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[Sheb]

Trump is going to be visiting Texas today, but he will not visit Houston so as to not put more pressure on the stretched abilities of the local government (that's the official reason anyway).

That's a good reason too. It's not like he can do anything by getting a photo op in Houston anyway.

[smjjames]

I saw somewhere that the Houston reservoir is in danger of overflowing, despite the attempts to drain it (which obviously make things worse downstream, damned if you do or damned if you don't situation). Hope those dams hold.

[Frumple]

There's two, actually, at least that I'm aware of -- addicks and barker. Addicks has actually hit its first overflow point just recently. Despite, yeah, intentionally releasing water for several hours, now. Dunno if it's actually got out entirely or not, but it's at the right height for it.

That said, it's a bit more complicated than just "overflow" -- there's three or four stages of overflow for addicks, due to how it's built. The first stage happens when it hits 108ft (where it's at now), which is where it starts uncontrolled spillage at one part of the thing (north end). Then there's a point at 111 (south end), 112.5 (northern spillway), and the final at 115.5 (southern spillway). Each of those means water's getting loose at the point mentioned, until it goes over the last and wet hell has officially broke loose all the way.

The sorta' bright side to that is that once it starts going over one point, it becomes harder to hit the others. Since, y'know, water's going out at the quickness from part of the dam.

... now, all that said, all that also assumes everything stays in one piece and functioning. If something else happens -- earthworks collapse, rapid erosion, etc. -- all bets are more or less off. And it's unfortunately worth noting that pretty much every point it goes uncontrolled makes something like that happening more likely.

'Course, it ain't the only thing happening. Inverness levee's apparently damn close to overflow or outright breaking, ferex. Shit's getting closer to really starting to throw down, when it ain't exactly been gentle up to this point.

E: Oh. Yeah, like this. Shit.

[RedKing]

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.


EDIT: I don't know why, but this line from a story is sticking with me:

The rainfall is Houston is unprecedented. The National Weather Service had to use a new color in its rainfall charts to account for it.

DOUBLE-EDIT: Oh, and incidentally today is the 12th anniversary of Katrina making landfall in Plaquemines Parish, LA.

[misko27]

EDIT: I don't know why, but this line from a story is sticking with me:

The rainfall is Houston is unprecedented. The National Weather Service had to use a new color in its rainfall charts to account for it.

I noticed that, yeah. They had this big blotch of dark purple (the previous "most extreme" color) covering most of Houston earlier.

[Frumple]

Pretty sure they're not the only ones.

That said, not entirely unprecedented. The US apparently has had rainfall hit 52 inches before -- was the first place spot in our wettest hurricane type things. Might not be in first anymore by thursday.

... also it was in hawaii. Back in 1950. Harvey's going to take first in the continental US regardless.

[RedKing]

Yeah, and Hawaii can average a LOT of rain, depending on which island and which side of the island. Statewide average is 63.7 inches a year, though in some areas that's up to 404 inches.

Houston averages 50 inches a year. And that's on the high side for the continental United States.

[smjjames]

Pretty sure they're not the only ones.

That said, not entirely unprecedented. The US apparently has had rainfall hit 52 inches before -- was the first place spot in our wettest hurricane type things. Might not be in first anymore by thursday.

... also it was in hawaii. Back in 1950. Harvey's going to take first in the continental US regardless.

It's entirely possible it may surpass even that, Harvey is set to make landfall again and it's going to hit the same area.

[Frumple]

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.

[martinuzz]

There be gators. https://youtu.be/KAviOFTcvSs

Also watch out for snakes. Just... don't go outside.

[Frumple]

Gators, snakes, and ants seem to be the three main, so far as that goes, yeah. Bugs beyond the floating hell carpets of fire ants are going to be an issue eventually, and the water will approach risky very, very quickly if it's not already there. Be a lotta' corpses rotting in those waters even without human ones adding to it.

Still, yeah, if not outside is an option it's a pretty good one. Plenty of places it ain't or soon won't be, though.

E: Just in case you wanted another number to pin on the magnitude: Of the 1777 square miles of harris county (which houston is in) 25-30% is currently underwater.

E2: Yeah, road and bridge damage/collapse looks to be confirmed. Probably make the aftermath that much more of a problem

[misko27]

I dunno, inside sounds like a pretty bad deal with all that flooding. Unless you have the means available to make a makeshift skylight.

[IronyOwl]

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?"

[Dorsidwarf]

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.

[Frumple]

They had <72 hours from point of existence in the gulf until landfall, and didn't expect things to get this bad until even later. There's also a few million people in the region getting hit, and... well, we attempted that in short order before.

Texas reported the most deaths from the hurricane, where 113 deaths were reported, 107 of which were associated with the evacuation of the Houston metropolitan area.

There's been mention of trying to get people out of particularly endangered areas first, but, y'know, they've been trying that just about as soon as they know something's coming. Is just literally unprecedented flooding. They're getting into "shit we've never seen and didn't think to model for" territory.

That said, there is more official stuff than that, quite a bit even. It's just they're fucked enough they need all the help they can get, and the national + coast guard + other military branches + gov't emergency response stuff + FEMA + everygoddamnthingelse isn't quite cutting it.

Buncha' other stuff, too, really. Goddamn mess, kinda' always is when it's not hella' more telegraphed than this was. Often enough even then because of political shit RK requested not to get into in here.