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*** Official 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season Thread *** (3 Viewers)

If you're thinking about donating to the Red Cross to help, please read this tweet thread and the linked articles first: https://twitter.com/ProPublica/status/902978775368990720

I'm sure that there are good and well meaning people that work for Red Cross, but they're really a pretty terrible relief organization and nobody seems to have any clue what they actually do with the money they receive ($500M raised for Haiti relief and they built 6 whole houses with it).

 
Well shocking may be the wrong word. Suprising?  I have never lived thru a flood event like this.

I just didn't know that was the practice.  

I imagine that if the city doesn't do something about the drainage it's going to get worse before it gets better and house values could plummet.  Imagine having a house that didn't get wet in tax day or Harvey and maybe didn't even see water for a mile.  $$$
Not enough scale.  While the images and damages are terrible the lost homes relative to the size of Greater Houston are very minor. There are pockets of devastation but a lot of the City is fine and back to almost normal. Where do you think all the volunteers are streaming in from?

I feel like you are on the verge of asking the "should they rebuild" question. Just in case you were, please don't.

 
I hope everyone is staying safe.

There is now a Tropical Storm Irma, with winds at 60 mph sustained, moving west at 14 mph. It's currently no threat to land, but forecasters have it gaining hurricane strength sometime Thursday, and reaching Category 2 soon after. The track has it moving towards the Windward Islands over the course of the next 5 days

My concern is the 5 day forecast puts it not far from where Matthew started ramping up last year. 
Be safe, everyone in the potential path.

Get to the grocery store NOW if you need anything. And gas up your car before the stations run out.

 
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Seems small in comparison, but my company gave $1M today towards the hurricane, with another $150k matching on employee donations, which we hit by breakfast. So they upped the matching to $500k. So expect a total donation of $2M. It isn't $20M or $10M like some of the others. But hopefully it helps.

p.s. Still haven't heard from my buddy that said he was gonna swim to his house...

 
I'm sending a team down there for flood relief.  I was going to come myself but I'm much better with man-made disasters than I am with natural disasters, if that makes sense.  I may come at some point but my team can provide better service and relief than I can, I'm just heartbroken by all of this.  Really hope the federal government can assist in some positive way, my agency wants to stay out of the way but assist FEMA and local government.  Hopefully we can do just that. 

 
I don't want to turn things away from the obvious, horrible losses that have occurred, but has anyone heard anything about the Galveston National Laboratory?
I read this on wiki:

Galveston National Laboratory is an eight-story structure that was built using construction standards designed to resist a Category 5 hurricane. In addition to structural design elements, other protective measures included support pilings reaching a depth of 120 feet (37 m) into the earth and the placement of all lab facilities at a height of at least 30 feet (9.1 m) above the 100-year floodplain.[4] 

 
Irma now a Category 2 hurricane. The track is still guiding it towards the eastern Caribbean, though models are pretty far away from agreement.

 
No, but that's not the problem here. It's the 50" of rainfall. Show me a place with zoning laws that would deal well with that.
Was listening to a NYT podcast talking about all of the expansive growth and infrastructure in the Houston area. Lots and lots of concrete slabs everywhere. Short of it is that there is no place for the water to drain except in the streets.

 
Right, NY times nailed it.  Had nothing to do with the fact that Houston received more rain in 3 days than Seattle and the Netherlands receive in a year.  

 
It's one thing to say more zoning/regulation could reduce some flooding Houston has had (particularly some past flooding events). It probably could.  It's entirely another to imply it played a major role in Harvey, or especially was "the" reason.

It's like having a fatal traffic accident and blaming it on the speed limit being 40 instead of 35, when the car was going 90mph anyway. Sure, maaaaaybe he'd have only risked going 85 in a 35.  But would it really have changed the outcome that much?  Probably not.

As Houston's mayor put it, "Zoning wouldn’t have changed anything. We would have been a city with zoning that flooded"

 
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JJ Watt is over $12 mil now.

Yesterday I mentioned Keller Williams is donating $20 mil.

