HOPE@ZERO KELVIN REPORTING FROM HOUSTON

Guest Post by Hope@Zero Kelvin

It is even worse than this article suggests. We are scheduled to get more rain and the big reservoirs have to start releasing water before they break (!!!). Livingston and Conroe dams are due to start releasing water as well. This will make the flooding even worse. We are watching the worst weather event to hit a major American city since Galveston got wiped off the map last century. Fortunately, the loss of life will be minimal (I think) but the property damage is going to be greater than Katrina. The impact on the gas/oil industry is yet to be determined.

All our major highways are either underwater or their access roads are. Our two airports, Bush and Hobby, have suspended operations until Wed. Fortunately, most places have power. The Houston metroplex is about 1/2 through this disaster.

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The hospitals are mostly open but are running on skeleton crews, some have had to evacuate their critical patients. All elective procedures have been cancelled. Our clinics are all closed today and likely into the week as well.

What has been incredible has been the response of the regular citizens in helping out each other. A call went out for anybody with a shallow bottom boat to start helping out and they had so many responses by Sunday night, they actually had to ask helpers to go home!! Our crazy coon-ass neighbors in Lousiana brought their “Cajun Navy” and they rescued a lot of people. We have had a handful of looting but this has been dealt with in the usual definitive Texan manner, ahem. You are not seeing the widespread social breakdown we saw in Katrina, but again, we are only 1/2 through this.

The mayor, Sylvester Turner, a Dem, is getting flack for not evacuating the city, but this is unfair. Houston proper is 3 million people, the metroplex is 6 million. There is simply NO WAY to get these people out in the time frame of 48-72 hours. If you have ever traveled in Houston in rush hour on a dry day, you would get this. A general evac order would have put millions of people on the roads, which are now under water. He started calling for people to prepare on Tuesday and shelter in place. While people are going to be wet and uncomfortable for a few days, they will not be dead. Keeping the roads open will facilitate getting first responders where needed.

Our state and local officials have been amazing as well. They have been pre-positioning assets all week like food, ice, trucks, water. Trump has also mobilized a lot of federal assets as well. Will start to see these things in place in the next few days. There is the inevitable finger pointing and partisan sniping, sigh, but these people need to STFU, roll up their sleeves and help out, IMHO.

I guess the take aways are:

1) Disaster preparation is 100% LOCAL LOCAL LOCAL. It starts with a person assessing their situation – will I flood? If so, where will I go? If I stay, do I have enough food, clean water, etc???

2) Make sure you know your neighbors. It has been the response of the local people that has made the greatest positive impact. You might notice there has been absolutely no racial crap during this emergency, which is typical of great race relations here.

3) Big cities are baaad places to be in a disaster situation. The size and complexity of a big city mitigates the authorities being effective to help people UNLESS the local people are helping out.

4) Social media has been key in getting resources to people. Twitter, facebook, etc, has been more helpful than the usual emergency channels in directing rescue efforts. Who woulda thunk it?

As long as the power holds, I think we will be okay. Please pray for us! There are going to be thousands of people that have lost everything. Donations to samaritanspurse.org the Red Cross, etc, would be great.

(My family & I are fine, we live way north of Houston and are soggy but not flooded. Thank God. Going out to check on my neighbors now that the creek across my driveway has gone down.)