Hurricane Harvey

[soupcxan]

Will stores start returning to normal tomorrow?

 

[LOL!]

Re: Stores: Depends on stores and employees.

H.E.B.: H-E-B stores to close early Tuesday - The Courier
Many H.E.B. stores are open. Our Krogers are open.

H.E.B. in Montrose is open. One can almost map areas which flooded and which did not from the H.E.B. list.

Talk to your neighbors.

 

[REWahoo]

I still hear talking heads saying, "Houston should have been evacuated." Here is a blog post that does a good job of explaining why that would have been a very bad idea:

...outsiders really have no concept of how large this state is, and even more they have no concept of how large our cities are. The Houston metropolitan area would fill up most of the state of Connecticut, and at 6.5 million people, there are more than 30 states with smaller populations.

Think about that for a moment: getting the population of the entire state of Missouri out of an area the size of Connecticut in 48 hours. You can't travel south (Gulf), southeast (Gulf), or southwest (storm making landfall). You have, at most, five major roads capable of bearing heavy traffic to the cities with the capacity to take in refugees. The two nearest cities with significant evacuee capacity and experience are Austin, around 150 miles away down a lot of four-lane divided state highway, and San Antonio, about 200 miles from downtown on the Interstate. Initiating a mass evacuation on that scale in under two days is just not possible. The laws of math and traffic deny it, even with contraflow.

People Need To Stop Yelling at Houston

 

[Capwest28]

It's a paywall article anyway.

Obviously you did not click on it.

 

[Capwest28]

A 100 year flood is an event that has a 1% chance of happening within a given year. A 500 year flood is one that has a 0.2% chance of happening in a given year. They probably should have named them something less confusing. Most people think a 100 year flood happens once every 100 years since the name somewhat implies it.

Thank you Ronstar.

 

[LOL!]

I still hear talking heads saying, "Houston should have been evacuated."

I heard them saying:

Heard about Houston
Heard about Detroit
Heard about Pittsburgh P.A.
You oughta know not to stand by the window
Somebody see you up there
I got some groceries, some peanut butter
To last a couple of days
...
This ain't no party, this ain't no disco,
This ain't no fooling around

 

[Zathras]

That is an excellent point. However, another thing to remember is that the odds are based on the past.
There are other factors that will make heavy rainfalls more damaging in the future. So the odds of many of these disasters continue to go up.

 

[LOL!]

I do think people were caught off guard by the heaviest rain that occurred overnight Sunday, so they were surprised when they woke up Monday morning.

Clearly, many places in Houston did not flood and if the Sunday rains happened during the day folks might have evacuated to a dry area of Houston before underpasses were flooded.

 

[W2R]

I still hear talking heads saying, "Houston should have been evacuated." Here is a blog post that does a good job of explaining why that would have been a very bad idea:[/URL]

Evacuating a major city would not be an easy matter. Even if it is somehow done, and done fairly well, I suspect that some people would still find fault.

 

[FlaGator]

Ah, the evacuation myth.....

Dealt with that while responsible for an office in SoFla in 2004-5. Bosses were in SoCal with no concept of life on a different coast.

Good article explaining the challenges with that. Applies, with appropriate adjustments, to every major metro area.

After gaming possible scenarios, concluded it is best to stay put and deal with it as it develops.

No good options, but bailing early and coming back to a flooded or otherwise destroyed house is worse to me than having the opportunity to preserve the most important things-even if ultimately unsuccessful

 

[aja8888]

Obviously you did not click on it.

Yes I did. And the forum doesn't allow naked links anyway.

 

[MRG]

I still hear talking heads saying, "Houston should have been evacuated." Here is a blog post that does a good job of explaining why that would have been a very bad idea:



People Need To Stop Yelling at Houston

Human's ability to do that is about 0%!. I used to walk down 11 floors with 1200 people in the building during a fire drill. You know how well that works? With zero plans(at least the evacuation team told folks where to go)?

