How Houston was left to drown under Harvey

[guillaumeb]

From the article:

Yet characterizations of the carnage by the National Weather Service as "historic," "unprecedented" or "beyond anything experienced" should not be conflated with the spurious claim that the devastation wrought by Harvey is "unpreventable" or "unexpected."
The outcry by advocates, experts and activists against the unplanned, for-profit development of cities like Houston has been consistently ignored by city officials, leaving millions--especially the poor and people of color--in the fourth-largest city in the U.S. in a death trap.
"Houston is the fourth-largest city, but it's the only city that does not have zoning," Dr. Robert Bullard, a Houston resident and a professor who studies environmental racism, told Democracy Now! on August 29. "[As a result], communities of color and poor communities have been unofficially zoned as compatible with pollution...We call that environmental injustice and environmental racism. It is that plain, and it's just that simple."

I bolded the one sentence.

To read more:

https://socialistworker.org/2017/08/30/how-houston-was-left-to-drown-under-hurricane-harvey

[guillaumeb]

1. Furthermore:

Dr. Bullard talks of malls and residential buildings being built on former wetlands, and minimal regulation for siting petrochemical plants and pipelines.

All part of the Texas miracle that the GOP loves to talk about.

[X_Digger]

2. Zoning doesn't fix 54" of rain.

[guillaumeb]

5. No, but deliberately filling in wetlands and ignoring dams and other

flood control infrastructure does not help when the city is regularly flooded. As the article points out.

[X_Digger]

8. .. which isn't typically handled by zoning boards. I think the point went right over you. n/t

[guillaumeb]

15. Speaking of points,

did you read the entire article, or just the summary?

[X_Digger]

18. Yes I did. Obviously the author (and you, apparently) don't know what zoning boards do in TX. n/t

[guillaumeb]

22. Feel free to enlighten us all, and before doing so,

I would recommend looking at Post #10 for an interesting illustration of what has happened. And how this area of Texas has apparently ignored flood control infrastructure. Possibly because it imposes unwanted costs on developers?

[X_Digger]

25. Here you go:

http://bfy.tw/DfKK

[guillaumeb]

27. How marvelous.

But you did make a claim and were asked to elaborate.

Did you look at Post #10 while you were doing your research?

[X_Digger]

29. Yes, I did. Post #10 has no bearing on the point under discussion.

Do keep up, please. We were discussing the role of zoning boards in Texas.

[guillaumeb]

33. We were actually discussing the entire post.

And #10 has a huge bearing.

[X_Digger]

35. You highlighted the passage on zoning in the OP. One assumes, for a reason.

Was it a slip of the keyboard? Did a ninja cat sneak up and bold that sentence?

Do tell.

[guillaumeb]

42. I will wait for your opinion about what was discussed in the post.

[X_Digger]

59. You'll notice post #10 is not in this subthread. Care to stay on point?

What function of zoning boards in Texas did you intend to highlight by bolding the section in post #1?

[guillaumeb]

65. I intended to highlight the point

to show how unregulated development can lead to situations where wetlands and other conditions are ignored in the zeal to allow development for the sake of development. And obviously profit as well.

What did you infer from the highlighted section?

[X_Digger]

67. So you demonstrate (again) that you don't know what zoning boards in Texas do. Thanks for that.

It's like you're walking up to this thread with a pile of dog shit in hand, saying "Look what I almost stepped in!"

[guillaumeb]

69. Interesting how you avoid commenting on what they do.

Do you take this post as a personal attack on you and other Texans?

[X_Digger]

71. I pointed you to the information, you have merely to read. n/t

[guillaumeb]

73. Have a nice day.

The many other responses contain actual information and points of view, but this sub-thread has none of that. If you wish to respond substantively to the issues addressed in the post please let me know.

[X_Digger]

74. Do have fun with yourself. n/t

[WinkyDink]

62. Quite obviously the main problem is in your specific reference to "in TX." TEXAS IS THE PROBLEM---OR

RATHER, "TEXAS ATTITUDE."

"WE DON'T NEED NO STINKIN' ZONING, OR TELLIN' FOLKS WHERE THOSE CHEMICAL REFINERIES ARE LOCATED, OR BELIEVIN' IN SOME MADE-UP 'CLIMATE CHANGE'. WE'RE TEXAS!!"

