The Houston Flood and Politics

[Cheerful Charlie]

The flooding in Houston cause by Harvey is massive and isn't over yet. Harvey is still here and it is still raining, and rain will continue for days on end. Release of water from several dams near Houston will add to the chaos over the next week.

In the end, there will be a massive cleanup effort to come. And now the small government tea party politics will collide with reality. The GOP is in control and can be expected to screw things up royally. Ted Cruz is an example of the worst possible person in the wort possible place at the worst possible time, as a politician.

This will have a great impact on unfinished budget politics to come in the next few weeks.

If you think politics with Trump and the GOP are a hell circus now, just wait a few weeks as this all begins to be a big political circus played out on a grand scale.

Watch in amazement as this begins to unfold and the idiocy begins in earnest. How Trump handles all of this is unknown, but it probably won't be with brilliance and success.

 

[Elixir]

The flooding in Houston cause by Harvey is massive and isn't over yet. Harvey is still here and it is still raining, and rain will continue for days on end. Release of water from several dams near Houston will add to the chaos over the next week.

In the end, there will be a massive cleanup effort to come. And now the small government tea party politics will collide with reality. The GOP is in control and can be expected to screw things up royally. Ted Cruz is an example of the worst possible person in the wort possible place at the worst possible time, as a politician.

This will have a great impact on unfinished budget politics to come in the next few weeks.

If you think politics wit Trump and the GOP are a hell circus now, just wait a few weeks as this all begins to be a big political circus played out on a grand scale.

Watch in amazement as this begins to unfold and the idiocy begins in earnest. How Trump handles all of this is unknown, but it probably won't be with brilliance and success.

Hope you're okay CC. Gonna get worse before it gets better there.
Good time to reflect on Trump's decision to roll back Obama's intended regulations to protect coastal infrastructure from flooding, eh?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I am OK now, as our neighborhood is high and dry. The problems to come will be water and sewer problems. It tends to cause our water systems to become contaminated and not safe to drink. Lots of people homeless with flooded houses and automobiles that no longer operate having been underwater. No open grocery stores, no way for many to get to them. All of this on a massive scale almost unheard of in the US. Lots of damaged roads and bridges. Our local fast food restaurants are out of action, you can't even make do with a burger. Of course, there will turn out to be almost no planning for such an event, federal, state or local.

 

[dismal]

Yeah, a bit government city like Detroit or Chicago would handle 3 feet of rain better.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Things could get worse very quickly. Houston has to large dams meant to hold back major flooding in such situations. Both are known to have engineering problems. As of now, these dams are having their flood gates opened and a lot of nearby homes, built in former rice fields will get flooded.

And there is no guarantee these damns won't at some point, collapse.

http://www.houstonpress.com/news/if-the-addicks-and-barker-dams-fail-6594886

The worst may possibly be yet to come.

 

[Arctish]

The flooding in Houston cause by Harvey is massive and isn't over yet. Harvey is still here and it is still raining, and rain will continue for days on end. Release of water from several dams near Houston will add to the chaos over the next week.

In the end, there will be a massive cleanup effort to come. And now the small government tea party politics will collide with reality. The GOP is in control and can be expected to screw things up royally. Ted Cruz is an example of the worst possible person in the wort possible place at the worst possible time, as a politician.

This will have a great impact on unfinished budget politics to come in the next few weeks.

If you think politics with Trump and the GOP are a hell circus now, just wait a few weeks as this all begins to be a big political circus played out on a grand scale.

Watch in amazement as this begins to unfold and the idiocy begins in earnest. How Trump handles all of this is unknown, but it probably won't be with brilliance and success.

You're right about Trump. Now is the time for him to back away from that stupid promise to build a giant wall along the border and get Mexico to pay for it. All he has to say is that the needs of American businesses and households recovering from Hurricane Harvey outweigh the need for a speedy construction of the border wall, and he can drop the whole thing with no real repercussions.

Not that I think he'll drop it. It's become a vanity project. He'll drive the country into bankruptcy rather than admit we can't afford it.

And Cruz? Ye gods, if he sticks with the Tea Party platform you Houstonians are in for a long, hard slog back to anything resembling your pre-Harvey prosperity.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Post Harvey Texas will be a real boon to construction companies. And for car sales. It is not going to be a happy time for insurance companies. And our GOP state run government is going to be put to the test also.

 

[skepticalbip]

I predict that Houston will bounce back much, much faster than New Orleans did after Katrina. Texans are a special independent breed.

 

[TV and credit cards]

The once mighty fail-safes, two of Harris County's 22 watersheds, were originally able to protect Houston from a 1,000-year flood.

