Posted on 08/29/2017 1:34:29 PM PDT by DFG
We do need an update on our flood control infrastructure. My home is close to Spring Creek. The natural creeks and bayous around here can’t handle all the new development.
I am lucky, 2 more feet of water and I would have had it in my house.
That said even with improvements nothing could have saved us from this weather.
“Unfathomably stupid. Most people in flood-prone areas don’t even have insurance, so how could they be moving there because of the insurance.”
This insurance is for those who live in high risk uninsurable areas by private carriers. People on the Mississippi River have been gaming this program for years.
I’m betting that they are using an inappropriate statistical model to decide how unusual these events are. If you naively use a normal distribution, based on the standard deviation of usual rainfall, and the distribution is actually fat tailed, you will underestimate the likelihood of big flooding events.
Yes, building in a flood plain is stupid unless you build to withstand floods, which is cost prohibitive for most.
I thought people weren’t even allowed to build in flood zones like that. Pretty sure they did not used to allow that.
I have to say in the late 70s early 80s I saw many designated flood plains become re-designated for housing. I once had to talk to someone on a construction crew and they were marking off a subdivision. We were all standing in water...and it had not rained in days. I wondered how that was going to work out.
Building on a raised foundation is not that costly, just raise it on wooden pilings eight or ten feet and park your cars beneath, that’s how practically all beach cottages are set up on the southeast Atlantic coast. Some go further and have a raised garage or parking area so their vehicles are above the 100 year flood plain, historic storm surge averages or whatever standard they’re going by.
thanks.
We were in a flood in 1986 - they called it a 100 year flood. Our street was inclined and we were downhill and flattened out. In 1987 a worse (wider and deeper) flood hit, they called it a “500” year flood.
We think of N.O. when Katrina is mentioned, but way more areas than N.O got hammered.
N.O. almost survived with minimal flood\water damage then the levees broke.
Houston has flooded often...memorial day week 2015 - the whole city flooded. Then flooded again memorial day week 2016.
Interesting article here: https://weather.com/storms/severe/news/houston-flood-history-may2015-allison
However, nobody is claiming they have seen anything like Harvey - already a record rainfall in U.S. - a levee 50 miles south of houston was breeched - how bad, don’t know but evacuation was ordered. Reservoir overflowed. 2 Damns overflowed.
I can’t imagine what this would be like if it stayed a CAT4 storm.
Interesting article here about Katrina v Harvey.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/us/hurricane-katrina-harvey.html?mcubz=0
Just damn...
Bingo .... someone with a firm grasp of the obvious.
Scouring effect.
You have to have footings and connectors and posts that withstand that. Also depends how far down you have a solid base. Still pretty darn expensive. Also, when you’re up in the air like that you have wind uplift to consider. Lot’s more expensive to mitigate that.
Those beach cottages on stilts you see are usually not designed for hurricanes. Cheaper to rebuild.
If you can’t see any place along the coast that shouldn’t be built on, then I’m quite comfortable with you thinking my comments were comical.
The insurance rates for people across the nation are elevated by nimrods who don’t have enough common sense to avoid obvious places where one shouldn’t build. Other government funds are spilled out when they should have to have been, because people didn’t use common sense. Then you get folks who get all upset because you suggest this might not be a good idea. Comical?
I’m not suggesting that folks avoid everything along the coast, and you should have realized that. Nope, you couldn’t grasp that.
If a place floods even during normal heavy rains, why should people be building there? If it’s in an area where hurricanes can and do happen, then building codes should be such that structures should able to either withstand the treat, or at the very least keep damage to a minimum.
We have areas along the coast that are indefensible. You know damn well every structure in that area is going to be a total loss, but folks build there anyway.
Sure there are areas where risk is elevated, and you can’t avoid every place where there is a problem, but you do your best to avoid them.
Here in California we clear hillsides of brush so they won’t be fire hazards. We have building codes that seek to lessen damage from earthquakes or avoid damage to them altogether.
Some of the homes in the areas affected by this storm should be off limits.
Foam at the mouth all you like.
I have no problem with people who build so that damage is minimal. If people don’t bother to protect themselves, they shouldn’t eat up all the insurance reserves.
>> Folks shouldn’t live in low areas that are prone to hurricanes. <<
Until fairly recently, MOST people in America lived near a coast. Inland cities like Dallas and Phoenix are novelties.
Some folks are having a hard time grasping what I am saying.
I realize that some areas along the coast are more at risk than others. Some of the lower elevation areas that are easily flooded even during heavy rains, should be off limits.
Do you like spending 5-25% more for your home insurance based on the idea people have made poor choices along the coast?
Should whole neighborhoods we know are going to be destroyed, be populated?
I’m not advocating no homes be along the coast at all.
I am advocating for using better judgement and also stronger building codes in areas that are not just “at risk”, but “certain to fail”.
Yup. Houston is a sanctuary city. Now all of us will pay for housing for the illegals. And for second homes for a lot of Katrina victims.
Don’t forget itchy, flakey skin and dry mouth.
In the 7 years I was there (before Katrina), metro New Orleans had at least 2, maybe 3, hundred year floods.
I might be in favor of the federal government drastically raising flood insurance rates on the idiot luxury class folks who populate Fire Island, NY, or Nantucket, or Provincetown. But my point, to which you were responding, was that the problem in Houston isn’t that people built in river valleys, but fifty inches of rain. If you then write about “idiots” who don’t live “inland,” pardon anyone for thinking you’re talking about the sort of places that are as vulnerable as Houston, which make up the entire Eastern and Gulf seaboards.
I thought is was only Karl Rove that had a weather machine!
Well, yes, they are built to withstand hurricanes, at least in NC they are, that’s one reason why they’re up on “stilts” or pilings, so storm surge and overwash will pass beneath the house. Roof tie-downs, high impact windows, general requirements for shear walls, etc.
Must have lived along Cedar Bayou in Baytown.
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