…is that Oroville Dam narrowly missed becoming a major catastrophe. Now, that was a good thing for anyone living downriver of that dam, since they missed the devastation that would have wrought.
However, I would assert that the media, and public in general, are taking the danger of failure of the two dams in Houston far too lightly. The interesting thing about a crisis averted is it reduces the chance of people responding with adequate attentiveness to similar crises in the future. It’s as if the media I’m reading takes it on faith that these dams will hold. After all, Oroville held, right?
...is that Oroville Dam narrowly missed becoming a major catastrophe. Now, that was a good thing for anyone living downriver of that dam, since they missed the devastation that would have wrought.
However, I would assert that the media, and public in general, are taking the danger of failure of the two dams in Houston far too lightly. The interesting thing about a crisis averted is it reduces the chance of people responding with adequate attentiveness to similar crises in the future. It's as if the media I'm reading takes it on faith that these dams will hold. After all, Oroville held, right?
I guess it's something like that. Perhaps it's a case of "well, New Orleans got toasted and the country just printed up money and carried on, so we will with Houston too."
Only in business terms new Orleans is a national cost center and Houston is the production facility.
There's no comparison between the two.
There remains a very non-zero chance of dam failure in Texas here. That should be national news. My local paper has Harvey buried in the front section, on page 6.
It's over.
But it's not.
Only in business terms new Orleans is a national cost center and Houston is the production facility.
There's no comparison between the two.
As a teacher who has taught in both independent and public education, I can assure you that part of the problem is that a good half of Americans probably couldn't tell you why there is no comparison between the two. Much less define "cost center" and "production facility."
cmartenson wrote:
There remains a very non-zero chance of dam failure in Texas here. That should be national news. My local paper has Harvey buried in the front section, on page 6.
It's over.
But it's not.
Same here. Let's just hope that those responsible for allowing people back into their neighborhoods understand that. I'll not put money on that hope, though.
-S
In looking over the past few posts I see that the Addicks reservoir is to peak at 110.4 ft and that the gates on the primary spillway are open which will reach a max flow today of 4,000 cubic feet per second. But, I don’t see at what level the water will be going over the emergency spillway (shown in Chris’s post #38 above.). Has the clock already started on the 2-24 hour time span given in the Reddit post or will the emergency spillway not be used because the 4,000 cfs will prevent it? Sometimes I miss the obvious so excuse me if that’s the case.
No, it’s not over. Not by a long shot.
This tweet just came through this morning:
This is happening because while Houston was getting all the press, Harvey landed again to the east this morning and dumped absolutely stunning amounts of rain on these smaller communities and cities like Beaumont and Port Arthur.
Here’s that exact address on Google maps, and then the street view during drier, happier times.
That’s really striking for some reason. Seeing all those dry houses absolutely flooded. Ugh.
They are even having to evacuate the evacuation center there:
And finally here’s Harvey making (his final) landfall this morning and showing exactly why these already swamped communities are now struggling with the additional 10 to 20 inches of rain they just got.
In looking over the past few posts I see that the Addicks reservoir is to peak at 110.4 ft and that the gates on the primary spillway are open which will reach a max flow today of 4,000 cubic feet per second. But, I don't see at what level the water will be going over the emergency spillway (shown in Chris's post #38 above.). Has the clock already started on the 2-24 hour time span given in the Reddit post or will the emergency spillway not be used because the 4,000 cfs will prevent it? Sometimes I miss the obvious so excuse me if that's the case.
It's been surprisingly difficult to get a solid answer to the question "what's the mean sea level height of the Addicks and Barkers spillways?"
So far I'm stumped but I'll keep searching.
In the meantime, we know they are already flowing over as of Tuesday for Addicks and Wednesday for Barker:
Houston dam spills over for the first time in history, overwhelmed by Harvey rainfall
Aug 29, 2017
HOUSTON — One of two major flood-control reservoirs in the Houston area began spilling over for the first time in history, despite efforts to prevent such “uncontrolled” overflow the day before, officials said.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers confirmed Tuesday morning that water was spilling from the north end of the Addicks Reservoir, which has been overwhelmed by extreme rainfall from Hurricane Harvey. Officials said they expect the Barker Reservoir, to the south of Addicks, to begin overflowing similarly at some point Wednesday.
A Harris County Flood Control District meteorologist said the overflow from the reservoirs would eventually flow into downtown Houston.