[X_Digger]

64. Thanks, are you volunteering to come write zoning laws in Houston?

When can I expect your plane to land? I'll air out the spare bedroom.

Oh, you mean all you've got in mind is snark over the internet?

Well bless your heart, ain't you special?

[guillaumeb]

66. Nothing to say about the substance of the response?

Other than to notice the quite obvious tone?

[X_Digger]

68. I gave it all the thought it deserved. n/t

[guillaumeb]

70. Continuing a pattern?

[X_Digger]

72. Responding to snark with as much thought as it engenders.

Why waste time on reflexive gibberish?

[pnwmom]

79. There are no zoning regulations in Houston. You obviously don't know what zoning boards

do in the cities (other than Houston) that have them.

[jpak]

61. Guns are the answer to this

and all our ills.

yup

[pnwmom]

78. Wrong. Zoning boards direct housing development away from flood plains,

and they limit the amount of impervious materials covering the land. Wetlands, fields, farms, greenbelts, and even backyards absorb water. Houses, driveways, roadways, and parking lots do not.

[L. Coyote]

40. Done correctly, yes it does.

You zone for building where it never floods, you limit impervious surfaces to drainage capacity, etc.

You don't "fix" heavy rainfall, you expect it and plan accordingly.

[LanternWaste]

46. Who (specifically) argued that it would?

Who (specifically) argued that it would in fact, fix everything rather than simply mitigating the problems and concerns?

[X_Digger]

60. Oh look, someone else who didn't notice the highlight in the OP.

Oh look, someone else who didn't notice the highlight in the OP.

[pnwmom]

80. You don't appear to know what the sentence in bold means.

Houston doesn't have the zoning regulations that could have mitigated the problem caused by the heavy rainfall.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-08-31/a-hard-rain-and-a-hard-lesson-for-houston

Harvey Wasn’t Just Bad Weather. It Was Bad City Planning

Harvey is a devastating reminder to Houston that nature will have its due. The Category 4 hurricane that hung around as a stationary tropical storm punished greater Houston with rainfall measured in feet, not inches. No city could have withstood Harvey without serious harm, but Houston made itself more vulnerable than necessary. Paving over the saw-grass prairie reduced the ground’s capacity to absorb rainfall. Flood-control reservoirs were too small. Building codes were inadequate. Roads became rivers, so while hospitals were open, it was almost impossible to reach them by car.

SNIP

Houston’s clay soil doesn’t absorb water quickly, so when a hard rain comes, much of it runs off to pool elsewhere. Authorities have made matters worse by allowing developers to pave over much of Harris County and beyond; it’s spent its flood-control budget on culverts, canals, drains, levees, berms, pumps, and other “gray” (as in concrete) infrastructure to flush the water away—but that hasn’t been enough. It builds new roads with curbs and gutters designed to channel water away from buildings. Roads make good sluices in an ordinary storm, but in Harvey they couldn’t shed their water fast enough and became rivers.

Samuel Brody, a resident of the west side of Houston who says the flood waters crept up “into the freak-out zone” of his house, argues that Houston and the region should make better use of green solutions, such as preserving wetlands and digging more detention ponds, which are normally dry but fill up in storms. New buildings—and even old ones—should be elevated on piles so water flows under them, not into them, says Brody, who has a doctorate in city and regional planning and teaches at Texas A&M University’s Galveston campus. And, he says, builders should be prohibited from raising the heights of building lots with fill, which merely diverts more water onto their neighbors’ property.

The acreage of metro Houston that can’t soak up rainfall increased by 32 percent from 2001 to 2011, according to U.S. Geological Survey data.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/31/us/houston-harvey-flooding-urban-planning/index.html

Throughout the Houston metro area, decades of virtually unplanned growth has resulted in thousands of square miles of paved streets, parking lots and other hard surfaces covering the ground. According to the city's website, its metro area measures nearly 9,000 square miles -- an area larger than New Jersey.

All this concrete makes it harder for stormwater to be absorbed naturally into the ground. And Houston is more spread out than many other cities, said Bruce Stiftel, who chairs Georgia Tech's School of Regional and City Planning.

"When you have a less dense urban fabric, you're going to have more impervious surface and you're going to have more runoff," Stiftel said. "That's clearly an important consideration in Houston."

