Well, not high density as in "tall" - I'm talking the zero-lot-line stuff we have here with single family homes built 6 inches apart from each other and 4 feet from the sidewalk with no backyard.

Gutters and drainage sewers are not a replacement for open soil, 30 minutes after the rain starts the sewer drain gets clogged with debris and an hour after that the roadway is under water.

A political tool used to generate decisions, policy and words of wisdom, commonly referred to as "Pulling it out of you a@@"....hope this helps! :)

Not sure about a toll to cross into Kali... but we have our dumb-ass "Fruit and Nut Inspection". you can't bring an apple in from Oregon or Nevada, but we take truckloads of produce from Tijuana daily with people and narcotics buried in the piles.

What was it we were talking about with regard to political corruption...

I have also read that the Black Death in the Middle
Ages was blamed on the Jews. (Though one gentile
writer said they were getting it as much as the gentiles). They were the medieval scapegoat,and
this lasted into the 20th century. But it looks as if the world has graduated into making capitalists/industrialists the modern scapegoat.

Your data does indicate though, that it WAS doable to survive with no real harm, even a severe thing like this, and still says that they created their own mess. Carefully crafted rules based on science and data should not be disparaged, it is the ones a lot of people see that make no sense, and the corrupt decisions to allow things in places they should not be. NWS was saying 4 days before it hit what was coming, there is no excuse for the Mayor, beyond stupid politics. Or just plain stupid. I understand you are there and have a lot more credibility, but it is just what I have seen from afar. Good luck to you.

Well, then if someone has time to vandalize, then someone should have time to shoot them. That would tail off pretty quickly. Part of planning should have been how to get out, where to go, and who volunteered to stay and guard, if needed. But it also says not only did they fail with the water and evacuation, they fail in policing as well. Call the guard out, and allow target practice, I'm tired of allowing idiots to prosper....

Doc, also remember they are using this to scare everyone that it IS NOT a 500 year event, but now an annual event, because of GLOBAL WARMING and EVIL MAN. That will get a few of the less cognitive people on their bandwagon, as it is an easy to use blame point.

Thank you. I am sure we will be fine. Just got word that the Brazos will crest 2 ft lower than predicted. So minor damage and inconvenience but nothing to really complain about. Heck got an extra week before classes start back so I should probably be thankful.

You, sir, are an example to all. I also did the same thing, bought a home on a hill, not in a valley, nor near a river (for the "view", yea, as it heads into your house, so pretty, look at the fish! (or the fire ant island). yet never will a politician, or govt person be found accountable, nor will the bribes ever be surfaced, as business goes on as usual. We have a person who bought a horse from us, and is on the Oregon/Kalifornia border, and duffass Jerry told them that with the fire approaching and covering the whole horizon, "You must stay at your posts and collect the tool". They charge a toll to cross into Kaliffornia? On a Federal highway? Gad....

I am sure you do, I have heard the same thing in a couple places, but the lamestream is so occupied with Melania's damn shoes, and prophesying how this will all be Trumps downfall, no one wants to raise the point of a Dumbocrap Mayor sabotaging his own people, and anyways, they will still blame Trump....

By the way Eyecu2, I really do hope you make it through ok, hope for the best, plan for the worst. Good luck.

Sh@t happens...you just have to deal with it. My power goes out once or twice a year, that is why I have 3 generators, so my horses have ater. You flood, or may flood, you build for it, or don't live there. We know a woman who is complaining about her 12 horses, but if you want to live in places that have hazards, plan to beat them, not hope it doesn't happen (which is normal political planning).

Remember The Core (2003)? That was it's plot, the military did some test that stopped the rotation of the core, and they had to drill through and nuke it. Hmmmmm.... I will check out your references, thanks.

Don't buy into it do your own research. The grand solar minimum . Here are some examples Nickursis. https://arxiv.org/abs/1705.04482
Or From CERN Cosmic rays are charged particles that bombard the Earth's atmosphere from outer space. Studies suggest they may influence cloud cover either through the formation of new aerosols (tiny particles suspended in the air that can grow to form seeds for cloud droplets) or by directly affecting clouds themselves. The protection is from the Magnetisphere when weakened these rays increase in penetrating our shield.

"This isn't the first research to show that Earth's magnetic field is changing. Our magnetic field has always been in flux, and over the past few years it's become clear that the invisible bubble that protects our planet from the harsh conditions of outer space has been getting weaker and weaker.

According to scientists' best estimates, the field is now weakening around 10 times faster than initially thought, losing approximately 5 percent of its strength every decade. But they don't really know why, or what that means for our planet."http://www.sciencealert.com/new-study...
https://youtu.be/GVsT2IszcpA

If only we could regulate Ma Nature. We could bloom the Sahara, regulate rainfall and snowfall. But since we can only regulate ourselves, which at the present time is entirely not considered by nature, the earth or the universe, we're bound to have regular catastrophes.

Protecting property at the risk of your life doesn't make much sense to me, but it's a matter of personal choice. I do think many would have left for safety's sake if not for the assurance from the mayor that everything was going to be OK, and now those gullible souls are hoping for rescue.

People resist evacuations cause their property will be vandalized when they are gone

High density housing with openable windows would let residents shelter in place cause the water wouldn’t get. Past the lobby

Exactly

Typical leftist article. The assumption is that government regulations are typically “right” perhaps if people had to take responsibility for the real costs of where they choose to live instead of expecting the rest of us to shoulder the costs, things would improve

A person gets a tightened sphincter hearing that.
What ever a sphincter is.