And this is with another 2.4 feet of rise on the way....so there will be several feet of 'sheeting' over the breaches of these dams unless my math and physics are really bad.
I say 'breaches' because apparently the water is *not* going over the auxiliary spillways, but over some other, lower points elsewhere.
I'm no dam engineer, but this doesn't seem optimal:
“These are not your typical dams; these are unique because of the type of terrain we have,” Long said, referring to Houston’s relatively flat plain.
The Addicks and Barker reservoirs each have a main spillway and two auxiliary spillways. Water hadn’t breached any of those spillways, but instead was overflowing through a slightly lower point on the north end of the Addicks Reservoir.
Nation’s largest refinery shuts down
Explaining the spike in gas prices today is this:
Nation's largest refinery shuts down as Harvey floods Texas; gas prices rise
Aug 30, 2017
The largest crude oil refinery in the United States has shut down due to flooding from Tropical Storm Harvey.
Motiva Enterprises' Port Arthur plant, which has been in operation more than 100 years, stopped operating Tuesday night.
Motiva Enterprises has a crude capacity of over 600,000 barrels a day, supplying gasoline and diesel to thousands of retail outlets under the iconic Shell and 76- brands.
Energy industry intelligence service Genscape said the refinery was using its safety flare system on Tuesday night.
Flares can be a signal of the shutdown of a unit or units at a refinery.
The flaring triggered messages on social media of a fire at the refinery, but Motiva confirmed there was no fire at the plant.
A return to service is contingent upon recession of flood waters in the area.
Well, truthfully, restarting will be contingent on a lot of things, namely the amount of damage done by water, the amount of damage done by the shutdown itself (apparently these are tricky things to shut down and then restart), and how long it takes to restore power.
Already we know that power may not be restored to some coastal areas for quite a while. According to American Electric Power they cannot provide “ETAs for power restoration for customers in the hardest hit areas of Rockport, Port Aransas, Fulton, Woodsboro, Port Lavaca, Lamar and Bayside.”
Here’s the location of the plant:
That's not too far from the poor woman's house seen a few comments above.
If this plant is down for any extended period of time, there will be gasoline shortages resulting. It's not too early to begin thinking about operating under a regime of extended shortages...?
This is what an out of control emergency looks and sounds like in the news. Good luck everyone living there, be safe and be smart (and please don’t wait to be rescued if you are able to take care of yourself).
JEFFERSON CO., Texas (FOX 26) - The National Weather Service has issued flash flood emergencies for parts of Southeast Texas, including Beaumont and Port Arthur.
KFDM-TV reports the situation in Port Arthur is dire as homes were expected to fill with rising floodwaters and residents unsure of how to evacuate the city.
Jefferson County Sheriff Zena Stephens tells the station that county resources cannot get to Port Arthur because of the flooding and some residents have gone into survival mode.
Mayor Derrick Freeman said on his Facebook page that the "city is underwater right now but we are coming!" He also urged residents to get to higher ground, but avoid becoming trapped in attics.
Meanwhile, many residents evacuated to the Bob Bowers Civic Center.But by Wednesday morning, the Civic Center was flooding with hundreds inside and with nowhere to go.
Port Arthur police later announced that the Carl Parker Center is accepting citizens seeking shelter, but there are no supplies at the facility.Residents and their loved ones in other areas continue to post to social media, out of desperation, the dire situation they're under.
The Jefferson County Office of Emergency Management announced at 3:35 a.m. Wednesday that rescue efforts will resume at daylight.
Deputy Marcus McLellan told FOX 26 the city's 911 system has been inundated with calls.
(Source)
First, here’s the most recent reservoir level as of 3:45 pm CDT.
There was a seeming flattening and even a decline, and the a sudden jump and a flatline.
So I am guessing their measurement device is dodgy or broken. At any rate, the last measurement value was 109 feet.
Next, they are saying that the “uncontrolled releases” have stopped around the Barker reservoir (no word on Addicks, so I’m guessing no news is bad news) which leads me to assume that sand bags or some other remediation efforts have been applied and been successful. Details are thin right now:
HOUSTON - Some 3,000 homes near Addicks reservoir and 1,000 homes near Barker are inundated due to water release, Harris County Flood Control District meteorologist Jeff Lindner said Wednesday morning.
Uncontrolled releases are no longer expected around the Barker reservoir, the Harris County Flood Control District said Wednesday afternoon, but water releases will continue for days.
