HOUSTON? We have a Problem

[bobdreamz]

To begin with RIP to those who perished during this recent storm.

Can we discuss why America's 4th. Largest City is always having these flooding issues?
This was barely a Hurricane when it reached Houston and it seems like most of the city is under water again.
Why aren't there proper drainage systems in place here? Is this the fault of the City of Houston or the Texas State Government?

[jayden]

Is it REALLY the country's fourth largest city though?

[Steely Dan]

Houston is:

4th by city proper
3rd by primary county
5th by UA
5th by MSA
8th by CSA

[iheartthed]

I've heard from several friends in Houston that Beryl was an unusually bad cat 1 hurricane by their local standards.

[Nouvellecosse]

It's a very low lying area with a high water table isn't it? Drainage in that type of setting is difficult anyway let alone such robust drainage that it just shrug off a hurricane without any flooding. And there probably weren't as many hurricanes when the drainage systems were being designed compared to now that the effects of climate change are ramping up.

[3rd&Brown]

Ironically, the NYTimes has a detailed piece today on Homeowners Insurance rates by county across the United States and what is leading to increases in rates.

Also ironically, as much as costs have gone up along coastal regions in recent years, this summary would lead you to believe they're still not paying enough.

I happen to agree with them.

This is the summary for Harris County TX.

In
Harris County (Texas)
,

homeowners paid an average of $2,164 last year for insurance, 4 percent less than other counties with the same level of very high risk. Home values are slightly lower than the national average, which may mean lower insurance prices.

Insurance costs are 0.8 percent of typical home values, lower than average.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by jayden

Is it REALLY the country's fourth largest city though?

Houston's metro area is 5th, just under Dallas-Fort Worth, which is a metro area made up of two large cities so, yeah, it's the 4th largest city.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by bobdreamz

This was barely a Hurricane when it reached Houston and it seems like most of the city is under water again.

Wait a minute: You're from FLORIDA and you think the intensity of wind has anything to do with the amount of rain? Really?


Google "Tropical Storm Allison."
I'll help you out: Hardly any wind... FORTY inches of rain.

ETA - Also... When laying blame, consider the coastal prairie wetlands west of the city ...areas that are upstream from Houston, areas the city has no control over... that have been covered over with suburbs over the past twenty years. There are neighborhoods in the city which never flooded before that now regularly flood during extreme rain events.

And you can thank sensationalist reporting for making it seem "like most of the city" is under water. Most of it is not under water. Not by a long shot.

[JManc]

Beryl was much worse than we anticipated. Our neighborhood got thrashed pretty hard and we personally sustained quite a bit of damage. We lost a 200+ year-old oak tree that I am quite upset because I've spent thousands treating it and trimming every year to keep healthy but landed on our garage and this thing was massive. Lost another tree that fell on the neighbors house causing them serious damage to their roof/ subroof and pulled up half our driveway.

As for drainage, much of Houston is built up so no where for rain to drain, plus the ground was already saturated due to lots of rain earlier this month and June and we do have drainage but doesn't take much for it to get clogged with debris. Even before Beryl, our yard was still rather squishy and need a week or two to dry out before more rain.

[Steely Dan]

^ also, isn't a lot of the soil in the Houston area pretty clay-ey and thus not super porous/absorbent to begin with?

[benp]

Houston's big issue of the day is not the flooding, but the vulnerability of its electrical systems to loss and damage by its frequent storms. Power interruptions for many people occur often, sometimes for minutes other times for hours, during much of the year, and not just as a result of the largest storms. Today's discussions on Houston chat groups include arguing whether or not Houston has a "3rd world" level of electrical interruptions. Answers basically lean toward not being as bad as the worst 3rd world places, but certainly not a stable and consistent system. Generators, including permanent whole-home generators, are increasingly a common part of many Houston households, and even a selling point in some new housing.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by benp

Houston's big issue of the day is not the flooding, but the vulnerability of its electrical systems to loss and damage by its frequent storms. Power interruptions for many people occur often, sometimes for minutes other times for hours, during much of the year, and not just as a result of the largest storms. Today's discussions on Houston chat groups include arguing whether or not Houston has a "3rd world" level of electrical interruptions. Answers basically lean toward not being as bad as the worst 3rd world places, but certainly not a stable and consistent system. Generators, including permanent whole-home generators, are [IMG][/IMG]increasingly a common part of many Houston households, and even a selling point in some new housing.