However,

However. Always a however. I wonder to what extent folks building and buying in the immediate flood zone are explained the dangers of staking their claim and raising a family in such an area.
Meanwhile, keep on pavin' Houston. There's money to be made. I house hunted in north Houston as far up as the Woodlands in '05. Prices were dirt cheap per square foot. The area could handle some building restrictions that increase home valuations.

 

[SimpleDon]

I don't expect any discussions about privatizing FEMA and the federal flood insurance program and balancing the budget, as was the case from Ted Cruz and Mike Pence after Hurricane Sandy. It could even reduce climate change denial for a week or so.

 

[SimpleDon]

The once mighty fail-safes, two of Harris County's 22 watersheds, were originally able to protect Houston from a 1,000-year flood.

However,

However. Always a however. I wonder to what extent folks building and buying in the immediate flood zone are explained the dangers of staking their claim and raising a family in such an area.
Meanwhile, keep on pavin' Houston. There's money to be made. I house hunted in north Houston as far up as the Woodlands in '05. Prices were dirt cheap per square foot. The area could handle some building restrictions that increase home valuations.

Houston was historically proud of the lack of zoning restrictions and the lack of urban planning. A libertarian paradise.

I also am an opponent of restrictive zoning to raise home valuations. The increase in home valuations is an increase in the cost of housing. Couple that with stagnate wages and you end up with an increase in the second most destabilizing factor in the economy, a dramatic increase in private debt. The most destabilizing factor in the economy is financial speculation, of course.

I was living in Texas City on Galveston Bay in 1961 when the last category 4 hurricane hit Texas, Hurricane Carla. We had three feet of water (and sewage) in our house for three days. It took us six months to recover and we were left with ten thousand dollars of SBA loans to pay off when ten thousand dollars a year was a nearly unheard of annual salary for the middle class. I acquired a phobia that is with me still, the fear of living in a house in an area prone to flooding.

 

[dismal]

So, assuming this storm bringing 3 or 4 feet of rain is Houston government's fault, I need a quick check:

Is it the current mayor (Black Male Democrat) or his predecessor (Gay Female Democrat) that bear the responsibility for not preparing for a storm the likes of which has never been seen? There was a White Male Republican mayor, so it seems tempting to blame him but he left office in 1982.

It seem like we better get the identity politics decided right up front. While the flood waters are still rising.

 

[southernhybrid]

Don't worry about hypocrite Ted Cruz. He is going to vote to help Houston. He's still lying about the bill he voted against to help New Jersey deal with Sandy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/08/29/ted-cruzs-claim-that-two-thirds-of-the-hurricane-sandy-bill-had-nothing-to-do-with-sandy/?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_fact-check-cruz-325am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

Hypocrisy watch! Now that Houston and much of southeastern Texas is swamped by Hurricane Harvey, critics (including Northeastern lawmakers) have complained that Texas senators and members of Congress are seeking emergency federal aid but refused to back relief for the victims of Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

The defense, as shown in the quote above by Cruz, is that the Sandy legislation was a bad bill, filled with pork-barrel projects. A similar defense is indicated by a spokesman for Cruz’s colleague, Sen. John Cornyn (R) — that he did vote for Sandy aid, just not the bad bill that was signed into law.

The article continues to explain that only 2% if the bill that Cruz voted against was for problems not directly related to Sandy. And of course, the Congress critters in the northeast are not as hateful so they will help Texans by approving a bill to help people deal with this catastrophe.

This is a devastating flood and it's doubtful that the damage could have been prevented regardless of who is or was in power. People don't usually have the forethought or drive to create the type of things that might have helped prevent such massive flooding. I wonder if receiving federal aide will change any minds in regard to the need for large federal programs that help American citizens in the worst of times. Cruz and Cornyn should be ashamed, but they are so self righteous, that I doubt they can even admit to themselves that they were wrong when they voted against the bill to help bail out people in the northeast after Hurricane Sandy.

I just heard that a major damn has begun to overflow! What a mess! There's going to be a lot of heartache and suffering before this is over.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

There's a saying amongst tree-huggers like myself, "We all live downstream." Ain't it the truth.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

However. Always a however. I wonder to what extent folks building and buying in the immediate flood zone are explained the dangers of staking their claim and raising a family in such an area.
Meanwhile, keep on pavin' Houston. There's money to be made. I house hunted in north Houston as far up as the Woodlands in '05. Prices were dirt cheap per square foot. The area could handle some building restrictions that increase home valuations.

Houston was historically proud of the lack of zoning restrictions and the lack of urban planning. A libertarian paradise.