I remember my FIL/MIL living on Marathon Key, FL when Andrew hit. It never hit the Keys but they were originally told to evacuate North(towards Homestead!). They went through a tank of gas and never drove 10 miles.

 

[Texas Proud]

I do think people were caught off guard by the heaviest rain that occurred overnight Sunday, so they were surprised when they woke up Monday morning.

Clearly, many places in Houston did not flood and if the Sunday rains happened during the day folks might have evacuated to a dry area of Houston before underpasses were flooded.

IMO, no.... the news was very clear on the amount of rain we were going to get... they were also very clear that it would rain more during the night than the day do to falling temps...


Some people just will not evacuate.... the ones that will did....

BTW, there was one lady that was interviewed who had her house flooded before.... they asked why she did not leave... she said the neighborhood had agreed on where people were going to go and she had a 'dry house'.... one that had never flooded before... well, it flooded...


People just cannot picture almost 3 feet of water falling on an area of land that is hundreds if not over one thousand square miles....


I think the people who got hit with super storm Sandy did not appreciate the power of a major storm... people who lived by the ocean stayed... and houses were not built to withstand a storm like that... at least here many houses near the beach are built to withstand a minor hurricane... not much can withstand a major one...

 

[NW-Bound]

Evacuating 6.5 million people is tough!

Not a traffic engineer or a transportation expert, so I have to look up some numbers. The theoretical maximum saturation flow rate per lane is 1,900 vehicles per hour. That's about 2 seconds per vehicle, so that's about right. That's assuming no accidents, no cars breaking down, no running out of gas.

For a 4-lane freeway leading out of town, the capacity is 1900 x 24 x 4 = 182,400 cars/day.

Now, if we pack 6 persons in a car, moving 6.5 million people still need 1.1 million cars. It's likely more than 2 million cars.

Now, how many freeways leading out of town going north or west?

 

[Texas Proud]

Another reason that evacuation was not feasible.... when it happened a few years back there were over 100 people killed in auto accidents... most people ran out of gas stuck on the freeway... there were people that were on the freeway for over 20 hours...

So, lets tell 6 million people to get in their cars, get in the largest traffic jam in the history of the world and have them sit in their cars when the worst of the storm hits.... yep, that is smart....


They also did advise people in flood prone areas to leave....

 

[meierlde]

Evacuating 6.5 million people is tough!

Not a traffic engineer or a transportation expert, so I have to look up some numbers. The theoretical maximum saturation flow rate per lane is 1,900 vehicles per hour. That's about 2 seconds per vehicle, so that's about right. That's assuming no accidents, no cars breaking down, no running out of gas.

For a 4-lane freeway leading out of town, the capacity is 1900 x 24 x 4 = 182,400 cars/day.

Now, if we pack 6 persons in a car, moving 6.5 million people still need 1.1 million cars. It's likely more than 2 million cars.

Now, how many freeways leading out of town going north or west?

To answer the question Potential evacuation freeways are I -10 to San Antonio, US 290/Tx 6 to Austin/Waco, I 45 to Dallas and i69/US 59 to Texarkana. I 10 east is to close to the coast, and US 59/I 69 sw of town goes thru evacuation areas also going thru Victoria. Note that in addition to folks from Houston, you do potentially need to evacuate the Coast from South of Corpus to Houston. (Which is where the storm came ashore as a cat 4).
Tx on the contra flow capable freeways now has 5 lanes as they have widened a the shoulder on the outbound side of the freeway and set it up so it can be a lane if needed. So you get 20 lanes more or less out of Houston, some of which pick up additional traffic as you go (in particularly the routes to the west, although at least US 59/I69 would pick up traffic from Beaumont/Port Arthur. so 20 lanes*1900 is 38000 vehicles per hour, or
about 912k per day, So assuming 2 people per car (folks would like to evacuate the cars also) that 3 full days. Or turning the equation around assuming you want to move 3 million vehicles in 2 days that would require
1.5 or so times the current capacity without figuring the folks from elsewhere along the coast than Houston. Note that the plans do envision stationing tanker trucks for fuel along the routes, and go so far as to spell out which police department is responsible for which traffic direction. Note that the documents assume a 45 mph speed in the evacuation.
In reality for a storm you would probably want to just have folks in the Se and E side of Houston Evacuate for a tropical event.

