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[Frumple]

For what it's worth, it wasn't exactly out of line with your "average" (to the extent that even exists) cat 3 or 4 hurricane landfall. Things are a bit more personal nowadays thanks to the 'net and better/ubiquitous recording hard/software, but... well, there's a reason local gov't admin that haven't lost their goddamn mind give (mandatory) evac orders for stuff in line to get hit with those things.

You can survive being on ground zero of these things in the same way you can survive going surfing at the same time, but as a rule even lower category storms will do damage, with cat 3 and 4 getting into the "tear shit up"/"delete towns" band of things. Anything above those are "cross fingers and pray there's a countryside left the next day", heh.

... though the actually scary shit is slated to happen in the next few days if things don't take some hella' fortuitous turns. Parts of tex are likely to historical/effectively biblical level flooding between now and wednesday/thursday-ish.

E: Though for extra bonus points, it's pretty non-zero that harvey backs back off shore in the next few days for a bit before coming back to land, i.e. if shit goes real bad it may intensify back up to a cat 3+ and take another swing.

[sluissa]

For what it's worth, it wasn't exactly out of line with your "average" (to the extent that even exists) cat 3 or 4 hurricane landfall. Things are a bit more personal nowadays thanks to the 'net and better/ubiquitous recording hard/software, but... well, there's a reason local gov't admin that haven't lost their goddamn mind give (mandatory) evac orders for stuff in line to get hit with those things.

You can survive being on ground zero of these things in the same way you can survive going surfing at the same time, but as a rule even lower category storms will do damage, with cat 3 and 4 getting into the "tear shit up"/"delete towns" band of things. Anything above those are "cross fingers and pray there's a countryside left the next day", heh.

... though the actually scary shit is slated to happen in the next few days if things don't take some hella' fortuitous turns. Parts of tex are likely to historical/effectively biblical level flooding between now and wednesday/thursday-ish.

E: Though for extra bonus points, it's pretty non-zero that harvey backs back off shore in the next few days for a bit before coming back to land, i.e. if shit goes real bad it may intensify back up to a cat 3+ and take another swing.

I think one of the dangers is people may have gotten complacent. It's been 10 years since the last major landfall in that area. Plenty of time for new construction to happen that's built only minimally to code and not at all prepared for a cat 3 or above. Time for new people to enter the area with no experience of these storms. Time for people to forget how long it takes to evac a populated area and how fast the local supplies of food, water, and building materials will dwindle. Time for trees to grow uncontrolled and threaten a nearby house. Time for a properly maintained storm water drainage system to slowly silt up and clog with debris and while maybe able to handle the occasional downpour, unprepared for anything of this magnitude.

Then yes, there's the flooding. Areas that have historically never had flooding issues will find themselves with flooding issues.

I mean, I'm looking at New Orleans, not even anywhere near the current location of the storm, and they've grown so complacent they let 4 of their 5 pumps fail and they've flooded with a minor rain storm. Now they're freaking out because they're likely just to catch the edge of Harvey. New Orleans is a major city that suffered a catastrophe that's still not 100% cleaned up even a decade later that should have learned their lesson. They get a lot of attention because of it as well and thus when a failing of government is seen, it gets publicized. I wonder how much government rot we'll see tested by Harvey, stuff that might have attracted attention in a place like New Orleans but gets swept under the rug in a city less populous and less notable.

[Aklyon]

I see the thread has well and truely earned its title now.

[Frumple]

Welp. Two or three days of it to go and only one or two in, and it looks like chunks of houston are already starting to submerge. Couple thousand calls for rescue et al so far, apparently. Other places as bad or worse. More than one area nearing and/or in line to surpass 500 year flood levels. Shit's gon' get worse before it gets better

[redwallzyl]

Found this:

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Damn bureaucrats, putting the boat navigation sign so close to the water. You're liable to smack your head on that thing.

And in the middle of the river, no less!

[Frumple]

Good ol' 610 River, main waterway of whichever side of houston the east 610 is/was on.

Can't really blame the 'crats for the signs being there, though. River finished moving in like... this morning. Last night, something like that. Haven't had time to readjust the signage after the road- to water- way transition process got far enough along for it to have a point.

E: Also they've been busy trying to make sure the waters end up with as few bodies floating in it as they can manage, y'know? They can take some slack on the inconveniently placed signs.

E2: And we're seeing first reports of sink holes opening up coming in. That's less than stellar. I mean, so is everything else going on, but.