In the past 20 years, I've lived inside the Loop in Houston, in an exurban area in Fort Bend County, and inside Loop 410 in San Antonio. Houston was the best in terms of power reliability. Here in San Antonio I hold my breath (figuratively speaking) whenever there is a thunderstorm. The Fort Bend County exurb was ridiculous. The power would go off for hours for no known reason. I would joke that someone tripped on the cord again at the Hooverville Power Company.

Oh look. Power outages right now in San Antonio. And all we had was some rain.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

^ also, isn't a lot of the soil in the Houston area pretty clay-ey and thus not super porous/absorbent to begin with?

Yep. And the city center is only about 50 feet above sea level. Not much help from gravity to move all that water to Galveston Bay.

[sentinel]

Since 2016, Houston has had catastrophic '500 year' storms and flooding nearly every year.
But nope, not due to climate change at all /s

And it doesn't help that 1. It's essentially at zero/0 sea level elevation, and 2. In the direct path of hurricanes that travel through the Gulf of Mexico..quite the recipe for disaster.

[LA21st]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

Wait a minute: You're from FLORIDA and you think the intensity of wind has anything to do with the amount of rain? Really?


Google "Tropical Storm Allison."
I'll help you out: Hardly any wind... FORTY inches of rain.

ETA - Also... When laying blame, consider the coastal prairie wetlands west of the city ...areas that are upstream from Houston, areas the city has no control over... that have been covered over with suburbs over the past twenty years. There are neighborhoods in the city which never flooded before that now regularly flood during extreme rain events.

And you can thank sensationalist reporting for making it seem "like most of the city" is under water. Most of it is not under water. Not by a long shot.

Northern Miami got flooded by a tropical storm 2 weeks ago. Im not sure why he's trying to act like theyre ok there.
And Fort Lauderdale was flooded last year by a rain storm. Bad. Even the airport was out. If South FL gets hit by a real hurricane, I dunno.
Sounds like its the same damn problem. Theyve just been luckier.

[homebucket]

The Houston MSA grew from 5.9 million to 7.1 million from 2010 to 2020, a 20.3% increase. It doesn't seem like these storms and flooding/power issues are having any effect on population growth.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by sentinel

But nope, not due to climate change at all /s

Oh for cripes sake. Why is it so hard for people to understand that the cities in Texas are NOT represented by the state government?

On April 22, 2020, in honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, Mayor Sylvester Turner and the City of Houston’s Office of Sustainability released the Houston Climate Action Plan, a science-based, community-driven strategy for the City of Houston to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, meet the Paris Agreement goal of carbon neutrality by 2050, and lead a global energy transition.

http://greenhoustontx.gov/climateact...nt%20goal%20of

[JManc]

Btw, the flooding was not that extensive this time because hurricane was fast moving and cleared the entire metro in about 6 hours. We were already outside cleaning up debris around 11 or so. The areas that flooded (parts of downtown, e.g.) are right on the bayou and they always flood but where my wife works (she went in today) it was dry. They're just rebuilding still from the derecho back in May.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by JManc

Btw, the flooding was not that extensive this time because hurricane was fast moving and cleared the entire metro in about 6 hours. We were already outside cleaning up debris around 11 or so. The areas that flooded (parts of downtown, e.g.) are right on the bayou and they always flood but where my wife works (she went in today) it was dry. They're just rebuilding still from the derecho back in May.

But but but... the TV Lady said the whole town was under water!

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

Ironically, the NYTimes has a detailed piece today on Homeowners Insurance rates by county across the United States and what is leading to increases in rates.

Yeah, this article was pretty interesting. Houston is a very high risk metro for insurance, and the rates paid are very low relative to risk.

There has to be some effort at insurance reflecting actual risk. It's madness to have a system where people living in low risk areas are cross-subsidizing people to live in high risk areas.

Even crazier, the insurance maps show the lowest risk areas are basically the slowest growth areas, and the highest risk areas are the highest growth areas. Complete madness. We're a very strange country.