A bit more, it appears from the documents that it takes about 8 hours after the decision to have the contraflow lanes ready, as you have to clear the lanes block exits and entrances not to be used, station police and exits/entrances to be used on the contraflow lanes etc.

 

[NW-Bound]

I did not follow the news during Rita, but just now looked at some videos of the evacuation on youtube.

It seems to me one would be better off taking some country roads if available, rather than the congested freeways. Once on the freeways, if you are stuck, there's nowhere to go. The reporters were talking about people taking 15 hours to go 13 miles.

 

[Meadbh]

OK, I'm convinced that evacuating millions of people by car from an area like a Houston is not practical. Let's dig down. My understanding is that the city, always prone to flooding, has expanded greatly in recent years. Is Houston too big to be safe? Because this will happen again. As sea levels rise, cities that have never flooded will do so.

 

[Texas Proud]

I did not follow the news during Rita, but just now looked at some videos of the evacuation on youtube.

It seems to me one would be better off taking some country roads if available, rather than the congested freeways. Once on the freeways, if you are stuck, there's nowhere to go. The reporters were talking about people taking 15 hours to go 13 miles.

You seem to assume that people were not stuck there either....

I can tell you that the road to my house was packed... I was not sure I was going to make it home... also, I was kinda low on fuel and the gas lines were WAY long... I did not get gas for a few days and even then the pump was SLOW and it took 20 minutes to fill up...


For the 4 to 5 million (or more) people that will not get flooded, it is much safer to stay put... the only problem is the kids get stir crazy....

 

[Katsmeow]

FM 2978 closed due to possible damage to Spring Creek Bridge - The Courier
This is a big deal for locals. 2978 bridge over Spring Creek may have been damaged.

Oh. That is interesting. I drive on that road quite often. I can avoid it ... especially once 45 is working.

I did not follow the news during Rita, but just now looked at some videos of the evacuation on youtube.

It seems to me one would be better off taking some country roads if available, rather than the congested freeways. Once on the freeways, if you are stuck, there's nowhere to go. The reporters were talking about people taking 15 hours to go 13 miles.

Yeah, that is a good idea...but it didn't work either. We decided to evacuate in Rita. (Ironically, we lived near Addicks Reservoir and in an area not at all flood prone. That subdivision had water in its houses today). Anyway, we had to take 2 vehicles because we had 3 kids and an au pair and 2 dogs and several cats. We didn't go by freeway for just the reason you suggested.

We thought that would be less congested. It took us 4 1/2 hours to go about 4 miles. I drove one car and DH the other. We realized that it wasn't going to work. We would run out of gas long before we got out of town. Finally we reluctantly turned around and went back home (back home in 10 minutes).

 

[NW-Bound]

OK, I'm convinced that evacuating millions of people by car from an area like a Houston is not practical. Let's dig down. My understanding is that the city, always prone to flooding, has expanded greatly in recent years. Is Houston too big to be safe? Because this will happen again. As sea levels rise, cities that have never flooded will do so.

Sea level rise is measured in inches, and does not explain the flooding problem. According to NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), "in 2014, global sea level was 2.6 inches above the 1993 average".

On the other hand, an article on CBS says that "the number of downpours measuring at least 10 inches have doubled over the last 30 years".

Yeah, that is a good idea...but it didn't work either...

... It took us 4 1/2 hours to go about 4 miles. I drove one car and DH the other. We realized that it wasn't going to work. We would run out of gas long before we got out of town. Finally we reluctantly turned around and went back home (back home in 10 minutes).

Well, at least you were able to turn around, compared to people stuck on the freeway. They had nowhere to go.