[martinuzz]

Found this:

Geez that's some serious flooding. You definitly need more Dutch water engineers.

[redwallzyl]

Found this:

Geez that's some serious flooding. You definitly need more Dutch water engineers.

Something something evil regulations.

People seem to hate being told to do things for their own good when it slightly inconveniences them in America for some reason.

[Frumple]

It's not going to mean much in a few days, especially if it gets bad enough (very likely, at this point), but it's sorta' worth noting that this is pretty much literally unprecedented for the area. This is looking to end up being the worst flooding texas has seen, basically in (at least) the last few hundred years.

For what they were expecting, while the various areas may have been somewhat unprepared in various ways, it mostly wasn't really egregiously so, perhaps particularly considering what sort of restraints re: budget et al they tend to be under. No one was expecting the worst flood the area's seen at any point since (before) the US declared independence.

E: Though there's another facet to that when you consider that folks have been fucking warning the gulf coast this shit was coming for a few years, now, but that's a whole other bundle of mess only so pertinent to what's settling in to kill people and wreck lives.

... incidentally, there's mention how like less than a fifth of homes in some of the areas being hit have flood insurance. There's some serious financial fuckery waiting for when this is all over and the debris start getting picked through.

[RedKing]

I would expect total damage cost for this to be in the tens of billions.

You're talking about two fairly significant cities taking it right in the fucking face, plus all the smaller communities which used to be there. Plus the refinery, port and shipping disruption.

Katrina is the only hurricane on record in the US with a damage estimate of $100 billion+. That might very well change now.


EDIT: For another way to have your mind blown at the scale of this -- a meterologist has estimated that 340-370 billion gallons of rainwater has fallen so far. Just in Harris County. 

Just did some quick and dirty math based on that, and it means that more or less, every square foot of the county has gotten a cubic foot of rain.

DOUBLE-EDIT: And actually, it's an understatement to say "fairly significant cities". Houston is the fourth largest city in the country, with 2.3 million people.

[redwallzyl]

Nothing good can come of any situation where your measuring the rain in feet.

[Frumple]

I'd be completely unsurprised if it was already in the tens of billions, tbh, just from the flooding that's already occurred. Houston effectively has rivers where some of its major roads were, right now, and there's more than houston that's been taking this to the face.

... and the amount of rain predicted to come down by the end of it is from around 50% more to outright doubled or greater what's dropped since landfall. What's hit so far is basically only the halfway point water wise, and floods... tend to have breakpoints, where shit goes from just disastrous to catastrophic. Like, say, the point when reservoirs and basins and whatnot start overflowing, or have to have water let out to stop full overflow from happening. And, well. Folks overseeing those things have said outright they're going to be letting some loose, and it's going to almost certainly cause shit to get wrecked elsewhere. Just... less than it would if they didn't.

Also real noticeable on that news release is the mention of retaining water in those reservoirs -- or from what I understand, i.e. conditions are still flooded enough the ones specifically used for flood control are needed -- for a period in the range of 1-3 months.

E: Though a bit of poking around suggests it's more that they expect it to take that long to safely drain out. Still kinda' yikes, but a lesser sort.

[RedKing]

Couple of tidbits:

*99 tornado warnings since landfall.

*The eye has only moved 60 miles in 36 hours.

*Meterologists are now concerned about a "brown ocean effect", wherein there is so much water dropped over land (which absorbs and then releases heat energy from the sun), that the hurricane (currently a tropical storm) can actually reorganize and strengthen while still over land.

*In addition to that concern, computer models currently have the eye heading southeast, back across Rockport and back into the Gulf. Additional forecasting is trending towards the resurgent Harvey then tracking north, right back at Houston.

I'm not sure anyone even knows how to model an inland storm surge from the feet of floodwater being pushed around by hurricane-force winds.
Honestly, it sounds like they need to do a mandatory massive evac of the entire Houston metro area ASAP.

[Frumple]

Pretty sure they flat can't at this point, RK. Flooding's blocked off a lot of the roads and made the conditions on others hazardous as hell. You try a mass evac at this point and you've got even odds of killing more than however many the second swing does.

E: From what I understand, actually, that may be exactly why there hasn't been a mandatory evac for the area. Too many people trying to get out in too rough conditions; we've tried stuff like that with other hurricanes in better conditions and it went dozens-of-dead-people poorly. The time for an evac would have been like a week or two before the storm hit, and we didn't have much of an inkling it was even going to exist like it has until ~72 hours before it hit. There probably ain't gon' be much more evacuating for many areas involved, at this point.