SNIP

"Houston is somewhat legendary for having no real zoning," said Chad Berginnis, executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers. "That's important because zoning allows local agencies to say, 'look these are inappropriate uses for building in these areas.'"

[kcr]

77. Wow. This is how dumb RW ideas happen. Seriously?

Yeah, who needs stupid zoning laws. Come on, now. You're here for a reason. You can do this. Edit just saw the whole exchange above and realize I'm wasting my time. Nevermind.

[Warpy]

3. Zoning wouldn't have helped all that much

30-50 inches of rain can't be controlled by zoning or anything else. When something like that is on the way, flood prone areas need somewhere to evacuate to and in a timely manner, any multi story reinforced concrete building will do.

Then again, Japan had designated tsunami shelters. The ones closest to the coastline were often leveled with everything else.

Still, thinking about vertical evacuation could have helped the situation tremendously.

[guillaumeb]

6. Did you read the part about filling in wetlands?

And not repairing the dams?

[Warpy]

21. Yes, but that is hardly exclusive to Houston

This country is crammed full of marginal earthen dams that are waiting for one huge rainstorm to fail. Sadly, most of them will be allowed to fail because cheapskates in government won't spend the money to repair them.

As for building on wetlands, while that isn't allowed in most areas, we had our own little scandal over it, zoning laws and all. Some years ago, a developer wanted to cram as many houses as possible onto a parcel of land, so he filled in the arroyos and built houses on top of the fill. He got lucky for a couple of years, we were hit hard by drought and the monsoons fizzled and we didn't get more than a few flakes of snow. When the skies finally did open up, a few of those houses were destroyed. Cue big drama, some of which is still being fought over.

Mass. had the right idea for coastal properties, at least. Once beach erosion plus a big storm had destroyed a house, that was it. People couldn't rebuild on the same property. If they wanted to rebuild, they could take their insurance money and do it elsewhere. That should really be extended to wetlands and known frequent flood plains.

Still, there wasn't much to be done about this one, but it would have been nice had they thought more about evacuation strategy.

[guillaumeb]

24. Your points are appreciated, and illustrative of a system

where profits always take precedence over anything else.

How exactly does anyone evacuate that many people? Even if every resident possessed a motor vehicle, the roads would have been impassable.

Is there light rail and/or bus service that is readily accessible?

[Warpy]

31. That's why you can't do lateral evacuation of a city like Houston

or many others around the country. You have to consider vertical evacuation to the higher floors of the stronger buildings in the area.

Look at any rush hour from any city to burbs. It's gridlock on bright, sunny days with no clouds in the sky.

[guillaumeb]

36. But building vertically would require substantial investment in infrastructure,

to accommodate the density, and GOP controlled states show little desire to invest in transportation except for roadways.

[guillaumeb]

43. A vertical city would have its own logistical issues.

Power sources would also have to be above the reach of water, and in some areas the ground is unsuitable for the foundations required. And even if all of the inhabitants were able to relocate higher in their buildings, there could be problems with access to food and water and medical care.

[Warpy]

45. Not really. Flood waters do recede. They're receding as I type this

What we're talking about is a week or so for water to recede enough that an orderly lateral evacuation can be accomplished, if necessary.

People need at least 4 days of water. After that, supplies will come in. Sanitation will be a problem as toilets will not flush, but that's more of a cleanup problem than anything else. What people need is a space where they will not drown. That's what vertical evacuation is all about.

This is not about a permanent solution to a temporary problem. It's about survival, not amenities.

[guillaumeb]

47. The evacuation will be neccessary.

Homes that are under water for days and longer will be filled with mold and possibly be contaminated with runoff containing a variety of chemicals.

But what should also be done is to restore the wetlands and allow the water to be absorbed naturally. The map in post #10 vividly illustrates how the metropolitan area has been essentially paved over, with the result being that water takes much longer to drain. But restoring wetlands means less available land for developers.

[Warpy]

48. No kidding. This is where Federal and state help need to come in

and claim those properties under eminent domain, something that will keep people from financial disaster if they didn't have flood insurance. Shady developers need to be prevented from filling in wetlands so they can cram in more houses. Other states protect wetlands. Texas seems to have to learn everything the hard way.

[guillaumeb]

49. Right on target. eom

[Sunlei]

37. houstons metro buses are used to bus people to the closest shelters. Airports are still closed.

