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[Dorsidwarf]

Does the Houston area really have a GDP of half a billion dollars? That seems excessive for a single city and county, maybe it's the whol state?

[alway]

Does the Houston area really have a GDP of half a billion dollars? That seems excessive for a single city and county, maybe it's the whol state?

Half a trillion, and yes. Ranked by GDP, the top 10 metropolitan areas alone make up about 1/3 of US GDP.
The top 20 about 50%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._metropolitan_areas_by_GDP

[Sheb]

Does the Houston area really have a GDP of half a billion dollars? That seems excessive for a single city and county, maybe it's the whol state?

Half a trillion, and yes. Ranked by GDP, the top 10 metropolitan areas alone make up about 1/3 of US GDP.
The top 20 about 50%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._metropolitan_areas_by_GDP

Woah, that's like a Belgium's worth of GDP.

Only tengentially related, but we had a bit of a misunderstanding with my Indian colleague when talking about the flooding, he thought I was referring to the current flooding in Mumbai. Here's a sight of the main train station. I love how people casually wait for the train as the water rushes around them.

Spoiler: And trains do show up! (click to show/hide)

http://www.comedyflavors.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/The-train-tracks-at-Matunga-Road-railway-station-were-also-flooded.jpg

[smjjames]

Tropical storm Irma has formed. It's still WAAYY out at sea and too early to tell whether it'll hit the US.

[misko27]

It SEEMS like the rain is gone (it made landfall in Louisiana, very limited damage there), and the waters will hopefully start to recede now. More damage has been done to outlying areas, but perhaps the worst is over.

The recovery part hasn't even started, of course, unusual as that may be.

[smjjames]

The recovery part has probably started in other parts of Texas, just that the Houston area can't really start until the floodwaters recede.

[RedKing]

Tropical storm Irma has formed. It's still WAAYY out at sea and too early to tell whether it'll hit the US.

Huh. Yeah, that's a different system from almost-Irma that skated up along the NC coast yesterday.

And yes, the economic hit will be significant. As stated previously, Houston is the 4th-largest city in the US, the largest in Texas, and frankly the largest in the entire southern United States (the three larger US cities being Los Angles, New York and Chicago in that order).

The cleanup is going to be tens to hundreds of billions, the immediate impact in terms of disruption will be in the range of a few hundred million, and the property losses will be $100+ billion.

[redwallzyl]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/risk-chemical-plant-explosion-houston-prompts-evacuation-harvey/story?id=49521170

big boom coming.

[Frumple]

Big boom came. Or boom, anyway. More possibly to come. Gods only know what it's going to do to the water around there

[Sheb]

Big boom came. Or boom, anyway. More possibly to come. Gods only know what it's going to do to the water around there

Depends exactly what kind of peroxides they store probably relatively okay.

[Frumple]

Well, apparently among them is the stuff that turns water into hydrochloric acid? Think that was it, anyway. Can't recall if other stuff was mentioned. It's actually probably possible to check, if the place had/has a website.

E: Sorta'. Easiest thing to find seems to just mention it produced liquid organic peroxides, without more details, far as I noticed.

[misko27]

I wonder how much that's going to add to the cleanup. Couple billion dollars worth of damage? A metaphorical drop in the flood, if you will.

Of course, now that it's exploded it's probably just leaking stuff into the water with abandon, so add "unstable compounds" to the list of reasons to stay out of the floodwaters (along with "Gators" and "fire ants").

[Cyroth]

Of course, now that it's exploded it's probably just leaking stuff into the water with abandon, so add "unstable compounds" to the list of reasons to stay out of the floodwaters (along with "Gators" and "fire ants").

On the other hand, it might solve the gator problem. /s

[RedKing]

Well now we know how SCP-682 came to be.

[smjjames]

As for the environmental stuff, the chemical plant is likely one of the least of the worries, given that the Houston area has a freaking dozen superfund sites. And that's just the Houston area.

Really, the entire area affected by Harvey is a potential environmental disaster area.