Tag: hiya harvey

swampdiamonds replied to your post : BTW – anyone who starts complaining about ‘why…

YES, god, “but why didn’t they just leeeaave” makes my blood boil.

YES. Someone says that and I want to smack them. 

Maybe because they don’t have transportation, or a relative/pets/business/something they can’t or feel they shouldn’t leave behind. (Those I know that stayed, it was because of that or because like me lived inland enough. Heck, the owner of the newborn calf Harvey- he runs a boarding kennel so he was staying- and shaking his head as so many people who were evacuating Corpus were leaving their animals at his facility) Maybe they don’t have the cash set aside to pay for an extended trip out of town. Or maybe, just maybe, they know how jam-packed crowded the evacuation routes out of town might be, especially if trying to leave the day of, with rain already coming down and the roads dangerous to drive on. And that with everyone trying to get out -regular Houston traffic is bad enough- just imagine everyone stuck in their cars as the floodwaters hit instead of their houses.

Maybe because they remembered that of the 113 who died in Texas because of Hurricane Rita, 107 were related to trying to evacuate the city (if you look specifics, most causes tied into the heat-wave before the hurricane hit).

BTW – anyone who starts complaining about ‘why didn’t the Houstonians evacuate/why are so many people stranded’ – Go look up on many people died when Hurricane Rita hit East Texas a few years ago and they were told to evacuate instead of stay. I’ll wait. Then look at the levels of flooding,compare it to what it is now as to what it was during Rita or Allison, and recognize that the city of Houston is situated in low-lying swampland and how the city is constructed, the flood waters to drain out of the city must flow along the highways. Second-guess the mayor telling people to stay in place all you want, but know the logistics of why. Then recognize that the greater majority of the over one million people in Houston don’t have the financial ability to flee- or had the time to do so safely. Same reason why 40% of Rockport stayed. Heck- there are people stuck in Houston because they were trying to evacuate out of the immediate path of Harvey.

Not sure what I’m going to do for my birthday tomorrow except eat the cake I bought today and see about joining my mom in driving over to Ingleside to check on one of her friends and see what we can do to help them out. They have a generator so they have power as of right now. We’ve been lucky.

A map for those curious:

image

Port Aransas still has no cell, power, water, or sewage. 

(For the curious, I’m roughly the same distance Ingleside is from that point labeled Corpus Christi- but in the opposite direction inland along the Nueces River. Whether the damage from Hurricane Harvey was serious or not literally was this difference of what side of the bay)

For anyone wanting another ‘heget live update from harvey-affected texas’:

Mostly clear skies right now and what I’d call a normal windy Corpus Christi day (remember, our daily average is constant winds at around 10 mph). 

Twenty miles ‘in-town’ to the actual coast/the actual city of Corpus Christi and its communities on the barrier island and across the bay on the north side, yes there is damage ranging from ‘nearly untouched’ to ‘tree branches fallen and power-lines down’ to ‘houses gone’. Power is still out in some of those regions and the bulldozers are trying to clear streets so crews can get in to assess the damage. (The main power for the city proper is an older style system and they bring their power in from Victoria and that region of Texas, aka where the flooding is. So, like, zero surprise that the power is out still for a couple places)

By the way- for a majority affected by the storm, this isn’t an affluent region. (That’s …a bit of an understatement) At least the southern half on the Gulf Coast.

Depends on the petroleum refining industry, shrimping fleets, and tourism (especially birds and boating), some meat-packing. Infrastructure tends to be out-of-date or lacking. That is to say, it will be curious to see how long some areas take to be rebuilt/recover.

Houston and areas around that city are flooding, and pretty badly at that. But please remember that this fourth largest city in the United States is sitting in what is basically a giant drainage basin swamp, and the city floods multiple times a year. BAYOUS. Richmond, Texas had major flooding earlier this summer. All four years I had to drive back and froth from college in East Texas, the highway along El Campo south of Houston was almost always under water or about to become so. Because of the amount of rainfall right now and because it had already been close to flooding before Harvey came ashore, yes, the water levels and the number of people facing flooding damage and stranded is far greater than normal. The situation is ugly but not unprecedented. 

And if people would stop trying to cross the flooded roads in their cars it would be a lot better, jfc.

Victoria is also flooding; again that’s a city where frankly it’s common for that to happen. Texas has a lot of rivers, a lot of cities built on the rivers, and a lot of cities built on those rivers that have problems when run-off on those rivers cause the banks to rise.

One more post-Harvey report: my mom’s friend who lives out on Oso Bay (south side of Corpus Christi on mainland across from Mustang Island, so also out of the worst of the hurricane’s path) messaged to say he and all his animals were okay. Turns out one of the cows had her calf during the night, so he named the bull-calf Harvey.

Rain came back for a bit – right now the total for my location is less than three inches. Wind and location means that winds are sucking any moisture in the air out to sea and back up and around to dump rain on Victoria and Houston. The wind is still averaging 30mph and higher. Damage last night was almost all wind damage at the south end of town/out on the islands or further up the coast at Ingelside/Rockport.

Wifi still not back. Satellite tv never failed on me, though people lost their cable (go figure).

Staying inside, will gladly message with anyone because I have little else to do.

Live feed of shoreline and the marina – almost no visible damage to any of the boats, buildings, roads. The Selina Memorial statute doesn’t have her life vest on anymore (that was adorable).

edit- got footage of how leveled Rockport is. Houses smashed. And twenty miles south in Corpus Christi – look at the two-story houses barely touched, all the boats perfectly fine. “Feels like a bad day to play golf”

Watching local news – video in town showing minimum building damage. Some trees down. Minor debris. Looks like the causeway over to Port Aransas barely damaged. Rockport was badly hit – but reports unsure if people were in that high school.

Had the storm make landfall twenty miles south of where it did, actually hitting Corpus, it could have been a catastrophe. But with the majority of the heavy rain bands on the other side, at least where I am, I have no rain. Still windy, a bit more than normal (and I’ve mentioned again and again what CC considers normal wind).

Houston will flood, but that city is a bowl that floods easily, there was nothing to do to stop that from happening.

News reports – yeah bayous flooding Houston already. Here in Corpus, no rain, almost no flooding