Sunday, August 27, 2017

The Extinction of Houston - 2

Downtown tomorrow
The 4th largest city in the U.S.eh? is paralyzed in an ongoing anthropogenic disaster.

It is thereby confronted with an uncanny vision of the future (The Extinction of Houston).

But it is real now, not later, and it is happening to people alive today, not to their children sometime in the distant future.

In the first post of this series I contemplated sea level rise, which is a slow motion reality unlike the fast-forward scenario taking place in today's current ongoing disaster.

A disaster that is not only taking place in Houston, but is also taking place all along the Gulf Coast of Texas.

This catastrophe is brought on by Category 4 hurricane Harvey, which is now a tropical storm that is not leaving anytime soon enough, because there are no "steering fronts" to push it away, no jet stream to push it along to harm someone else somewhere else.

Some meteorologists are calling this the greatest flood-disaster in U.S. history, and perhaps the worst disaster ever in U.S. history.
Downtown today

It still has a few days to go before we know for sure.

The ongoing slow sea level rise disaster doesn't help, because it is rendering large parts of the Houston metroplex into below-sea-level areas.

Today's danger, tomorrow's danger, and the danger the next day after that will unfortunately be views into the future of Houston and other U.S. cities along the coast, such as New York City.

I mean "views" that give us a true reality vision of what is slowly but surely coming (permanent inundation).

It is not pretty now, but it will be worse then.
Elderly await rescue in flooded group-home

The most striking thing to me is that there were days of forewarnings, (enough forewarning to have relocated the most vulnerable to safer places).

Just as there have been days of forewarning, there have been years of forewarning on the sea level rise dangers, yet, very few, percentage wise, are able to heed the warnings (Choose Your Trances Carefully, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8).

As a result, "as we speak," the emergency services are spread thin.

People have to wait four or five hours on the roofs of their houses for rescue, if rescue comes at all.

And there are more days of rain in the potential forecast, the highest being as much as five feet of rain accumulation in some places (now already piling up in rivers, lakes, streets, homes, roads, and businesses).

The denier governments are dumbing down those in danger areas, and thereby increasing death and injury to citizens who follow and believe those official deniers:
"But county and city officials responsible for addressing flooding largely reject
Downtown policy
these arguments. Houston’s two top flood control officials say their biggest challenge is not managing rapid growth but retrofitting outdated infrastructure. Current standards that govern how and where developers and residents can build are mostly sufficient, they say. And all the recent monster storms are freak occurrences — not harbingers of global warming or a sign of things to come.
"
(Texas Tribune). From the idiotic messages of the president on down to agency leaders, governors, and local mayors, they preach lies to their constituents and those constituents suffer for it.

This is going to increase as time goes on, unless those deniers in power are taken out of office, or voted out of office, permanently.

The previous post in this series is here.



6 comments:

  1. "An area the size of Connecticut is expected to receive at least another 20 inches of rain through Friday." link

    ReplyDelete
  2. "Trump Rescinded Obama's Flood Risk Rules Before Harvey" -
    link

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  3. The National Weather Service tweeted Sunday that the devastating flooding in the Houston area was "unprecedented" and its impacts are "unknown & beyond anything experienced."
    ...
    "This disaster is going to be a landmark event," FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) director Brock Long said Sunday on CNN.

    He said the agency will be in the area for years to help with the recovery from the catastrophic weather event
    (Washington Free Beacon).

    ReplyDelete
  4. "Yes, we already have some 'nice' camps for you to stay in . .."

    "Our designer mobile homes made with exotic imported materials [ie. toxic Chinese drywall] are lovely and secure."

    "You'll enjoy your stay so much you may not leave!"

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Exxon Mobil’s Baytown facility, the largest petrochemical complex in the U.S., sustained damage in the storm and has been shut down. Company officials told CNN they’re trying to “minimize emissions,” but according to Exxon Mobil filings with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, those emissions are likely to last until Friday." (HuffPo)

    "Exxon Mobil is in the process of shutting down the nation's second-largest refining complex in Baytown in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.

    The Baytown campus, which also produces petrochemicals, can churn through up to 560,000 barrels of oil a day to produce fuel. The refinery is a major source of the Gulf Coast and nation's gasoline supplies. Baytown also serves as a major petrochemical hub that's undergoing a massive expansion." (Exxon Mobil shuts down Baytown refining complex).

    ReplyDelete
  6. "Residents Near Texas Chemical Plant Evacuated Over Explosion Risk" (HuffPo)

    ReplyDelete