Both reservoir outlet gates are open and releasing storm water into Buffalo Bayou, but pool levels may continue to rise. House flooding is occurring in adjacent neighborhoods, and roadways that run through the reservoirs are underwater.
"The good news is we are getting very close to the peak at both reservoirs," Lindner said during a press conference.
An area of the levee eroded on Wednesday morning, according to the Harris County Flood Control District. Officials said a breach is not likely, but possible. This occurred in the area where water is pumped out of the Cyprus Creek/Inverness Forest subdivision.
A portion of the levee eroded after water came over the top of the intake system. Several agencies are trying to remedy the situation by bringing sand to the area.
(Source)
So a breach remains possible, but not likely, according to officials. Who would probably never say anything different even if they were scrambling like mad to avoid a breach.
That, at least, is the learning from Oroville. Best not to trust official statements because those are geared more towards preventing panic (or official embarrassment) than providing useful data to the public.
Maybe TX officials and associated Federal agencies are playing differently in TX than the CA/Oroville officials, but I wouldn't count on it.
Arkema’s North America chief executive said on Wednesday the company has no way of preventing chemicals from catching fire or exploding at its heavily flooded plant in Crosby, Texas.
The company evacuated remaining workers on Tuesday and Harris County ordered the evacuation of residents in a 1.5-mile(2.4-km) radius of the plant that makes organic chemicals.
Richard Rowe, who is chief executive of the company’s North America unit, told reporters the company expects chemicals on site to catch fire or explode within the next six days. He said the company has no way to prevent a fire or potential explosion near the plant that is swamped by about six feet (1.83 m) of water.
Everyone should have a plan in place before a crisis hits.
These are not things you want to have to return home for days later.
Those are part of every prepared person’s go bag routine.
As if the city of Houston hasn’t seen enough tragedy due to catastrophic flooding from Hurricane Harvey, things took a turn for the worse today after a U.S. Navy ship collided with a building in the downtown area.
The ship was identified as an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer belonging to the Navy’s 7th Fleet.
It was unclear why the destroyer was not able to see the building and take evasive action, or why it was over 20 miles inland and trying to navigate through a major metropolitan area.
“I had climbed up on my roof due to dem risin’ flood waters, when I saw a big ship sailin’ down the street,” said Georgia Brown, a resident who witnessed the incident. “I says to myself ‘Oh Lawdy, someone’s done come to rescue us!’ and then it sails right past my house and smack straight into that yonder building.”
This marks the fifth collision incident this summer for destroyers from the Navy’s beleaguered 7th Fleet, following incidents involving the USS Fitzgerald, USS John S. McCain, and the USS Ted Kennedy.
The Navy declined to comment on the cause of the collision, citing an ongoing investigation, although it did say the captain had been promptly relieved of his command.
Arkema’s North America chief executive said on Wednesday the company has no way of preventing chemicals from catching fire or exploding at its heavily flooded plant in Crosby, Texas.
The company evacuated remaining workers on Tuesday and Harris County ordered the evacuation of residents in a 1.5-mile(2.4-km) radius of the plant that makes organic chemicals.
Richard Rowe, who is chief executive of the company’s North America unit, told reporters the company expects chemicals on site to catch fire or explode within the next six days. He said the company has no way to prevent a fire or potential explosion near the plant that is swamped by about six feet (1.83 m) of water.
Here's some more information that adds to the story:
The Arkema plant in Crosby, Texas, some 25 miles northeast of Houston, was evacuated late Tuesday. Working with authorities, the company also urged everyone within a mile and a half of the plant to evacuate, and shut down a stretch of Highway 90 that runs alongside the plant, which produces organic peroxides for things like acrylic-based paint.
“We have an unprecedented 6 feet of water throughout the plant,” Arkema’s North American operations Chief Executive Rich Rowe said in a teleconference Wednesday with reporters. Mr. Rowe said that the plant lost primary power and two emergency backup power sources, which led to a shutdown of “critical refrigeration needed for our materials.”
He said that means those materials “could now explode and cause a subsequent and intense fire,” and added that “the high water that exists on site, and the lack of power, leave us with no way to prevent it.” Mr. Rowe said about 300 people in all have been evacuated, but said it wasn’t a mandatory evacuation, so he’s not certain whether the 1.5-mile radius around the facility is currently devoid of people. He said it is mostly a rural area, so there are “a limited number of homes” within the area.