 

[akck]

We sure did pick a great time to be in Houston. Our oldest son's family recently moved to the area and we came down to help them unload the moving van and unpack in their new house in Pearland. We were scheduled to fly out Saturday, but our flight was cancelled, likely due to potential thunderstorms (they didn't happen until after the scheduled departure).

On Friday, our son got nervous, so we went looking. Most of the cheap water was gone from Sam's Club, but we were able to get a couple of high end boxes. Friday night wasn't bad, so the next morning, he went to Costco, which was also sold out, but a new shipment arrived while they were at the store. They were able to get 18 gallons, making my son happy. While it rained Saturday night, the storm drains were able to handle it.

Our rescheduled flight on Sunday was also cancelled (incoming flight ended up in Dallas). With rain and thunderstorms starting up again, we decided to put the cars in the garage. That meant moving all the boxes into the house and moving other big items to the sides of the garage.

On Monday morning, we woke up about 18" of water in the road, which was high enough to cover half the driveway. So from this point on, we've been stuck in the house. Fortunately, we still have electricity and water. The water level even dropped through the day. That afternoon, it just poured and the water level rose quickly. We spent the night putting everything we could off the floor.

We also packed our gogo backpacks. We'd likely stay in the house if it flooded, but we wanted to be ready for an evacuation order. One thing I noticed was that water level stopped rising about 8' from the garage, although it continued to rain hard for a couple of hours. I speculated that the water found another outlet, either by design or luck, keep it from rising further.

We went to sleep while it continued to rain hard, prepared to get wet feet when we woke up. Fortunately, it was a lighter rain and the water level was down and continued to drop through the day. The whole neighborhood was relieved as several of us were surveying the road and estimating when we'd be able to drive our cars out. The next door neighbor said he'd open his two story house if the first floor flooded (maybe 2/3 are single level).

So far, we've survived Harvey. We're now scheduled to fly out Sunday, after our Wednesday flight was cancelled. I think we'll be able to drive out Wednesday as our food supply is getting low (remember, newly purchased home). We'd still be okay because my son has two 30-day emergency food buckets he moved from Maryland.

 

[Alan]

With Rita we were planning to evacuate to our daughter's house in Austin, 150 miles away. We lived in The Woodlands, 20 miles north of Houston's main airport. By the time we had secured our IT infrastructure and being given the go ahead to leave at work there seemed like loads of time, plus we were traveling on side roads. After 3 hours we had gone no more than 15 miles, but at least we were able to turn around and drive back home to wait out the storm.

 

[LOL!]

We sure did pick a great time to be in Houston.
[…]
So far, we've survived Harvey. We're now scheduled to fly out Sunday, after our Wednesday flight was cancelled. I think we'll be able to drive out Wednesday as our food supply is getting low (remember, newly purchased home). We'd still be okay because my son has two 30-day emergency food buckets he moved from Maryland.

Good for y'all. Did power stay on? Water from the tap OK? We didn't even fill up 32-gal rubbermaid brute containers w/lids in our showers like we usually do. These contain our hurricane supplies when not filled with water. The lids let us continue to shower and keep the water potable.

I was in NY for Sandy and airports remained closed for a few days afterwards partly because airport workers could not get to them. I got a 9 hour ride to Pittsburgh (it snowed on the way) and flew home from there. The drive included a stop to identify a dead body in a town with no power. Although gas lines were long in NY/NJ, we didn't need gas until well into PA.

In Houston, the Ike evacuation went much better than the Rita one, so Houston has a plan that can work.

 

[Car-Guy]

We thought that would be less congested. It took us 4 1/2 hours to go about 4 miles.

We would run out of gas long before we got out of town. Finally we reluctantly turned around and went back home (back home in 10 minutes).

Been there, done that. As I mentioned in an earlier post, for hurricane Rita, we tried to evacuate and sat on freeway for ~10 hours and I don't think we moved 5 miles. We gave up, turned around and we were home in 20 mins. Then we watched the evacuation on TV.

From the freeways, you could see the lines at the gas stations seemed to go on for blocks. Or maybe those were lines to get to a restroom?