Hey Everyone,

 

From viewing the scale of destruction and suffering across Houston, it seems inappropriate to mention my situation when others are so hard-hit. I’m totally fine. I’ve been dry, with power, water, sewer, cars, and—most importantly—WIFI throughout Harvey. Of course, the situation isn’t over, but I’m sitting on my porch for a visible sunset, so it’s clear that the first phase of this disaster is past.

 

A few thoughts:

 

1. I’m very impressed by Art Acevedo (Houston Police Chief). I was impressed by his price tag when Houston hired him away from Austin, but he is worth it. A leader with heart, brains, and bilingual. Thumbs up.

 

2. Houston’s zoning controls need to be revised. This storm has changed the rules for storms in the gulf coast. The bar has been raised very high. 51” rainfall...Wow. Lots of work for flood forecasters to do—modeling how they could have responded better and how to anticipate these type of localized catastrophic flash flooding events in the future. I suspect everyone who lived through this storm will have a ‘bug-out box’ in his or her home for the future.

 

3. Law enforcement is establishing a strong anti looting stance right now. Curfew at midnight. Thank you, HPD. I think looters would need to be crazy. As they say about littering on the roads—don’t mess with Texas. That said, I think the media will make it look like there is widespread looting if any goes on… I think looting will be limited. Everyone is affected within the city. It’s difficult to get in, so people who commit crimes here are from here.

 

4. There’ll be a new question asked of everyone selling a house in Houston—did you flood during Harvey… Home price readjustment. Areas that didn’t flood in this event can probably stop paying for flood insurance.

 

5. The flooding in many parts of Houston will be around for a long long time. News reports are estimating a three week timeline for many people to be out of their homes…

 

6. An incredible number of people flooded lived beyond the 100, 200, 500 yr flood areas. Many were without flood insurance.

 

7. No work until Tuesday.

 

8. Lots of flooded rivers have NOT crested yet. The largest pulse of water downstream has yet to arrive on the Brazos, while Lake Houston has thankfully crested and the northeast Houston water plant will soon emerge from the water.

 

9. Largest danger going forward is a catastrophic failure of the Barker-Cypress or Addicks reservoir. This is a low probability event, but could happen if we got another significant rainfall in the next week or so… best local weather commentary is from www.spacecityweather.com.  Earth-rock dams fail when they are over-topped, even slightly, but these have a bunch of workers standing by. If a new storm develops immediately after Harvey leaves, we might be in trouble... The failure of either of these dams would not affect me, but it would be horrible for those downstream (many many people). I’m optimistic that those dams will hold and the spillways will work as designed.