Best prayers to you friend.

Don't kick yourself over a chainsaw... I've had many of those. I have basically 2, one that seems to start when it's hot, one that seems to start when it's cold out. Seems like all of us have that problem.

Very true... I've seen that first hand, the ACE says "don't build there", and the slow drone of local corruption and political contributions from developers eventually erodes the willingness to resist, some flood reports become "outdated" and suddenly 3000 homes are somewhere they shouldn't be.

Sacramento build "Natomas" with something like almost 5000 homes in an area that would be inundated by 22-29 feet of water during a 50 year storm-event. That triggered the politicians greasing about $3 billion out of the feds to build higher levees to protect an area that should have never been built to begin with. Developers lied and got away with not even requiring flood insurance for the first 8 years or so of building, when that was discovered, the premiums were required and huge (like $1200 a year I heard) and home values took a sizable hit.

Personally, I chose to live on the high side of the dam that would cause the flood inundation if it were not able to contain all of the water..

Exactly right, Dr.
It isn't rational to expend (waste) limited maintenance resources on assets for an event that occurs once every 500 years or 1000 years, unless its for a scientifically proven predictable event that would destroy civilization.
Eliminate government provided "flood insurance" and let the free market deal with those who build in high risk areas. Beachfront property values are inflated by such government stupidity.

My wife would probably argue that to the end of the earth... she's a licensed water resources civil engineer (PE). I don't like second-guessing this stuff though, there are lots of problems with urban development in general, and Houston is no exception I'm sure. Corruption and stupid-decisions are more of the 'norm' than the exceptions.

When it comes to this stuff, you want urban sprawl, not 'high density housing'.

Most of the states have a history of political corruption where developers ultimately get to do what they really want to do, and never put a penny into the infrastructure for off-property mitigation. The local government should have not allowed continued development that would dramatically change the direction of flood water, or make other changes to correct it.

The shopping center shouldn't be paved to within an inch of the property line, and the subdivision should give up enough home sites to have it's own collection and settlement pond rather than spilling to the next parcel for the neighbor to deal with (as you described)

That being said, nothing could handle 50 inches of rain, but when rebuilding, they can't use that as an excuse or you will go through this again eventually. It's not something that 'never happens' as the houses look pretty new overall, so certainly not far beyond foreseeable future. Sadly, it's going to do enormous damage to the city.

Next will be the parade of global warming huggers - but the truth is, while climate change is probably a slight contributor to everything, and warmer ocean temps can and will strengthen storms (physical science), the increasing levels of damage from these storms is more a function of human development than human emissions.. we are building too much, too close to storm-prone areas (like the coast of the Gulf of Mexico). I was at the Hurricane Andrew cleanup when I was in the Air Force, and thankfully, they never rebuilt Homestead AFB, and just kind of de-populated that part of South Florida.

Huge housing subdivisions are darlings of the greenies when they have 'zero lot lines' and 'high density', I'm not a fan (no boat or RV parking and my truck would never fit in a tract-home garage!) and the snowflake housewives next door would complain to the HOA when I come home with an elk from the week's hunt.

Nonetheless, back to the point. High density housing means lots of rooftops, lots of road pavement, sidewalks, etc., and very, very little actual soil surface to absorb the rainfall. Shopping centers are worse, and freeways with the Texas-style frontage roads on both sides are even worse than that (completely inadequate drainage). You don't really see farmland under feet of water, it is usually able to absorb it (but might get pretty muddy). So diminishing the soil surface area diminishes the absorption and it's a sliding scale of how many rooftops you can do per acre, versus reduced absorption. I live in a 2-house-per-acre subdivision, and even with that the private street and such really kind of seems like the lots are small to my liking. We have 22-houses per-acre downtown and that turns into basically a paved-sidewalk between each house with maybe a 10x10 foot back yard patio thing and nothing but a narrow sidewalk in front of the house. Needless to say, those 2 & 3-story high density things would be barely peeking the roof above the flood waters if it happened here.

Knock on Wood, but Kali does the freeways a little different, it's thought to 'protect the environment', but we have huge water handling systems under the freeways with pumps, charcoal filtration, etc., to clean and move the storm-water. It has little to do with the environment, it's actually to clean the water before it enters the drinking supply. The intent is to take out the heavy metals, oils, and rubber before it re-enters creeks and streams. Side-effects are storm drains and culverts up to 20 feet in diameter in some cases... the stuff can handle a hell of a lot of water.

My wife is a culvert expert, probably the best in the nation actually, she leads CalTrans' effort and CalTrans leads the other 50 states and Federal DoT on that (and many other topics). When we have driven through Texas, she has seen decent stuff in some areas, completely devoid in others, so it seems like a local directive rather than state-level mandates. It may be more dependent on the water sources. In Kali, we don't have a lot of water to waste and everything enters creeks where we pretty much use all of it for drinking water - so you really don't want radiator fluid in that stuff. Texas has a lot of ground water I'm sure, so it may not be as sensitive. When you see water 10 feet deep on a major artery though, that shouldn't be happening... seems like the storm water pumping stations and systems are not present. Even if the power was out, those usually have their own power backup systems (or should).

The reservoir is another issue... that's probably the worst thing that is on the worst-case-scenario list, that would double or triple the water already flooding-out. Hopefully it holds... we had our own imminent disaster with Oroville recently, but I assume Oroville to be much larger. Sounds like it's an earthen levee thing in Houston, would be small. Oroville is about 700+ feet tall on the dam face. Would have flooded most of the California central valley.