Stop Blaming Houston’s Libertarian Zoning For Hurricane Harvey’s Destruction

[corbe]

Stop Blaming Houston’s Libertarian Zoning For Hurricane Harvey’s Destruction 

The media is determined to blame Houston's urban developers for the hurricane's devastation. That isn't a comprehensive, balanced understanding of the situation.

By Gracy Olmstead   
September 4, 2017
 
As floodwaters have finally started receding from the Houston area, leaving disaster and dilapidation in their wake, many have attempted to explain why and how such catastrophe happened. There’s the more obvious answer: Hurricane Harvey was a downpour of monumental proportions. Twenty-one trillion gallons of water had fallen on Texas by Tuesday night. Just shy of 52 inches of rainfall had covered Cedar Bayou, Texas, by Tuesday—breaking the record for rainfall in the continental United States, and nearly surpassing the overall U.S. record for rainfall set by Hurricane Hiki in Kauai, Hawaii, in 1950.

This was a big storm. It was inevitable that it would wreak havoc on the inhabitants of Houston and surrounding small towns.

But that’s not the explanation most media outlets are offering. Instead, they’re pointing to Houston’s libertarian-minded urban planners as the culprits for Harvey’s damage. Perhaps one of the most pointed instances of this blame game was found in Tuesday’s episode of the New York Times podcast, The Daily:

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http://thefederalist.com/2017/09/04/stop-blaming-houstons-libertarian-zoning-hurricane-harvey/

[Smokin Joe]

Dump that much rain in that little time virtually anywhere, and there are going to be problems.

Harvey dumped epic, record amounts of rainfall. Period. There is a limit to what will soak in, what can run off, period. Put this on cliffhanger California, and it would all come out the wash--at the bottom of the hill. Put it on the prairie, and a levee will likely breach somewhere, put it in the mountains most any place, and the valleys will fill. It's just too damn much water dumped on anyplace on land for normal drainage to cope with.

[thackney]

Dump that much rain in that little time virtually anywhere, and there are going to be problems.

Harvey dumped epic, record amounts of rainfall. Period. There is a limit to what will soak in, what can run off, period. Put this on cliffhanger California, and it would all come out the wash--at the bottom of the hill. Put it on the prairie, and a levee will likely breach somewhere, put it in the mountains most any place, and the valleys will fill. It's just too damn much water dumped on anyplace on land for normal drainage to cope with.

Imagine these places receiving our ~50 inches of rain in a few days.

Maps Show What Harvey's Rainfall Would Look Like in Other Cities
https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/harvey-rain-look-like-new-york-los-angeles-florida-seattle-houston-charleston

[Smokin Joe]

You'd be able to cross the Hudson on rat carcasses, but the subways would fill up.

No place is set up for that kind of rainfall.