[guillaumeb]

44. They would need a system whereby literally every building could be checked

and the inhabitants made aware of the evacuation.

[Not Ruth]

39. You have a prioritized list and do it in order

[oneshooter]

54. I believe that both Addicks and Barker dams are federal. n/t

[guillaumeb]

56. Whixh does not lessen the need to keep infrastructure in good repair. eom

[oneshooter]

76. But it is FEDERAL LAND. The state can do nothing without their permission. n/t

[Sunlei]

9. The public schools were first emergency shelters. I could see the flashing police lights at a school

a block away at 3am last Sunday morning, while I was outside. Many public schools were open and ready to accept people & pets.

[Nevernose]

75. Nothing could have stopped it

But wetlands, swamps, bayous, marshes... Those things are invaluable in flood and storm mitigation. A healthy wetland ecosystem is arguably better flood control than most of those earthen dams.

Texas also has, probably, the most lax environmental laws of any state. Combine that with the rapid overbuilding, the view by many that swamps are useless at best and a nuisance at worst, the zoning based on developer's needs and not safety.

I'm not necessarily agreeing with you: when a storm like that comes along, you might as well be listening to "Ozymandius" on audiobook while you run like hell, because there's no decision that a human being could make that's going to stop the rain. I just ask that you keep an open mind and read up a little on the subject of wetlands and storm/flood mitigation.

[Sunlei]

4. Name any usa city that can take 50 inches of rain in a week.

[guillaumeb]

7. The fourth largest city, with no zoning regulations.

Filling in wetlands. Old dams in need of repair.

[Sunlei]

11. Houston has local zoning, its very hard to find places with unincorporated homes in the houston area

[guillaumeb]

20. See post #10

[Sunlei]

23. so what, the Republicans fuck up and politicize everything to their advantage. They build mansions

HIGH and dry.

[guillaumeb]

26. Unregulated capitalism in action.

And a big part of the problem.

[Sunlei]

30. yup. shuting down twitter and facebook is the answer.

[Igel]

41. So the storm's politicized.

What isn't, these days? It was already politicized before Trump did so. It was politicized before Harvey became a category 1 storm.

There are regulations in Texas on building. New construction has to incorporate drainage, water retention, and be elevated above a certain flood elevattion. That's not retroactive. When they went from fuses to circuit breakers in (D) Maryland, they didn't require every homeowner to retrofit. When California put in new earthquake regs, retrofitting wasn't required for every house and building. It's not a (D) or (R) thing, that; it's a practical thing. (But if you buy a house in certain parts of Houston, you *will* raise it to the right level. It's made some people who owned houses really upset, because that additional amount is the amount their houses lost value by.)

That handles one of the issues. But it doesn't handle it by means of zoning. Some things zoning accomplishes in some places, Texas does in other ways. Some things zoning does in other places Texas ignores. (That's true for lots of things. A friend from NJ moved to Oregon and was stunned to find that there was such an absence of firearm regulations and rules. Nobody would think of Oregon, even in the '80s and '90s, as a place with no regulations and rules.)

But the real point--Warpy's dead on with this--is that you don't have zoning regulations for 40" of rain in a couple of days. This wasn't a 500-year flood. It's more extreme than that. The dams only ever had release of water once before, and that was recently; they only overtopped once, yesterday, and that was with water release for the previous day or two. The houses in the adjacent neighborhoods were considered way outside of floodplains but flooded because of exceptional circumstances. Areas outside of 500-year floodplains flooded. Word is the meteorologists when they ran their predictions and got 40-50" for the storm double checked their numbers because they were so outrageous.

Now, as for filling in wetlands, that seems confusing in this context so I had to do some additional scrambling.