Mr. Rowe said local officials told him the water level in the area could actually continue to rise over the course of the next three to six days, and as such Arkema, which is based in France, believes the chemicals will start to degrade well before that happens.
(Source - WSJ)
Here are a couple of things I take from that.
1. Apparently there's intense flooding 25 miles north and east of Houston. This gives us a sense of the extent of the flooding. Further this tells us that this disaster is still wildly underappreciated by the general populace of the US, the MSM, and my Twitter and FB 'friends' who are still msotly talking about other things.
2. The waters are still going to rise for an extended period of time, three to six days more, and that's important info.
Here's a map of Crosby TX whee the Arkana plant is located:
My conclusion is that if we are hearing about this one plant's imminent explosive troubles, how many "non exploding plants" are we not yet hearing about which are in similar trouble in terms of operational damage?
A betting person would guess that the Arkana plant represents the tip of the iceberg in this regard.
The economic impact of Harvey is going to be extreme. I predict it will be much larger than Sandy or (especially) Katrina.
Why? Because of the immense size of the Houston economy and because of the ripple effects associated with the various supply chain and feedstock disruptions that have yet to be tallied but are surely already in progress.
Here’s a great summary to chew on:
The Houston metropolitan area, with a population of well over 6 million, has nearly five times the number of people as the New Orleans metropolitan area. More significantly, Houston has more than five time as many jobs as New Orleans, 3.06 million to 578,000. And they tend to be well-paying jobs. The Houston metropolitan area gross domestic product in 2015 was $503 billion, compared with $78 billion for New Orleans. For any retailer or large e-commerce company, the Houston region likely represents close to 3 percent of annual sales.
Houston, America’s fourth-largest city, has a massive, diversified economy.
Sure, New Orleans sits near the mouth of the mighty Mississippi River and is an important entrepôt and site for export of raw materials, agricultural commodities chemicals, and petroleum products.
But Houston is a larger, busier, and far more important node in the networked economy.
Economies derive their power and influence from their connections to other cities, countries, and markets. And Houston is one of the more connected. It is one of the global capitals of the energy and energy services industries. The Johnson Space Center has 10,000 employees. Houston is home to the headquarters of 20 Fortune 500 companies and the massive MD Anderson Cancer Center.
The two airports, George H.W. Bush Intercontinental Airport and William P. Hobby Airport, combined handle about 55 million passengers annually, about five times the number that Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport does.
Yes, there’s a degree to which consumption and other economic activity that is forestalled or foregone during a flood is consumption and economic activity deferred. And cleanup efforts tend to be additive to local economies.
But in today’s economy, a lot of value can easily be destroyed very quickly. With only a small portion of the housing stock carrying flood insurance, billions of dollars in property will simply be destroyed and not immediately replaced. People who get paid by the hour, or who work for themselves, won’t be able to make up for the income they’re losing a few weeks from now. Hotel rooms and airplane seats are perishable goods—once canceled, they can’t simply be rescheduled. Refineries won’t be able to make up all the time offline—they can’t run more than 24 hours per day.And given that supply chains rely on a huge number of shipments making their connections with precision, the disruption to the region’s shipping, trucking, and rail infrastructure will have far-reaching effects. If you’re a business in Oklahoma or New Mexico, there’s a pretty good chance the goods you are importing or exporting pass through the Port of Houston.
(Source - Slate)
A lot of good points in there. It's helpful to think of airline seats and hotel rooms as 'perishable goods.' Once forgone, they cannot be recouped.
Houston may represent ~3% of any given chain's national sales.
The impact on hourly workers and the self-employed will be profound in many cases, especially given the huge number who are already living paycheck to paycheck.
But it's the interconnected, supply chain ideas that are probably the most important. Also the hardest to appreciate or predict. We'll just have to wait and see.
A few thoughts and questions.
Anybody got any stats on how much of Houston is not flood-affected? In terms of numbers only and ignoring for the moment the human tragedy in all of this, for the nation’s 4th-largest city, the total number of affected properties doesn’t seem huge. Am I wrong?
That said, yes, the repair bills will be massive. Whoever said that repairing the damage will boost the economy is not entirely wrong. Were the funds being used for anything else anyway? How long the day of reckoning has been postponed is anyone’s guess.
