"Would you look at that? Some New York City self appointed experts that have never been west of the Hudson...'"
The local government knows what they are doing, not some hoity-toity newsperson from the East Coast.
Baloney.
Now they have a ton of people without basic services.
This Mayor can’t think beyond the ballot box.
These loud mouth big city Democrat Mayors want to opine on every Federal matter and then they don’t take care of their cities.
This guy liked to talk about immigration and global warming and maybe he should have been talking about preparing his city for floods.
I've been watching Turner since he'd been elected (I live north of Houston proper and out of his jurisdiction), and he never struck me as the type to do that. He's a local who "grew up" in the Houston political machine, and has been wanting to be mayor for a very long time. I've been impressed with his appearances during the hurricane press conferences. He seems to know what he's doing, and marshalling all the agencies at his disposal. He does not appear to be behaving like Ray Nagin.
During the storm, many local jurisdiction leaders were stopping short of mandating evacuations, saying they didn't want to put emergency responders in danger over stubborn people who refused to leave.
I've been told by long-time locals that, because Houston is so flat, the highway system was designed to become water catch-basins during severe storms. This was intentional to keep the water out of neighborhoods. This is why the roads become impassable and the city gridlocks, but the homes don't flood.
I think this is so much bigger than anyone expected. I hear people say that when Houston evacuated from Ike, people only made it as far as Conroe because the roads were stopped. It may be that it is just too impractical to evacuate a city the size of Houston in such a short period of time.
Today's situation is aggravated by the release of water in the dams. Yesterday, officials were thanking the citizen responders with flat boats, saying that today "professional" help would be arriving. However, the citizens are not stopping, and they are proving useful as their boats can get into areas where the flooding is not deep enough for many of the new vehicles that are arriving.
Now we are waiting for the water up north to flow down through Houston as it makes its way to the Gulf of Mexico.
-PJ
I’m watching a live stream. Some areas were issued evacuation orders. People got out on the roads and couldn’t find a way out and now that can’t get back to their homes either. What a mess. This is going to get much worse I fear.
Right, because the only choices were to evacuate EVERYONE or NO ONE. Not everyone was at risk of flooding, vulnerable people in low-lying areas should have been evacuated, but the democrat mayor of houston left them there to suffer...and without a doubt will end up blaming Trump for this.
I take it since the political affiliation of the mayor isn’t displayed prominently that he’s a Democrat.
I have both radios and TV's, I don't need any city, state or Fed to tell me to get out of Dodge since a hurricane is heading my way........
With as bad as Harvey as been, I’m surprised that the death toll has only been 5 - so far.
I lived in Houston for ten years. Left fifteen years ago. Even then an ordinary traffic day could turn into complete city-wide gridlock under the wrong set of circumstances. You tell people to evacuate and within the hour the whole city will be in gridlock and no one will go anywhere for days.
Who was the black guy, who just before the storm hit, declared everyone should shelter in place? I saw a video cut of it and assumed it was the mayor or someone with the city of Houston.
Maybe I misheard it.
I would point out that there is no US constitutional authority for a mandatory / forced evacuation. To do that, you would need to declare martial law first.
I don know Texas state constitution so can’t comment on Gov authority.
These things are always a tough call.
Evacuating the entire city would have been potentially worse. They would have had to call it very early in order for people to get out ... probably on Wednesday.
However, I do think they should have evacuated nursing homes (mandatory call) ___ and sick or disabled people and people with very young children (non-mandatory call). This population poses the biggest threat to 1st responders if they have to be rescued in adverse conditions.
Probably also best if people who cannot swim would evacuate.
"Would you look at that? Some New York City self appointed experts that have never been west of the Hudson...'"
This isn't satire?
“Officials released 5,000 cubic feet of water from Houston-area reservoirs Monday, hoping for relief from the storm’s devastation. The plan was to increase that to 8,000 cubic feet by noon.”
5,000 cubic feet of water (40,000 gallons) is about what a swimming pool holds. I doubt very much that a swimming pool’s worth of water will have much effect during this storm.
There are 3 authors to this story, are they all THAT DUMB to not even have a clue as to what they’re writing, or what units they’re using?
Yes...after all, they HATED math, which is why they went into ‘journalism’.
Here is my thing, if people are too dumb to get their arses out of the way of a hurricane, then what can you say?
