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 Abbotts 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
If one is declared and you do not evacuate, the 911/emergency cannot and will not respond to any requests. You are on your own.
I had the privilege of cleaning up a muddy road after a major flood, along with nearly 100 of my closest friends from college. At least we only had to clean up about a foot of dried mud.
It is truly hard work that everyone should do on occasion. When young ...
The Orange County wastewater collection and treatment system is essentially out of service because of the extreme flooding.
Irma looks bad
As a young person once a state bureaucrat I was told by a senior engineer that "the solution to pollution is not dilution." In normal times that is true, in this instance I wouldn't be too worried about human waste. There are a lot more liquid things than that in the water - crude oil and gasoline hydrocarbons, chemicals, mixed waste, not to mention the physical material floating down river such as trees and plant debris, and man-made floating objects.
In practice, is that what actually happens? (And do people believe that is what happens?) Many requests for help have paths other than / in addition to 911. It’s hard to believe a responder able to respond to a serious or life threatening situation nearby would not. Granted that if responders are overwhelmed, there might not be any responders near “mandatory” zones in early stages of the rescue efforts.
Not to mention what has leaked out of flooded hospitals. Can understand why people don’t want to just swim to safety.
When toilets can’t be flushed because doing so will cause influx of raw sewage backup into the home—it is a health hazard. Sewage bubbling up from manhole covers is a health hazard. Flood water in general is toxic soup.
Oops - fell asleep B4 getting this posted, last night...
Visual evidence (abc13 report, 5 pm(?), 8/30/17, showed Buffalo Bayou (I’m fairly sure), in downtown Houston, greatly down from crest levels, with pretty good current. By greatly down, I mean 10-12 ft. This corresponds fairly well with the data on NWS’ website. Plus the camera angle may have fooled me a bit. :-)
What kind of volume can the Bayou carry past downtown, if the levels downstream have subsided, as evidently* they must have?
*I do not see any gauges down near the Houston Ship Channel.
At that time, weather folks were concerned about this storm being a slow mover.
You can have a CAT-5 storm that barrels into the coast at 20 mph. That will reduce the damage because of the limited time over a particular area.
Harvey is the slowest moving storm I have ever seen.
Additionally, it did not peter out and become a depression in just a few hours. Instead it stayed a tropical storm for about 5 1/2 days.
I have never heard of anything like that.
The biggest fear with Irma is for it to hit Texas or come close to the areas hit by Harvey...
What you say is all so true. But generally the volume wastewater to volume Neches River flood water is small (especially with homes and hospitals evacuated) and provides mitigation to some extent. Not a desirable situation of course, but one that is certainly less critical than evacuating and saving lives of flood victims.
Update and some clarification, as of 10:30 pm 8/30/17:
ACE’s Lindner says Addicks/Barker levels have crested. (This doesn’t explain Mandatory Evac order last night for SW Barker), but will drain very slowly, as controlled release is “a very tiny fraction” of the water detained.
Addicks outflow was reduced by 500 cfs to check gate integrity. (Shallow reporters do us a disservice, not sure what can be checked dropping outflow from 8000 cfs to 7500 cfs, except maybe pore pressure around the structure, but 500 cfs doeesn’t sound like they’re very worried. Not that any reporters bothered to ask.)
Buffalo Bayou holding steady levels from Addicks to Highway 8, was expected to gain a foot further down, around Piney Point. Water backing up on tributaries feeding the Bayou, primarily north of Bayou and west of Highway 8, Rummel Creek seems to be a focus.
Overflow from north end of Addicks holding steady, low total flow, it appears to have turned south before Rummel Creek, and may never reach Bayou, complex flows, unmapped previously.
“100,000 affected homes” quote amended to apply to all of Harris County. 3000 homes above Addicks, 1000 above Barker, 73,000 total affected from T.S. Allison, ACE expects more from Harvey.
Releases to continue indef, lowering levels in anticipation of future rain events.
My observations...They may not have a solid grasp on total Buffalo Bayou thruput, only levels. In a wide floodplain, additional flow can spread out without changing measured levels. Downstream, in a constricted channel, this would translate to level changes seemingly not connected to upstream events. Difficult to intuit a body of water with a convex upper surface, but river crests and storm surges prove exactly that. These level maxima move downstream, but manifest differently depending on many factors, width, depth, drag, detention, intentional or accidental, etc.
The completed cofferdam for the new gate outlet at Addicks is immediately west of the active gate, (visible on Google maps) but I haven’t found one for Barker. At the time of the Google maps image, I see no sign of penetration or excavation into the embankment itself, looks like they put up the cofferdam and started drying the work area when the shot was taken. Folks expecting the usual pair of cofferdams will be disapointed. In this case, the “diversion tunnel” already exists, in the form of the current gate outlet, and downstream protection where the embankment penetration occurs is either obviated by existing topography, or hadn’t been started when Google image captured.