Today they announced that the yearly Austin event, "Mega Camp", which I attended two years ago and gets about 10,000 agents meeting the best of the best to im prove their businesses is changing the name this year to "Mega Relief", and is working on these 10,000 agents this year helping out in relief efforts when the event takes place in two weeks.

 
If Irma takes that path, Florida, myself included, will be in for a rough ride. I live on the Atlantic side.
I sure hope it take the turn  east some of the models are showing.  To be ready if it doesn't,  I just received the paperwork to get fingerprinted for the FL Insurance background check.  I have a couple of designations that waive the insurance exam, so I suspect I'll be deployed there very early on should something hit.  Along with the Hurricanes in 2004, I spent over 15 months working Andrew in 1992.

 
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Gas panic even hitting in SA. We get our gas at our local HEB (grocery store) and they are already cleaned out. Luckily I work from home and my wife is retired. The tank of gas in my truck will last us the month if need be. But really people, panic much? It's ridiculous.

 
Gas panic even hitting in SA. We get our gas at our local HEB (grocery store) and they are already cleaned out. Luckily I work from home and my wife is retired. The tank of gas in my truck will last us the month if need be. But really people, panic much? It's ridiculous.
They may be freaking out over rising gas prices coming up?

 
They may be freaking out over rising gas prices coming up?
Yes, totally a hysteric run on the retail pumps. The suppliers can't react quickly enough to get all the retail spots filled like usual so it makes it look worse and then people panic more.

But more supply than price concerns.

And now everyone is stocking up with mini gas bombs at their homes. Brilliant.

 
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I'm not even going to attempt to understand the psyche of the panic-prone. I'd have about as much chance understanding them as I would understanding women.
Just to be clear, no way would I be in any of those lines. My fam and I have been through a revolutionary war and it was crazy how people would just stock up way more than they need, leaving people high and dry. Clearing out a shelf is pretty ####ty when it's clearly overkill. We had all kinds of shortages but we survived. No one was willing to do the crazy panic lines so we managed on what we had just fine.

 
Just to be clear, no way would I be in any of those lines. My fam and I have been through a revolutionary war and it was crazy how people would just stock up way more than they need, leaving people high and dry. Clearing out a shelf is pretty ####ty when it's clearly overkill. We had all kinds of shortages but we survived. No one was willing to do the crazy panic lines so we managed on what we had just fine.
Not to mention, this is Texas. Over/under on the first gas line rage shooting?

 
Just to be clear, no way would I be in any of those lines. My fam and I have been through a revolutionary war and it was crazy how people would just stock up way more than they need, leaving people high and dry. Clearing out a shelf is pretty ####ty when it's clearly overkill. We had all kinds of shortages but we survived. No one was willing to do the crazy panic lines so we managed on what we had just fine.
Not to mention, this is Texas. Over/under on the first gas line rage shooting?
Isn't shooting that near a gas pump considered bad form? I thought proper Texas etiquette was to use your Bowie knife in that situation.

 
Nuts. After last post tried to make a fast run to drop clothes at Goodwill before they close. But they must again be diverting Westheimer (4 lane road) down the street my subdivision exits on (1-lane road). Doubt I'd have made it in time, will give it a try tomorrow.

 
guru_007 said:
Right, NY times nailed it.  Had nothing to do with the fact that Houston received more rain in 3 days than Seattle and the Netherlands receive in a year.  
Would there be damage and flooding regardless? Sure.

As someone who is in the real estate/development/urban planning world, and who has seen Sandy and what has happened in response, along with how different cities, regions, nations handle infrastructure and technologies for drainage etc... Houston is an abomination in these terms.  They have ignored multiple warning signs, have built where the should not have done so, have placed noxious uses in dangerous areas because of a lack of zoning ordinances to protect the public (to benefit the oil/gas/energy and real estate interests) and have done exceptionally poor design with almost no resiliency work whatsoever.

So yeah, a lot of rain like this is going to cause major problems.  Houstons decisions and actions, and lack of action, has made it much, much worse (and that's just what we see in the short term)

 

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