Based on the number of people affected, amount of water involved, and other factors, meteorologists have warned, there may be no parallel available to any other rainstorm in U.S. history as Mashable’s Andrew Freeman reports Tropical Storm Harvey has dropped more than 11 trillion gallons of water on Texas, triggering catastrophic, unprecedented flooding in the Houston area.
The rains have broken all-time records, exceeding the rainfall totals seen during Tropical Storm Allison in 2001… and it could be about to get a lot worse as forecasters are expecting the storm to turn back and drench what is left of Houston once again midweek.
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According to Ryan Maue, a meteorologist at WeatherBell, a private forecasting firm, there is still up to 16 trillion gallons more rain likely to fall in the state, based on forecasts from the National Weather Service (NWS).
The Weather Service office in Houston reported just over 2 feet of rain in 24 hours between 7 a.m. Saturday and 7 a.m. Sunday morning, causing August to become the wettest month on record there. Forecast totals call for isolated rainfall amounts of up to 50 inches before Harvey finally releases its grip on the Lone Star state late this week. If this comes to fruition, it would be the greatest rainfall totals from a tropical storm or hurricane in U.S. history.
Maue estimates that a total of around 25 trillion gallons may be the final statewide rainfall total for Harvey, which is such a unique storm due to its slow-moving nature that the NWS has nearly run out of superlatives describing it.
Drone video shows the massive extent of the flooding…
Damage from Hurricane Harvey is expected to total tens of billions of dollars, with current estimates range from $20 billion to $40 billion, but an unusually large share of victims lacking adequate protection – only one in six have insurance.
Still a named storm over 48 hours after landfall, Harvey is the longest a Texas landfalling hurricane has remained a named storm after landfall since Fern in 1971, according to Colorado State University tropical scientist Dr. Phil Klotzbach.
#Harvey a named storm 42 hours after TX landfall – the longest a TX landfalling hurricane has remained a NS after landfall since Fern (1971) pic.twitter.com/pdbOoFFGq5
— Philip Klotzbach (@philklotzbach) August 27, 2017
Due to its wide geographic scope across America’s 4th-largest city, the ensuing flood disaster may rank as one of the most, if not the most, expensive natural disaster in U.S. history.
According to a tweet the NWS sent,
“this event is unprecedented & all impacts are unknown & beyond anything experienced.”
With more rain to come, and rivers still rising to expected record-shattering crests early this week, the disaster continues to unfold.
Here’s what to expect…(via Weather.com)
A tropical cyclone’s rainfall potential is a function of its forward speed, not its intensity. Therefore, several more days of torrential rain are expected in many of the already flood-ravaged areas.
- Upper Texas coast into southwest Louisiana: an additional 15 to 25 inches, bringing isolated storm totals up to 50 inches over the upper Texas coast, including the Houston/Galveston metro areas
- Farther south into the middle Texas coast, west toward the Texas Hill Country and east across south-central Louisiana: storm totals of 5 to 15 inches
The National Weather Service is forecasting major river flooding in roughly three-dozen locations in southeast Texas.
And worst of all, weather experts are forecasting a second landfall…
New ECMWF shows #Harvey moving back over the Gulf on Mon, restrengthening, then making a 2nd landfall near #Houston on Wed. Unthinkable. pic.twitter.com/gabP36Rto1
— Ben Noll (@BenNollWeather) August 27, 2017
Judging by the following drone footage, it’s hard to imagine how this could get worse…
The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Brock Long, predicted that the aftermath of the storm would require FEMA’s involvement for years. “This disaster’s going to be a landmark event,” Long said.
All the rebuilding will be good for the economy, yes?
Maybe all the liberals in Houston will go to Los Angeles now that they have lost their creature comforts.
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.
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 travelled 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 prepositioning 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.)
HZK is alive and well !!!!!!!!!!!
YEAH!!!!!!!!!
HI TO YOU AND HUBBY!!!!
Your comments here have been missed. But, I understand … I think.
May you live long and prosper.
Herr Stuchenmeister
Houston must be drowning in illegal immigrants. What happens when they surface, by the thousands, for support?
one of the posts i saw today had a blurb about the large % of uninsured-i wonder why that is–
My wife and I had to drive through Houston once on the way to Arizona. If it hadn’t been for GPS, we’d still be driving around looking for a way out. I hope they recover and improve their road system.
This was a no-brainer….I have no idea why people didn’t leave the city when things were still dry. Houston Floods, it floods if someone spills a cup of water. It flooded earlier this year from just a little bit more than normal rain…..There are 12-15 (I can’t remember which) foot high water markers On The Freeway! It was a poorly designed city, then when the urban sprawl started (I want to say about 10 years ago, but I’m not 100% sure) developers started building in areas that were only occupied by the poor and into bayou areas, why? because it was cheap – they built out in areas that were known to flood. The city never put major flood control rivers (like in LA) once the city started growing, now it’s too late to ever start.
I’m on the coast directly south of Houston, we’ve seen maybe a total of 6 inches so far (it’s raining today, so obviously we will see more) We’ve been super lucky.
I was in Galveston on Wednesday, I stopped into a super market to get something, and thought, “as long as I’m here I’ll get some water” the aisle was cleaned out. I came home and immediately bought 3 cases of water, and started stocking up on food that I would need to last me at least 2 weeks (when combined with the food I already had at home (canned food, freeze-dried)) even if the power went out (no raw meat.) I also bought 45 pounds of ice -25 in my little freezer and 20 in my cooler on my deck, filled with about a 2 cases of great beer, there is no way this will last me 2 weeks, but if I drown going to get more beer, at least I will have died doing what I love. – It was still a CAT 1 Wednesday.
Thursday, I went and had my oil changed, I called my boss and told him that I took some P.T.O. Time to do it, and he started laughing. I told him, “it needed to be done (it did) and just in case I need to evacuate I don’t want any trouble because of engine oil” he thought it was funny. When he called me this morning to tell me that the office will be closed, maybe until Friday he wasn’t laughing. It was Still a CAT 1 Thursday.
Friday I did a bit more shopping, I forgot to get fruit, luckily most people were worried about getting shitty white bread and charcoal. I even went and got a new video game (if you’re laughing that I still play video games you know nothing of the modern interactive story telling) in case my internet went out (it did Friday Night but obviously it’s back now.) I pulled out all of my gun-stuff and took pictures of it (in case I didn’t have time to evacuate it all) and got it ready to move should I need to evacuate. Friday, I also did something that I’ve never done, I pulled out my Blackwater shotgun, loaded it and placed it near my bed along with my Glock (32 round mag) and my .45 auto. I have my Glock within 3 feet of me at all times now because you just never know when things get this way. It was a CAT 4 Friday.
The moral of this story? I’VE GOT 8 DAYS OFF WITH PLENTY OF BEER AND A NEW VIDEO GAME!!!!! I said AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!!!!!
Heep your head above water, HZK.
At a time like this it’s a shame to have to worry about politics but the Dems and the press will go on the atack as soon as they believe that it’s feasible so Trump needs to anticipate it.
Trump should go down there every week to 10 days and he ought to appoint Pence or Don Jr,or even better,Kushner to stay on sight and oversee the recovery.
There is rumored to be a group called #harveylootcrew on Twitter, posting pictures of stuff they are looting from “white crackers” on Twitter, but I haven’t been able to pull it up, so it may have been shut down, or just BS.
If anyone can get to #harveylootcrew on Twitter, please contact Law Enforcement in Texas, or the Governor…
________________________________________
Harvey loot crew is apt to be gator bait… just an observation from east Texas.
“What would Henry Bowman do?”