Finally, big picture observations...detention structures save lives, until capacity is exceeded, or development encroaches. Over time, development will ALWAYS encroach, like percolating water, percolating financial pressure WILL find a way. At that point, flood management has huge “hot potato” political potential, especially in a Fake News environment. I haven’t seen any factionalization over why these homes flood instead those, partly I’m sure because of the U shaped detention geometry, there isn’t a choice. But math and logic rarely impede the MSM...I am very glad I’m not the ACE, manning the gatewheels that open homes to flood, with advance foreknowlege.
Update and some clarification, as of 10:30 pm 8/30/17:
ACE’s Lindner says Addicks/Barker levels have crested. (This doesn’t explain Mandatory Evac order last night for SW Barker), but will drain very slowly, as controlled release is “a very tiny fraction” of the water detained.
Addicks outflow was reduced by 500 cfs to check gate integrity. (Shallow reporters do us a disservice, not sure what can be checked dropping outflow from 8000 cfs to 7500 cfs, except maybe pore pressure around the structure, but 500 cfs doeesn’t sound like they’re very worried. Not that any reporters bothered to ask.)
Buffalo Bayou holding steady levels from Addicks to Highway 8, was expected to gain a foot further down, around Piney Point. Water backing up on tributaries feeding the Bayou, primarily north of Bayou and west of Highway 8, Rummel Creek seems to be a focus.
Overflow from north end of Addicks holding steady, low total flow, it appears to have turned south before Rummel Creek, and may never reach Bayou, complex flows, unmapped previously.
“100,000 affected homes” quote amended to apply to all of Harris County. 3000 homes above Addicks, 1000 above Barker, 73,000 total affected from T.S. Allison, ACE expects more from Harvey.
Releases to continue indef, lowering levels in anticipation of future rain events.
My observations...They may not have a solid grasp on total Buffalo Bayou thruput, only levels. In a wide floodplain, additional flow can spread out without changing measured levels. Downstream, in a constricted channel, this would translate to level changes seemingly not connected to upstream events. Difficult to intuit a body of water with a convex upper surface, but river crests and storm surges prove exactly that. These level maxima move downstream, but manifest differently depending on many factors, width, depth, drag, detention, intentional or accidental, etc.
The completed cofferdam for the new gate outlet at Addicks is immediately west of the active gate, (visible on Google maps) but I haven’t found one for Barker. At the time of the Google maps image, I see no sign of penetration or excavation into the embankment itself, looks like they put up the cofferdam and started drying the work area when the shot was taken. Folks expecting the usual pair of cofferdams will be disapointed. In this case, the “diversion tunnel” already exists, in the form of the current gate outlet, and downstream protection where the embankment penetration occurs is either obviated by existing topography, or hadn’t been started when Google image captured.
Finally, big picture observations...detention structures save lives, until capacity is exceeded, or development encroaches. Over time, development will ALWAYS encroach, like percolating water, percolating financial pressure WILL find a way. At that point, flood management has huge “hot potato” political potential, especially in a Fake News environment. I haven’t seen any factionalization over why these homes flood instead those, partly I’m sure because of the U shaped detention geometry, there isn’t a choice. But math and logic rarely impede the MSM...I am very glad I’m not the ACE, manning the gatewheels that open homes to flood, with advance foreknowlege.
Global warming they say!!!
Chuck the EPA!!!!
Horrors of Galveston: Incredible photos from 1900 show weary survivors and a Texas town in ruins after deadliest hurricane in US history killed more than 8,000
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4839972/Great-Galveston-Hurricane.html
My relative who had to evac did so because sewage was overflowing out of her potties and bathtubs.
Water has receded greatly. My relative was able to drive 35 miles to get to work today. 288 to 59 to Beltway south was clear. No traffic for the first time in his life.
Wonderful news!
Austin and Dallas gas stations are running out of fuel.
Three or four cars in line and fuel runs out.
Holiday weekend upon everyone, possibly some hoarding maybe out of a case of nerves, worried about having fuel to get to their jobs next week, and not enough fuel trucks to meet the need.
DART (train transit) in Dallas couldn’t fill up all of their service trucks today.
Amazing impact moving northward.
We think our kids can’t drive up for the holiday, betting it may get worse upon their return to Dallas and Austin. They want to save what they have for work on Tuesday.
Just amazing the hit on Texas. It’s starting to sink in that there will be a price to this catastrophe and we will all feel it.
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