For those interested in what the Dutch have done, you might find this link interesting.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sea-change-how-the-dutch-confront-the-rise-of-the-oceans-2/
The video is above the article and is narrated by Jane Pauley.
@dragonmom, supposedly they have a plan for everything, with a huge list ranging from volcanic activity, tsunamis, to social unrest. I don’t see anything on their list that looks particularly likely, except for cyber disruption and localized flooding and landslides. Then again, if they run out of coffee at Starbucks, our entire social fabric could crumble… 
Here is another animal relief group that could use assistance. The web page isn’t as updated as their FB page is - they got all the Harvey rescue animals out and are looking for a space to house them in the Dallas area, which is their home base. You can donate and they also have an amazon wish list.
https://www.dallasdogrrr.org/
And another donation suggestion a teacher friend shared:
http://blogs.houstonisd.org/news/2017/08/29/national-groups-can-donate-supplies-to-hisd-students-and-families/
That’s correct. When I bought a block of condominiums in Houston several years ago I was surprised to learn that the property was subject to no governmental zoning restriction whatsoever; the only land use controls were by private deed restrictions.
Yeah, I too, heard that Houston has essentially zero zoning limits.
Also, another discussion that needs to be had after this latest natural disaster is the question of why federal monies are doled out multiple times to property owners who keep rebuilding in the same location. I saw a map of the states with the most flood insurance claims in the last ten years. No surprise that nearly all were the coastal states, and states with the largest populations in the Union. Reportedly one property owner filed claims for four floods in 5 years! I really don’t care for journalist John Stossel but he raised a good point years ago. Why do we compensate, with pubic dollars, people who keep taking the risk of confronting nature again and again? Even Stossel, who owned an oceanfront home on Long Island said it didn’t make sense policy-wise, but he nevertheless filed claims himself because it was perfectly legal and economically rational…for property owners, not the taxpaying general public!
My town has zoning and flooded. As the mayor of Houston just said given there were 50" of rain if we had zoning we would have been a town with zoning that flooded. Sorry the city is where it is. Do we move everyone from states with earthquakes, rivers, snowstorms, tornados and hurricanes. Instead if talking about helping people talk about blame and gripe. People here are blaming much less than you far away. I’m proud of TX and all the states that helped immediately. I feel a lot of you are being pretty insensitive to those affected. I will quit following this post!
Nothing is going to stop flooding when a city gets 50 inches of rain, but Houston’s lack of zoning and development controls allowed far too much permeable land to be paved over, which makes floods worse. The rain’s gonna fall, but a city that leaves more permeable land drains better and has less runoff.
@88jm19 That is Martha Teichner reporting. I posted the link to the same story earlier (Post #130).
Guess they shouldn’t have built Interstate 10 since that flooded in multiple locations…
There is a huge gap between declaring people can’t build in any possible disaster prone area, and allowing developers to build whatever they want, wherever they want, with no intelligent planning or restrictions whatsoever. It doesn’t have to be one way or the other. You may not be able to prevent destruction from historic events, but you can lessen their impact.
@JazzyTXMom linked a great article and it sounds like some Florida cities are taking notice:
Southwest Airlines emailed me to say I can donate my Rapid Rewards (i.e., frequent flyer) points to people helping in Texas. Does this seem like a reliable donation?
You should read the fine print. I saw today that a lot of charities use a disaster like this as a type of marketing opportunity. They send out requests/have ads for donations but none of the aid will likely be used to help anyone in the Harvey affected areas. Its just a way of using the focus on charity at this time to the advantage of the charity and helping people in need generally. I do not have an issue with that as long as its disclosed clearly. And I saw that spelled out in a couple of ads I saw this morning. Some people may not care if the aid is used in connection with Harvey but others may.
I like to give to Direct Relief. They provide medical supplies and their website says 100% of Harvey donations will go to aid for Hurricane Harvey.
To a degree, donations may well be fungible and money is always fungible. So that they use it for Harvey may not mean very much. They could have just as easily used it elsewhere freeing resources for Harvey victims.
Oh, no. I just heard that Arkema, one of the chemical plants near Houston, is warning that its facility may explode, given the failures in its backup electrical and refrigeration systems.
Arkema makes organic peroxides - very unstable, flammable, and explosive chemicals. The news report I heard says they’ve evacuated residents in the area because of the “certainty”(?) that the plant will explode and burn.
OMG that is really bad.
(A side note: NBC did not need to go cutsey with the headline. This is serious stuff)
What do you make of this @BunsenBurner?
Or this?
Ooh, one of the comments linked this article from 2014 - when AG Abbott (now the Governor) got the brilliant idea to NOT require chemical plants to disclose anything to their neighbors. I bet he made sure he didn’t live near one first.
They definitely should have had some measures in place to prevent runaway processes from happening in the first place. I wonder if those measures did not include a possibility of a major flood leaving them with this:
"“We have an unprecedented 6 feet of water throughout the plant.” (From the link in my post).
I suspect that adding any quenchers mentioned by the prof is not practically possible without any power and with 6 feet of water in the floor.