Chris observed that in his local newspaper Harvey news is on page 6. Not surprising; compared to Katrina this is a slow-moving disaster and the death toll seems much smaller. Seems. One wearies of the MSM making something lurid when maybe it’s not.
I’ve been reading the stories about the total lack of preparedness on the part of so many people. Not surprising; the MSM have been telling us for years that everything is ship-shape, no need to worry, just keep buying the stuff and life will be good. Prepare? Prepare for what? Good lessons here for we PP folk.
Seems to me that the weather system has in effect dropped a colossal bomb on Houston. We are so puny.
That article was from a military parody site.
There might have been a few clues, including “duffleblog” being the source, the dialects written in the extreme into the quotes, and a few other things.
On a different note, I have some thoughts about the houston problem… I’ll reply to Chris’ posts.
A few thoughts and questions.
Anybody got any stats on how much of Houston is not flood-affected? In terms of numbers only and ignoring for the moment the human tragedy in all of this, for the nation's 4th-largest city, the total number of affected properties doesn't seem huge. Am I wrong?
I lived in Houston for 10 years. Worked at Johnson Space Center a couple of years & went to med school there. Lived all over the city, and know it well. Those were the days I ran 50 miles a week. I distinctly remember Houston is extremely flat from all those years of running. Thus, I've got to believe very few areas have been completely spared. I suspect property damage is going to be unbelievable. Not only are there 6.5 million people in the Houston metro area, Land area wise, Houston is larger than New Jersey & almost as large as Massachusetts. Btw, the Texas Medical Center in Houston is the largest medical center in the world.
Many disasters are sprints. This disaster is going to be a long, drawn out marathon.
Chris, regarding the economic impact, didn’t we just hear about banks being told not to mark to market bad energy debt? True or not, it is true to form: the moral hazard being considered less important than not crashing the economy today.
In line with that, I now note that the insurance companies are prepping for “we won’t pay”. In which case, the banks will have a lot of walk-away non-performing debt. Yet they likely won’t mark to market, so these properties are likely to sit empty for some time.
That, in turn, is going to fuel a very high cost of living for employees of companies that choose to stay… which in turn should force a mass exodus from Houston by the companies (long term) and some serious hits (short term).
Yet maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Houston, being very libertarian about their growth plan (no zoning, for example!) will recover quickly: people will pay for their own recovery, having the assets they need when they need them, and the Houston economy there will boom. We’ll see.
What do I look for as an indicator? If the housing market crashes – because indeed the value of the land crashes after a severe flood – then I expect things will look horrid, and actually be really good. If, on the other hand, the housing market holds its value, then I expect that in fact the economy has been shut down completely in order to serve the needs of the Economy.
In that case, I expect companies to get out of Houston as fast as they can. But also in that case, I expect that those who can provide housing alternatives, will do very well. Look for suburbs of Houston that didn’t get hit to boom.
Just waiting and watching…
Irma expected to be hurricane by week’s end (August 30, 2017)
“What worries meteorologists is that the storm will track very close to a latitude and longitude in the tropical Atlantic that historically proved a turning point for threats to the islands and the U.S. coast. It’s also not yet clear whether the high pressure system, or a low pressure trough, will win out in a tug of war over which direction it takes.” http://www.miamiherald.com/news/weather/hurricane/article170153002.html
Poet
I suspect the environmental impacts of the flood will be minized and somewhat covered up, not unlike Fukushima but on a smaller scale. Before the flood, Houston was already one of the worst cities for general pollution & carcinogenic pollutants. There are an unbelievable amount of chemical companies and refineries in the area. When I lived there in the 1990’s I saw several locations which were abandoned due to hazardous waste, including some abandoned neighborhoods near abandoned jet fuel plants. All this flooding is going to spread pollutants all over the place. It only takes small amounts of some of these pollutants to cause problems.
On another topic that other people have already written about, having nearly 7 million people in a place like Houston is not viable because of its susceptibility to Hurricanes & flooding. This is the exact reason evacuating was not a real option for most people. What happens when just 2-3 million people start evacuating north out of Houston to escape a Hurricane? When this very thing happened in 2005 105 evacuees died in the process even though the Hurricane completely missed Houston. The highways became huge parking lots from the massive congestion. Many people ran out of gas stuck in traffic. Gas stations ran out of gas. People were literally dying of heat stroke while stuck on the interstate. It was a mess. Had there been an evacuation order for Harvey there would have been catastrophic consequences.