I also am an opponent of restrictive zoning to raise home valuations. The increase in home valuations is an increase in the cost of housing. Couple that with stagnate wages and you end up with an increase in the second most destabilizing factor in the economy, a dramatic increase in private debt. The most destabilizing factor in the economy is financial speculation, of course.

I was living in Texas City on Galveston Bay in 1961 when the last category 4 hurricane hit Texas, Hurricane Carla. We had three feet of water (and sewage) in our house for three days. It took us six months to recover and we were left with ten thousand dollars of SBA loans to pay off when ten thousand dollars a year was a nearly unheard of annual salary for the middle class. I acquired a phobia that is with me still, the fear of living in a house in an area prone to flooding.

I'm with you. I don't think I could rebuild again and again and live with the uncertainty of when the next time will come. It must be like people who have been through tornadoes when they hear the wind getting up.

 

[Elixir]

I predict that Houston will bounce back much, much faster than New Orleans did after Katrina. Texans are a special independent breed.

Yeah, they're better represented in congress than the victims of Superstorm Sandy were. I admit to a bit of schadenfreude, watching TX representatives squirm about their votes against heling out after Sandy, and their demands that any reparations paid to the Sandy victims be counter-balanced by equal budget cuts. Too bad about that wall though - looks like a government shutdown to force us to pay for it is out of the question for the moment.

Trump should go one of the refugee centers and hold a rally... "What a crowd! Can you believe this crowd?"

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So, assuming this storm bringing 3 or 4 feet of rain is Houston government's fault, I need a quick check:

Is it the current mayor (Black Male Democrat) or his predecessor (Gay Female Democrat) that bear the responsibility for not preparing for a storm the likes of which has never been seen? There was a White Male Republican mayor, so it seems tempting to blame him but he left office in 1982.

It seem like we better get the identity politics decided right up front. While the flood waters are still rising.

The threat was obvious:

https://www.propublica.org/article/hell-and-high-water-text

 

[funinspace]

I predict that Houston will bounce back much, much faster than New Orleans did after Katrina. Texans are a special independent breed.

Yeah, they're better represented in congress than the victims of Superstorm Sandy were. I admit to a bit of schadenfreude, watching TX representatives squirm about their votes against heling out after Sandy, and their demands that any reparations paid to the Sandy victims be counter-balanced by equal budget cuts. Too bad about that wall though - looks like a government shutdown to force us to pay for it is out of the question for the moment.

Trump should go one of the refugee centers and hold a rally... "What a crowd! Can you believe this crowd?"

Damn close, other than it was at Corpus Christi and not a shelter...
http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/2017/08/trump_in_texas_what_a_crowd_wh.html

President Donald Trump, addressing a crowd of people who had gathered outside a firehouse where he met with local officials in Corpus Christi, Texas, remarked on the size of the crowd as if he were at a rally.
<snip>
Looking over the gathering, he remarked: "What a crowd, what a turnout,"

 

[skepticalbip]

I predict that Houston will bounce back much, much faster than New Orleans did after Katrina. Texans are a special independent breed.

Yeah, they're better represented in congress than the victims of Superstorm Sandy were. I admit to a bit of schadenfreude, watching TX representatives squirm about their votes against heling out after Sandy, and their demands that any reparations paid to the Sandy victims be counter-balanced by equal budget cuts. Too bad about that wall though - looks like a government shutdown to force us to pay for it is out of the question for the moment.

Trump should go one of the refugee centers and hold a rally... "What a crowd! Can you believe this crowd?"

It isn't about government aid that I think Houston will bounce back. It is the fact that the average Texan tends to be more self sufficient so begins "taking care of business" without waiting for or depending on government. A good example is already evident - there were swarms of Texans (not associated with government) who, for days, used their personal boats to rescue others who were trapped... they didn't wait for FEMA rescuers to take care of the problems.

 

[LordKiran]

Yeah, they're better represented in congress than the victims of Superstorm Sandy were. I admit to a bit of schadenfreude, watching TX representatives squirm about their votes against heling out after Sandy, and their demands that any reparations paid to the Sandy victims be counter-balanced by equal budget cuts. Too bad about that wall though - looks like a government shutdown to force us to pay for it is out of the question for the moment.

Trump should go one of the refugee centers and hold a rally... "What a crowd! Can you believe this crowd?"

It isn't about government aid that I think Houston will bounce back. It is the fact that the average Texan tends to be more self sufficient so begins "taking care of business" without waiting for or depending on government. A good example is already evident - there were swarms of Texans (not associated with government) who, for days, used their personal boats to rescue others who were trapped... they didn't wait for FEMA rescuers to take care of the problems.

And people weren't doing that after Katrina?