Posted on 08/29/2017 5:07:42 AM PDT by RummyChick
The mayor of Houston and Harris County officials were advised two days before Hurricane Harvey made landfall that the storm was brewing into a likely catastrophic 5-day weather event that would flood at least 100,000 homes and paralyze Houston.
Yet city and county officials refused to call for a mandatory or even voluntary evacuation of Houston.
The result: Houston and parts of Harris county look like flooded battlefields, with residents clinging to rooftops of their homes while rescue workers both professional and volunteer risk their lives to save untold thousands in distress.
Houston and Harris countys four commissioners were briefed on Thursday morning, August 24 after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers warned officials that Hurricane Harvey, which at that point had not made landfall, was shaping up to impact the region even worse than Hurricane Allison in 2001. That storm killed 22 in Houston, left 30,000 residents stranded, and damaged over $5 billion of property.
The officials were given ample time to evacuate the city, federal officials and correspondences examined by True Pundit confirmed.
(Excerpt) Read more at truepundit.com ...
The coast guard has been buzzing my house all morning.
Your picture is adding to the whole argument about they are not adequately preparing for evacuations. Look at that 1/2 interstate completely empty.
I have been on the coastal regions of the east coast with all of their “evacuation route” signs. And when evacuations occur, all road traffic is evacuation traffic.
They absolutely know what will flood first. Get those people out and block those roads.
I know they know what will flood first because the media is there to report on the flooding.
“I live here. More people died during the evacuation of Rita than will die during this storm. And there are 1.5 million more people here now.”
Can I ask a couple of questions?
How bad is the danger-to-humans situation there right now? Are people drowning? Trapped on their roofs?
TIA.
Texas cities should mail a map of areas prone to flooding to everyone for future decisions when a storm comes.
Hearing of a potential of 50 inches or rain, I would have packed and left, no matter what that knucklehead mayor said.
“50 inches OF rain . . .”
And that, my friend, is why I wouldn’t have stayed nearby. Kansas or New Mexico would be likely locations for me, well away from places that might overfill, like Dallas, San Antonio or Austin.
Perhaps the Mayor was afraid if there were an evacuation to other cities he’d lose a percentage of the welfare vote that would never come back?
Opposite of the City of Houston gaining welfare voters after Katrina.
Houston freeways are parking lots on sunny days. They would have been death traps for people stranded on them during this storm.
“Anyone heard a peep out of Sheila?”
She was at a presser on Sunday acting large and in charge.
Yeah, but those lanes go away a few miles outside of Conroe. Then you have ten lanes going down to four. What happens then? It becomes a choke point that backs up to the picture you see here.
-PJ
That was the situation on Sunday.
The Coast Guard was airlifting people off of roofs, and telling people to hang towels and sheets so they can be seen from the air.
Locals went to the streets with flat boats to rescue people from apartment buildings where the water in the streets were chest high.
On Sunday night, some Vice-Admiral from the Coast Guard thanked everyone for the citizen response, but said that on Monday they would have enough assets to take over. The locals ignored him and kept going. The federal assets were not enough and couldn't handle the shallow water, so they were largely ignored.
Last night, some out-of-the-box thinkers started to bring in heavy earth-moving equipment like bulldozers and dump trucks to rescue people. The Coast Guard left at sunset, but the locals kept going until after 1:00am. Today, more heavy trucks were brought in to work with the flat boats.
People are getting out, and being moved to parking lots were Metro buses are waiting to take them to the Convention Center and other shelters.
-PJ
“The Coast Guard left at sunset”
Now, that’s just embarrassing.
Thanks very much for the information.
I should also have said how inspiring the civilian response is.
Disagree with you, once you get those cars moving out of town, they will move fine. Even down to 4 lanes. Just getting them moving. Get away from the concrete barriers, car breaks down, push it out of the way.
The foundation of the argument is false to begin with. Staged evacuations.
If I were an insurance company facing the losses that we are seeing right now, and I see tweets and news conferences from public officials telling people to stay put, I might be gearing up my lawsuits.
Just a few...
-PJ
That's fine, as long as cogent arguments are presented.
I still think, knowing the area, that turning that around in two days would have not been possible. It wouldn't have started before Thursday, and the hurricane hit on Saturday at 3:00am.
That means that you would have, at best, 48 hours to move millions of people. Even a staged evacuation that moved half a million at a time would clog the roads before too long, trapping the rest.
-PJ
Everytime this argument comes up.. just didn’t have enough time, it depends on the foundation that ALL people would evacuate.
That isn’t necessary, wasn’t necessary. National Weather models were predicting massive flooding. Army Corp of Engineers: get out.
And what is the response: we don’t evacuate for a rain event.
Really, you couldn’t move people out of the the areas you know flood always.
Really, you couldn’t evacuate at risk rest homes, etc?
Really, you couldn’t block roads you know flood every time to prevent people from driving into these flooded areas?
Really?
Everyday how many people commute around Houston in rush hour traffic? The infrastructure is there.
Just that those with egos chose to resist the better advice they were receiving.
I didn’t realize that Houston was so flat. I still think a partial evacuation order should have been given. All those folks are in a stadium now, the vulnerable could have been taken there.
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