For most of the country when you say "wetlands" you mean places that are wet. Marshes, swamps, that sort of thing. Or wet a significant portion of the year. They change the meaning here without telling you they're changing the meaning; that's *always* a bad thing. They're not stupid--they know what most people think the word means, they know their usage is different, and they let the confusion happen because it suits them for whatever reason--maybe it's too hard to explain, maybe they want the misunderstanding, maybe something else. But floodplains that may not be different from non-floodplains for a year or two in the absence of a flood are "wetlands." The area that I've seen covered with water twice in 6 years as I drive to work is a "wetland". Prairie and scrubland that may not have standing water on them except for for a few hours a couple of times a year and only after a very large storm are "wetlands." My house was apparently built on wetlands but, you know, that wetland was covered with normal grass and had a lot of mice in it and scrub oak with lots of lizards because it was pretty much dry. We're 27 feet above the bayous flood stage and at the top of the watershed. It's "wetland" because it's flat and didn't drain real quickly. They really mean "areas that soak up water." And when you build on them, there's no filling in. Just "loss." They destroyed "wetland" here by digging a retention basin that holds water most of the year--you look on the "wetland loss" map usually used and there's the little red spot for the non-wetland retention pond that replaced the pretty-much-always-dry wetland. Even local reporters screw this up fairly regularly because the wetlands they learn about in college aren't the wetlands that are destroyed in Texas, even if they are often inhabited by loons.

They can describe it better, and the Harris County Flood Control guy that was frequently on air did so succinctly: We built on land that used to soak up water so more flows into the bayous. But, he needed to continue, in this case it made a truly horrible situation only slightly worse.

Texas regulates the usual kind of wetland pretty much in the usual ways. It's a federal thing.

[zipplewrath]

55. Oh, probably several

When you say "take", I mean that there would be vastly less flooding. Much of Florida probably would "survive" much better, albeit not flood free. Not, mind you, because of alot of effort on the part of government. It's more of the reality of the nature of the place. But none the less there has been a tremendous amount of work done in the state to "protect" wetlands and to ensure that water flow can be handled. Way less than perfect but probably better than Houston. Unfortunately, right now, we have Rick Scott who is undermining decades of work.

[WinkyDink]

63. Denver?

[L. Coyote]

10. Trump team politicizes superstorm Harvey by attacking scientists for doing their job

Link to tweet

[Sunlei]

14. what will be really bad is a hurricane with storm surge. The entire of Florida will wash out to sea.

[guillaumeb]

16. A nice map.

And if unregulated, for-profit developers are allowed to do as they wish, this type of disaster will occur even more often.

[FSogol]

12. Translation: Crap source plays armchair quarterback.

[guillaumeb]

17. See post #10, and label that as a "crap source" also if you wish.

what are your qualifications for dismissing the source as a crap source? Do you have personal or professional knowledge to bring to this discussion?

[Sunlei]

28. everything drains to the gulf in houston.

[guillaumeb]

32. Not what I asked, and your original claim was about qualifications.

So...................

[Sunlei]

38. why are you arguing? I'm in SSW Houston & have met with at least 100 people in past 5 days.

even today the two dams are controlled releasing water and flooding out homes built in the flood bowl. Those people knew there would be a chance of flood out in worse case. Most have lived there for 30 years and never flooded. They'll never rebuild.

[Shrike47]

13. Although it would be hard, if not impossible, to plan for 50 inches of rain, building where the

water has always gone just about guarantees flooding. I also wonder about people who build on cliffs over the ocean and then find out about erosion, or people who build on sand spits. In the Southwest, people build in washes. They're called washed for a reason. Anyway, I feel city planning and zoning help, even if imperfect.

[guillaumeb]

19. Judging by a number of responses so far,

we are in a minority at present.

[meadowlander]

34. Any city can plan for 50 inches of rain,

the problem is that most communities don't want to pay the costs that that would entail in terms of land reserved for stormwater detention and physical engineering works and permanent "no-build" areas.

Every community tries to strike a balance between acceptable levels of risk and the levels of protection they can afford and are willing to spend on.

The problem in Houston is that they didn't want to spend the money on stormwater infrastructure, caved to developers looking to make a quick buck and were willing to transfer the risk to predominantly poor and minority communities.

[malaise]

50. K & R

On the other hand way too many professionals of all races are so dying to get their big house and backyard pool that they don't examine the history of where they are buying property.

[guillaumeb]

51. Very true. And thank you.

Developers are also to blame for paving over everything that is flat and building on it.

[HAB911]

53. +++++++++++

[underpants]

52. K&R

I want to read this discussion later

[kerry-is-my-prez]

57. Florida fixed our problems when we took the recommendations of James Watts during Clinton's

presidency. It used to be a shit-show here until then. We have regs and zoning laws up the wazoo.

[guillaumeb]

58. But the GOP promotes the wide open business climate of Texas as a model.

And GOP voters ignore the severe consequences of such a wide open model.