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[smjjames]

You're starting to see the panic kicking in. Texas state police tweeted:

If you see boats or trucks getting residents out near you, GET ON. They may not be able to get back.

But at the same time, rescue boats from the Cajun Navy (a volunteer force of private boat owners in the Gulf region) have been reporting that they've had to pull back from some areas because people are charging the boats, whether there's room or not, and in some cases, shooting at them if they didn't stop. 

In another case cited, a boat broke down, the crew took shelter in a nearby area, and a group of residents tried to steal their boat.

I'm sure this is just my high desert naivete, but shouldn't they have started evacuating people before it became an issue? And/or had a more formal response than "if you own a boat, grab people while you can?"

Evacuating 2 million people in the space of the, what, 4 days? they had after realizing Harvey was going to YOLO straight at them rather than get caught on the Yucatan is a little hard.

Not to mention that Texas highways are a bit notorious for having really high traffic. Since they wouldn't want a repeat of what happened after Rita with the motorists being stranded on the road, it becomes a question of which one would be worse.

edit: ninja'd somewhat.

[Frumple]

And in other news, one of the mentioned but so far mostly quiet problems involved in this area flooding looks to be rearing its head. The area's heavy on refining and production, oil and chemical. So far it's not been causing major problems I've noticed, but, well. Longer this goes on the more likely it becomes.

[smjjames]

Yeah, the problems will be revealed further as the damage assessment goes on and the floodwaters recede. For example, the refinery complex in Baytown took some damage. The emissions that came from the emergency shutdown of the refineries could be an issue.

Is why I said it might not be first by thursday, heh.

... or not heh, because seriously, they're already kinda' fucked. They're not expecting addicks to peak until the 31st; i.e. even with controlled release and the overflow happening now, they look to be expecting it to get higher. Have had at least one bridge collapse, over greens bayou. Levee breach, more possibly/probably coming. Houston area's already taken the first place spot on most rain in the continental US, got three inches to go to beat out that hawaii record. Think it's contending or took fastest, too.

Also looks like the first first responder type's kicked it. Cop got trapped in their cruiser.

Harvey says "No problem for me!". Might even break by the end of the day.

[Frumple]

Oh, yeah. It's already broke the continental. Last reading I heard was 51.88 at its highest, so it's literally less than an inch from matching the worst our entire country has seen since records were being kept.

[redwallzyl]

Heard on the radio a hour ago that a couple dams are filling up so fast that they cant let water out fast enough to avoid it flooding out the spillways which it has never done before for those dams. they also happen to be some of the lowest rated dams in the country. that's not good.

[Frumple]

Eeyup. Radio's a little late, though. Addicks has already started overflowing, though at its lowest level. Predicted not to peak until thursday. Mentioned a bit more details upthread somewhere or another. At this point I think folks are mostly hoping overflow is all that happens, and it doesn't experience compromising rapid erosion or the earthworks breaching for some reason or another.

[Paxiecrunchle]

I've heard that the Mexican government and the Episcopalian church amongst others are offering side money, I hope it's enough to keep the fatalities below 100 people.

[Max™]

Olsteen isn't Episcopalian is he?

https://imgur.com/t/hurricane_harvey/6EQEl

https://twitter.com/woahlilli/status/902367133102989313

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Olsteen is whatever you pay him to be, baby.

[smjjames]

I've heard that the Mexican government and the Episcopalian church amongst others are offering side money, I hope it's enough to keep the fatalities below 100 people.

Most of the fatalities have already occurred, they just haven't been discovered yet. And Trump hasn't responded to the Mexican governments offer to assist, if he doesn't OK it, they can't do anything.

[misko27]

Casualties are now at 30. It's probably still too early to think in terms of that though: Harvey is going to make a second landfall around the Texas/Louisiana border, and after all the rain hasn't stopped.

[Frumple]

Uh. Most of the fatalities have hopefully already occurred, as horrible as that sounds. If they haven't something is going to go tits up with enough fervor to flip an elephant. Unfortunately, that's still pretty damn possible.

Not entirely sure the fatalities will even be the worst of it, though, especially if they're not particularly egregious as historic floods go. The houston area has a GDP of around 400 billion. Economy the size of, say, norway, is likely in the process of getting largely paralyzed for weeks to months (to years if shit turns out to have gone bad enough).

Add that on top of a possibly overdue recession waiting to happen and however much damage is going to be tallied in the end (roll the bones, folks, let's see if we hit 13 digits), well. Extra fuckage for houston and company, with spare fuckage left over for the rest of the sodding world.

Kinda' just hit me this whole thing is real damn likely to be a trigger for that, honestly. Bloody hell.

[smjjames]

Our economy will definetly take a hit, but I'm pretty sure the economy is resilient enough to not take a massive dive over this.

Regarding those two dams, things are looking better than officials had initially feared, but they're not out of the danger zone yet.

[alway]

https://twitter.com/zoeschlanger/status/902644752893583360
So uh, that thread seems kinda bad.
tldr: houston is full of chemistry due to being near all the oil extraction; chemistry can do Fun things

[martinuzz]

I hope the Houston area does not have nuclear plants that can suffer the same backup generator failure as those chem plants.