
I was going to say the same thing. The entire Houston area is a flat coastal plain. It also is the only major city with no zoning restrictions. That equals lots and lots of concrete and asphalt making it difficult to drain any excess water.
If there was no oil or air conditioning Houston would be the size of Nome, AK and for the same reasons. Without modern technology it would be insufferable.
I don’t know why anyone would want to live in Houston, unless they like hundred-degree temperature with hundred-per cent humidity, all the while breathing what smells like asphalt.
We’ve had a drought for several years and are just catching up.
Ain’t that the truth. I expect people to wake up and start leaving any day now.
Said without a shred of supporting fact. Houston has always had flooding problems. It's like New Orleans except above sea level. The water has nowhere to go. Zoning may be part of the problem but a bigger part is building major highways that go *under* the cross streets instead of over them. You rarely hear of the 610 Loop or Beltway 8 being closed for flooding. It's always the parts of I-10 and U.S. 59 that run underground.
IF ya’ triple the number of “reporting/monitoring sites and only double the number of downpour events reported; that isn’t “BAD news”.
IF ya’ triple the number of “reporting/monitoring sites and only double the number of downpour events reported; that isn’t “BAD news”.
I confess...the floods started out small when we bought our first Explorer. They started getting worse when we bought a second Explorer for our daughter in college. But they became horrendous when I added my Expedition to the family fleet in 2007.
There’s good news, however. The two Explorers are in SUV Heaven and the girls replaced them with downsized Ford Escapes.
You can thank us if the floods are lessening. Try to keep the applause down...I’m headed to bed.
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