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 ...
A Cat 3 or greater heading my way with forecasted rains of 3 feet or more? I don’t need no stinking government pooh head to tell me to get out of hell. Just sayin!
I love that quote; it's a quote from a thinking person. But the MSM hammered him for it. So that tells me...
You don’t house everyone who evacuates. They find places to go. Hotels, relatives, churches, etc. Its Texas, not Germany. Not everything had to be planned and executed by government. Governments job was to give the warning, and keep roads open.
That Mayor should be hanged. Period
I don’t mind beating up on Dems, but I drove back to Houston on Thursday afternoon and it was already raining hard. By Friday we had flooding.
We have 6 Million people here, and a total of about 6 freeway lanes to the north and east (i.e., that wouldn’t run right into the storm) to move them out (maybe 10 with contra-flow, maybe).
Not a prayer on getting them out, instead it would have been a repeat of Hurricane Rita, with one exception. Back during Rita, people could turn around and go home. With this storm they would have been trapped in their cars due to high water, until rescued.
Not pretty here, but this storm was not nearly as easy to deal with as a hurricane barrelling in from the Caribbean, with 3 to 5 days of notice and all roads clear for evacuation...and even then, we still can only evacuate a limited number of people.
This mayor also opposed the governor when he said to evacuate. Then stopped answering his phone.
My extended family has an active Facebook group, one of the primary reasons I stick with Facebook. With five households of relatives in Houston, I watched as they planned for their own evacuation and the evacuations of their in-laws. As a precaution, valuables were moved out of low-lying homes, and our people followed well before the storm hit. Some are in Houston on high ground, and others left town, also to high ground, but all are staying in the homes of relatives, with pets, with photo albums, jewelry, business records, and computers, and with their guns. The water could rise more than 20 feet without displacing any of my relatives.
Preparation even for this level of flooding is not as hard as people try to make it sound. None of the families are facing issues worse than crowding. They didn’t sit in traffic while relocating. They refilled medications and started with food, diapers, and water for a month, and we’re not even Mormons. At least three of the families face substantial damage to their (insured) homes, but no one faced personal danger.
As I said, for me this isn’t about mandatory evacuation. I have been in a houston hurricane.
This is about Dem Mayor and Republic Judge shooting down the leaked Army Corps of Engineers report.
And it shows why you should never trust Govt. officials in a catastrophe..especially when Gov Abbot probably had the same information..and was warning people.
It was a dual of who you should listen to Friday.
I absolutely would have moved to higher ground if I had known I might get 50 inches of rain. Of course, hurricane could have turned. I still would have moved if I knew I was where it could flood.
One more comment...even without the order issued, we saw a 5 mile backup on I-45 where it squeezes to 2 lanes...the problem with a flooding event of this type is that most people won’t know if they are susceptible to flooding...so huge numbers will ‘play it safe’ and try to leave, thereby creating another Rita.
Where do you evacuate 6.5 million people to?
I grew up in a flood zone. Over the years we packed valuables many times. Sometimes necessary..some times not. Here we go again...but we did it. Never had to evacuate but we were ready.
back then you couldnt put pics on a thumb drive and mom always wanted to save the pics.
Higher ground.
You dont evacuate the whole city.
It can be done as the expert I posted indicated.
Military helicopters are landing in my neighborhood.
Evacuating flood victims.
They look like blackhawk types. They have a red cross on them.
guy in door got mad at me, waved angtily yesterday when I was inadvertently standing in his landing spot when they came in.
DING DING DING!!
WE HAVE A WINNER!!!
No one has to wait for an evacuation order.
The issue is having the knowledge.
There is a difference between 10-20 inches of rain and 50 inches.
If I heard 15 inches where I was in my Hurricane I wouldn’t have packed up and left. If I heard potential of 50 inches I would have absolutely left. Where I was I would be in big trouble today.
Mayor said stay put and denounced the army corps of engineers leak. To be fair..the leak didn’t say it was from army corp of engineers. It said the info was from the City Council emergency meeting and the numbers matched up to what we now know is the Army corps of engineers...ASSUMING truepundit story is true.
Anyone who has lived in or around Houston for more tha a year knows that it is flood prone. The city proper is built on an alluvial delta and in the middle of a giant flood plain. A basic, fundamental understanding of gulf coast weather patterns this time of year is all you need to know that trouble is coming days in advance. Even the lightest of tropical weather touching the Texas coast is going to end up affecting Houston almost every time.
Take charge of your own life and that of your family. Quit relying on some government official agency to determine your fate. Get some situational awareness, then plan to evacuate on your own and act accordingly.
I was downstream of the Teton Dam failure back in the 70s, although we were high enough up to watch and then help with the emergency response instead of drowning. Since then, I never lived in a flood zone, but I always lived in areas where that could be a choice. A prerequisite for us to consider a home is that it be well above the 100-year floodplain and other potential flooding hazards. I respect those who can face floods multiple times, but seeing (and hearing) that once was more than enough for me.
I will never live in a flood zone after my experience with it...that is for sure. And I never saw a massive failure materialize.
...but most people don’t know. Where I am, we could get 200 inches of water for the next 3 weeks and not have an issue, as we have direct drainage to the bay. But if the order was issued, most of the people, who are less informed regarding drainage patterns, would have left.
What really needs to be done is a neighborhood-by-neighborhood assessment of who will get flooded and who will not, under the assumption that the storm sewers get overloaded and the rain keeps coming down - then the 80% or so of us who have no issue with this storm can stay put, while the others evacuate. Maybe it’s out there, but I still haven’t seen it.
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