Do you really need some know-nothing politicians to tell you to leave town if a CAT 4 hurricane is heading for your city/town?
“Officials released 5,000 cubic feet of water from Houston-area reservoirs Monday, hoping for relief from the storm’s devastation. The plan was to increase that to 8,000 cubic feet by noon.”
That’s just a drop in the bucket, unless these reservoirs are the size of a backyard swimming pool. They probably mean cubic feet per second. When CA was trying to stop the collapse of the Oroville Dam last winter, they were releasing 200,000cfs.
I am more and more concerned about water supply contamination. I understand the water has been turned off at Rock Port and Victoria. If these water supply reservoirs are over flowed with sewage laden flood water we really have a disaster. The solution is millions of bottles of water but are we talking 6 million people, most unable to boil water with nothing to drink. I hope Trump is on top of this.
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In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Rita triggered one of the largest evacuations in US history. Hurricane Rita was a very intense Atlantic hurricane that caused significant damage to the U.S. Gulf Coast in September 2005. It formed from a complicated interaction between two different weather systems. A tropical wave moved off the West African coast on September 7, 2005. It failed to organize any noteworthy convection over the Atlantic Ocean until it merged with the active remnants of a cold front north of Puerto Rico ten days later. At that point it began to organize and the new system was declared a tropical depression on 18 September about 113 km (70 mi) east of Grand Turk. The storm intensified into a tropical storm later that day and remained at that strength for two days. On 20 September, Tropical Storm Rita strengthened into a hurricane over the Florida Straits and continued to intensify quite rapidly as it moved into the Gulf of Mexico. Tracking over the very warm waters of the Loop Current and within an environment of very weak vertical wind shear, Hurricane Rita grew from a tropical storm to a powerful Category 5 hurricane in less than 36 hours, with a peak intensity of 286 km/h (178 mph) winds. Due to an eyewall replacement cyccle Rita abruptly weakened to Category 4 strength with 230 km/h (144 mph) maximum winds late on 22 September. Due to increasing southwesterly wind shear and slightly cooler waters, steady weakening continued on 23 September. Hurricane Rita made landfall about 258 km (161 mi) southeast of Sabine Pass at the Texas/Louisiana border, on 24 September as a Category 3 hurricane with winds of 185 km/h (115 mph). Hurricane force winds were sustained more than 240 km (150 mi) inland and tropical storm force winds were felt as far north as the LA-TX-AR border.
Although the hurricane weakened prior to and after making landfall, Rita produced a significant storm surge that devastated coastal communities in southwestern Louisiana, and its winds, rain, and tornadoes caused fatalities and a wide swath of damage from eastern Texas to Alabama. An estimated surge of 4.6 m (15 ft) pushed as far inland as 40 km (25 mi) in the low-lying, susceptible communities along the western Louisiana coast. A number of parishes several miles from the coast were completely inundated with up to 3.7 m (12 ft) of water. Some communities in these parishes, notably Cameron Parish, were completely destroyed. The surge also caused a casino boat and several barges to float loose in Lake Charles, travel some 48 km (30 mi) inland, and damage a bridge on Interstate 10. A number of levees along Lake Ponchartrain breached by Hurricane Katrina a month earlier were overtopped once more, producing flooding in already storm-ravaged areas. Hurricane Rita was responsible for 120 deaths. Some were actually associated evacuation efforts, such as the 23 passengers who died in a bus accident south of Dallas, TX. Total damages resulting from Hurricane Rita amounted to over $10.5 billion (2005 USD), making it the ninth costliest hurricane affecting the United States. Fast Facts:
Sources:
Brown, D., R. Knabb, J. Rhome. “Tropical Cyclone Report: Hurricane Rita 18-26 September 2005.” National Hurricane Center. 17 Mar. 2006. Web. NOAA- National Climatic Data Center. Hurricane Rita Hurricane Rita. Wikipedia. 2009. Web. Roth, David. “Louisiana Hurricane History.” National Weather Service. 2010. Pp. 54-55. Web. Tropical Weather Summary – 2005 Web Final. National Weather Service. 2007. Web. NOAA Special Report- Hurricane Wilma |
“5000 cubic feet... 8000 cubic.” What are they talking about? Am I missing something?
