Posted on 08/26/2017 4:39:50 AM PDT by NautiNurse
Hurricane Harvey made landfall near Rockport TX about 10:00PM CDT Friday night. Top sustained winds were 130mph. Rockport High School sustained heavy damage when a portion of the roof collapsed. A senior housing complex collapsed. The Rockport courthouse sustained major damage with “a cargo trailer halfway in the building.” Multiple tornadoes reported in the Houston/Galveston areas. There are reports of scattered structural fires and a shooting was reported in Corpus Christi. Residents along the San Bernard River were advised to evacuate and most TX Gulf coast counties are under flash flood watches.
Many locations are under a boil-water notice. Power outages are widespread. President Donald Trump promptly granted a Disaster Declaration to Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s request. More than 700 members of the Texas Army and Air National Guards, Texas State Guard and the Texas Military Department have been activated and are positioning themselves throughout the state ahead of Hurricane Harvey and its anticipated landfall later this week. Ahead of the storm, FEMA sent supplies from its warehouse in Fort Worth to a staging point at Randolph Air Force Base near San Antonio.
Mash image to find lots of satellite imagery links
Public Advisories
Severe Weather Watches and Warnings TX
NHC Discussions
NHC Local Hurricane Statements Corpus Christi
NHC Local Hurricane Statements Galveston
Buoy Data near Harvey
Thread I: Potentially Catastrophic Hurricane Harvey Approaches Texas Gulf Coast
Looks like we lost the Addick level sensor around 2 pm EDT, at 108.7’
A shame, continued data there would give us a new slope on the elevation curve.
THIS video is why I had trouble with the Piney Point flow number...currently reading 9200 cfs.
;-)
Here, is the barest indication of the economic fallout, of allowing development to push the back side of a U shaped dam.
This is going to be a slo-mo event, with dollars lost, and displaced media, driving ever louder screams for rolling heads.
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/port-arthur-texas-conditions-dire-residents-in-survival-mode/
Port Arthur in a bad way.
Port Arthurs old MONTHLY rainfall record was 22.72 inches....they got 26.02 yesterday alone!!!
Normally, the East side is the dirty side.
According to the weather folks, it has trapped the dry air on the Louisiana side.
Bump
Wow what a mess.
Well, I guess the hydrologists in Houston are a lot dumber than the ones around here (/s), because NWS / NOAA gives us a pretty good idea of what areas are at risk when heavy precip. systems are on the way. No, it’s not perfect when intense rain happens in very localized areas (which was not really the case in the Houston area*), but that’s not the point. There’s never a perfect solution: What CAN be done is try to get, say, half the population in moderate risk areas, out, and hopefully more out of high risk areas, using the best estimates of areas at various risk levels, as well as the best estimates of how many people will leave / not leave. Maybe shoot for a movement of 25% of the total population - that number different for any given county and forecast. Relocate as many people locally, as possible, as routes well away are limited. Start early, with highest risk areas.
The looming problem can only be reduced. OTOH, and this is key, decision makers do not need “certainty” of severe flooding to urge residents to leave. “Is there a 40% chance this neighborhood will have 5-15 ft. flooding?” That question can be answered reasonably well, with systems like this (Harvey), and IMO, if the answer is “yes”, the above evac steps should be taken. One must keep in mind Houston’s severe weather / flooding history, AND that the forecast might be “off” in the low direction, too.
*I’d point out that the Houston TV forecasters I’ve heard the last couple days have commented on how consistent the rainfall distribution was. And, on how wrong they were on not trusting forecast guidance that (contrary to your assertions) was mostly in fairly close agreement. The exceptions are “cherry picking”.
I agree.
There is no excuse for not evacuating the most flood-prone areas in advance of this storm.
Barker 101.49
Addicks 109.08
both leveling off
it will be dry the nexyt few days but a wet pattern strating sunday,,maybe another tropical system mon-tues
Looks like it may be forming down in the Bay of Campeche. That could be really bad if it develops.
From weather forums, hurricane blogs and other thing I am jumping around to in the internet, it appears that the Beaumont/Port Arthur area has been hammered worse than Houston.
They had some of the rain and storm over the last five days as they are just NE of Houston. Now in the last two days, after their ground, creeks, rivers and bay are totally full, the balance of Harvey goes inland right on top of them. They may have more intense flood damage than anywhere else based upon early reports.
I hope the rescuer is able to adopt the dog, they belong together. The owner who left him tied up and abandoned him deserves jail.
Do you have links for that? I'm not disputing it, would just like to document it on another forum.
...over 1000+ mid to high end homes flooding to 2nd story level for months, even though they never wanted them there to begin with.
That still bothers the heck out of me. I just do not understand allowing all this development in flood control areas. The engineers probably want to shoot somebody.
Nations largest Oil rifinery just went off line in port arthur
Trump should suspend all ICE operation in the areas hit hard....IMO...don’t want deaths because they were “scared” for asking for help.....
I believe I heard on abc13 (Houston) that all ICE personnel were assisting in rescue / evac efforts, and all “enforcement” efforts (unless someone had committed a serious [felony level?] crime) were suspended.
You will hear a lot about this in the coming days. Below is text of the Obama regulation, link, and link to the Trump action.
"(1) Unless an exception is made under paragraph (2), the floodplain shall be:
"(i) the elevation and flood hazard area that result from using a climate-informed science approach that uses the best-available, actionable hydrologic and hydraulic data and methods that integrate current and future changes in flooding based on climate science. This approach will also include an emphasis on whether the action is a critical action as one of the factors to be considered when conducting the analysis;
"(ii) the elevation and flood hazard area that result from using the freeboard value, reached by adding an additional 2 feet to the base flood elevation for non-critical actions and by adding an additional 3 feet to the base flood elevation for critical actions; "(iii) the area subject to flooding by the 0.2 percent annual chance flood; or
"(iv) the elevation and flood hazard area that result from using any other method identified in an update to the FFRMS.
the large population growth in western Harris county means more runoff...so “moderate events” become 100 year floods more often
but it will have less of an impact of events like this because once the ground gets water logged, the rain will run off regardless if is bare ground or cement/roofs
they did a runoff study on the SW burbs of Chicago with its population boom and came to those conclusions
Houston local news sources have been stressing for several days that storm evacuees are NOT being questioned about their immigration status. No identification is required when checking into shelters.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
