Hurricane Harvey 17

[JedClampett]

Not an engineering disaster, but there's going to be engineering fallout.

 

[dik]

IRS: There are areas in India, the Bay of Bengal that have received (record) over 1000" of rainfall in a year and often have 800" of rainfall annually. Way too much water... close to 80'.

My condolences to all those affected; Harvey can have a huge and costly impact-personal as well as financial. Also, I'm a Climate Change person, and Harvey may just be a harbinger of the future... Repairs should address the future climate conditions... it appears that from the damage done by Katrina, that repairs were modest and some not yet undertaken.

Dik

 

[MFJewell]

Lots of flooding around here. Luckily, my neighborhood didn't see any flooding, but a mile or two down the road is under water. I'm sure lots of my coworkers have been impacted since many of them live in areas that were severely flooded. Haven't been to work since last Friday (my work location is adjacent to Brays Bayou in the medical center). That area had 4 feet of water in the road. Most of the local stations are calling this event an 800 year flood event. Ironically, I think we had a 500 year event last year. So much for those odds.

And now they are dumping the reservoirs, the Corps should have been dumping them a week ago.

Those reservoirs are normally dry parks/nature observation areas. There was nothing to dump a week ago.

 

[waross]

One aspect of a major disaster that I had never considered nor been aware of is the impact on the working poor.
I was called in to restore power to the island of Guanaja among the bay islands of Honduras after the island was hit four times in four days by Hurricane Mitch.
We got temporary power connected to a seafood processing plant and about 75 working poor went back to work.
We got the second seafood plant up and running and another 100 people went back to work.
Guanaja is a small island and those jobs were the majority of the displaced working poor.
Getting those people back to work was a major boost to the local economy.
It was a nice feeling.
On a scale of 1-5 Mitch was a 6.

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[SLTA]

Whatever we call it, I hope the loss of life is not unnecessarily high.

Some of us might consider ANY loss of life to be "unnecessarily" high.

Please remember: we're not all guys!

 

[msquared48]

My mother in law and her boyfriend are 90+ year old snowbirds.

They are here right now, but maintain a residence on Spring Texas too.

His daughter cannot get to the house to see the condition.

They may be here for some time to come...

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)

 

[Spartan5]

Some of us might consider ANY loss of life to be "unnecessarily" high.

This may well be the case. Unfortunately all the engineering in the world won't stop some people from making stupid decisions or taking ill-advised risks (AKA "I don't need the government to tell me what to do, I gonna 'ride it out'"). Hence my qualifier.

 

[dik]

M^2:

Enjoy...

Dik

 

[IRstuff]

It's typically not economically feasible to design things for zero hazard. If you consider the current state of the flooded parts Houston, everything would need to be on 15-ft stilts.

So regardless of whether people consciously or unconsciously run the math, they typically decide to bet on the come, and as in craps, the roller will eventually lose.
Whether it's Texas and floods, or California with earthquakes, we're all betting that disaster won't strike in our lifetimes.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[JohnRBaker]

Talked to our son this morning. He says that the water has dropped about a foot in his neighborhood but that other housing tracts near his have had rescue operations underway in them and that families have had to be evacuated by boat to the local high school, including several friends of his daughters. So far he says that he has never lost power, although his cable TV and internet service is out.

His company is trying to reopen as many of their local restaurants as possible (they have three in the greater Houston area over which our son is directly responsible) so he's going to attempt to drive in to one of them where the flooding has not been as bad so as to help to try and get it open, but that's still about 15 miles from where he lives.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[JAE]

IRstuff - don't forget about Tornadoes - We here in the US midwest live under a constant "threat" of them - primarily spring and early summer.

But FEMA gives us this assurance that the chance of an F5 tornado is small:

Check out Eng-Tips Forum's Policies here:
faq731-376

 

[SnTMan]

No need to worry about a 5, an EF2 will do plenty of damage, as recently demonstrated. Great thing about a tornado, 3 minutes, it's over, you are good, or not.

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[epoxybot]

If the "Not Invented Here" mindset counts, then maybe we can consider this a a computer science engineering disaster. Apparently the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts did have Hurricane Harvey forecast days in advance of the National Weather Service. Link

Sharing is Caring Link

 

[msquared48]

dik:

You are so much an optimist!

Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)

 

[dik]

Thanks Mike...

I knew it wasn't going to happen... I was just hoping... same thing with some of the remedial work with Katrina, I understand.

You're missing the most important monkey, "Do No Evil."

Dik

 

[itsmoked]

although his cable TV and internet service is out

How do they keep the will to live?



Keith Cress
kcress -

http://www.flaminsystems.com

 

[zdas04]

One of the issues is that no one had ever thought that 2 to 3 feet of rain could fall in one place in one or two days. NOAA has stated that this has never occurred.

I don't know why NOAA makes these stupid statements. In addition to the above, one NOAA spokesman called Harvey a "500 year storm". In both 1900 and 1935 water levels in Houston reached more than twice the height of the predicted water levels from Harvey. Don't get me wrong, 40 ft of water in Downtown Houston is a very big deal, and the economic impact will be staggering (maybe even unprecedented due to the current population density in the Greater Houston area), but there were 2 hurricanes in the 20th century that put more water on the ground in Houston than Harvey will.

The hyperbole from NOAA and the media is making me sick, while the individual acts of bravery and kindness being reported make me proud to be an American. The folks-helping-folks stories are coming out by the thousands, a very different atmosphere than Katrina in New Orleans, but Houston is a very different place than New Orleans.

[bold]David Simpson, PE[/bold]
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[IRstuff]

David, where are you getting this information?

1900 hurricane hit Galveston and killed as many as 8000 people:

http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/b...es-in-Texas-history-9195162.php#photo-7635528

1935 hurricane hit Florida, killing 408 people:

http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/b...es-in-Texas-history-9195162.php#photo-7635528

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Texas_hurricanes_(1900–49)

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list

http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm

 

[zdas04]

The 1935 flood is described well at 1937 report on 1935 Houston flood. A listing of flooding in Houston says that this event caused water levels in the bayous to crest at 52 ft above normal (Harvey is expecting a crest about 28 ft above normal).

The listing above just says "Major hurricane makes landfall in Galveston. Harris County experiences widespread flooding" about the 1900 Hurricane that killed 6000-8000 in Galveston. The story that the bayous crested at 56 ft in Harris County was from a Facebook post that may or may not be accurate.

Harvey is horrible, but it isn't a 500 year storm or in any way unprecedented.

[bold]David Simpson, PE[/bold]
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[epoxybot]

Here is a link to KHOU "LIVE" Link

 

[JohnRBaker]

I just talked to my son and he says that it's sunny and clear in Katy (25 miles West of Houston).

As for their attempt to get at least a few of their restaurants open, he said someone at corporate has had second thoughts and while he did manage to finally get to the store closest to his house, all they did was clean-up spoiled food (there was no damage whatsoever to the building).

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without