I used to live in Houston, from 1998 to 2012. In that time, I experienced three hurricanes, and one tropical storm that drowned a lot of people. The first one was the tropical storm in 2001 that dropped about 30" of rain on Houston in 24 hours. People drowned in elevators, parking garages, and culverts. Next was Hurricane Rita in 2005, a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina in NOLA. Millions of Houstonians tried to evacuate in advance of Hurricane Rita, only to find themselves stuck on outbound interstates with no water and no gas. People died from heat exhaustion in that traffic jam, but the hurricane went east to Mississippi instead of hitting Houston.
A few weeks prior, I had experienced the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, where my partner's father had been living. We cleaned out his house which had been flooded four feet deep. The father, who was then in his 80s, had been evacuated to a hospital, but the hospital lost power for days, and for a while, my partner did not know where his father was or if he was even still alive. It turned out he had been flown from a hospital in New Orleans to a nursing home in Alabama. The house had to be bulldozed: it was not salvageable.
Then in 2008, Hurricane Ike hit. By that time I had learned to leave by airplane well before the hurricane, and I went back to TN while my partner stayed in Houston (his choice). He had no power for more than a week. It was just lucky that the temperatures were moderate that September. But the roof blew off his office building and his office was flooded. The flooding on Galveston Island killed live oaks that were over a hundred years old.
A few years later, I left Houston to live in TN again. I had decided that Houston had become unlivable. The constant weather disasters, the intense heat, the huge bursts of mosquitoes that made it impossible to be outside, the toxic fumes from the refineries, the traffic, the long commutes, the noise from elevated freeways, the muggings: it was all just unbearable. There would be a few months in winter when Houston was fairly pleasant but the rest of the time it was like some form of hell.
My partner stayed, though, and he died of cancer in 2015, like so many of his friends had already.
In 2017, Hurricane Harvey flooded Houston. Tom was dead by that time, but other friends had to live through that. I'm glad I got out "in time." It's hard for me to understand why people stay, and why they are loyal to a city that doesn't seem to care at all about its human inhabitants. It was built for cars. Cars are the real citizens of Houston, and the humans are just there to service the cars and the refineries that run the cars and the hospitals that treat people who die of cancer because of the refineries and the cars.
Where I live now is not perfect: we've had intense heat this summer, and some storms that knocked down trees, and a drought in June. A few years ago, there was a tornado that killed some people on one side of town. But 90% of the time, everything is fine. In Houston, 90% of the time it was pretty stressful.
I suggest that, instead of spending our dwindling resources "rebuilding" to satisfy a nostalgic view of how things "used to be," we start planning for a future that will get steadily worse. I'm not an engineer, but rainfall and river flow can be directed. We could salvage more of our civilization that way.
We need to become 'rock beavers' making small check / fill basins in every watershed...much like Joe and Valer Austin started with El Coronado Ranch in 1982
A basic human failing is that we assume things will always be as they have always been. It makes adapting to fundamental change, like the climate crisis very challenging. We have always rebuilt after disasters. We always will, with the generous help of the government. But what happens when the disasters keep coming, bigger and faster and everywhere all at once? What happens when the government runs out of money, or decides it has rebuilt your town too many times? Can we adjust our thinking for a new future?
I understand the importance of disaster relief. What I don’t understand is why so many people continue to burn the dirty oil, gas and other fossil fuels that are responsible for the climate change that causes these extreme weather disasters. Especially when there are so many available sources of clean energy such as solar panels, wind power, and electric air-sourced heat pumps.
If anyone on this site can explain this to me I would be very grateful.
Another question is why we don't come together and fix things?
I've not found a complete answer other than my own. Denial is the strongest of coping strategies, until a greater force can over come it. Even then, the new power may not.
Totally agree with the set back to 'normal' is getting longer and longer. Living through the 'eye' (covering Biloxi and Long Beach, MS) of 1969's Camille, I still have issues with high winds. Only the steady of trades of Hawaii kept me soothed, but the Santa Anas of SoCal with fire incidents are a nightmare. Any smoke is triggering. I don't enjoy barbecues and teach solar cooking to avoid combustion.
I remember the month and years of Camille's recovery period and see the years needed to come from our Wildfires (Thomas fire was in our sights for days).
Despite all the effort and money put into the house making it more resilient(20years work), now I only want a buried dome home.
After the Northern Rivers flood in 2022 here in Australia, 5,303 homes were left uninhabitable, and 14,637 homes damaged. On top of an existing housing crisis. The local action group says promised recovery funds have not reached people - and only 686 buybacks and 1 house raising have occurred.
The colossal “black summer” fires in Australia were years ago now but there are still some towns where only a fraction of houses have been rebuilt.
We are also seeing short but severe storms felling trees like the one in The Dandenongs near Melbourne.
I'm glad you were able to skip at least one evening's drivel from DT; we can only dream of him fading away like last year's fashion. Here in West Michigan, the storm that came through a while back (a couple of weeks before Beryl) took out quite a number of century-old trees in residential areas surrounding Muskegon Lake.
Here's an odd fact: when a large storm comes through and knocks down these old trees, the tree-slaughtering crowd rises up and says, "Look at the damage to homes!! We need to cut down these big trees near the houses so this doesn't happen again!" and boom - thousands of trees get wiped out, which gives the planet fewer tools to combat the problem. Meanwhile, of course, the tree-slayers are using their gas & oil powered chain saws that spew even more carbon into the atmosphere. Talk about a lose-lose situation!
As for the orange dinosaur who wants to resurrect his tenancy behind the Resolute Desk - let's just say America will get the leader it deserves. I wonder if Norway will accept immigrants from the US - I hear they like electric cars there.
I hate that pattern of storm followed by cutting of perfectly healthy old trees. People are afraid of the wrong things. They fear trees but not cars which kill people daily in accidents and are killing us slowly by destroying the climate we depend on.
These are the early stages of complete collapse. I too, dwell in the northeast, mostly spared from the worst effects of climate change to date, but I remember Irene years ago and its wind and high water that devastated a portion of upstate NY. Trees were blown over for miles on one drive along a rural creek in Schoharie County. In Rensselaerville, the water reached 60 feet high in a canyon, the mud covering trees. The destruction was heartbreaking, but of course it was nothing compared to what's happening now in so many places. The cumulative effect on communities large and small, and increasing agricultural failure globe over, are scary portents of worse locked in to come. The stakes cannot be higher in this election. Hope for saving a liveable planet ends if Trump takes office again.
There is survival value in accepting and adapting to climate disasters, but this is based on the premise that these events are out of our control and cannot be slowed by our mitigation efforts. In British Columbia, I do not see news of the forest fires ravaging the province. First I heard of them was a report on Bloomberg talking about impacts to the oil patch. So, I guess forest fires are not newsworthy any more?
You make a good point, and one that is often overlooked due to the natural tendency toward maintaining an 'optimistic' attitude for our society's sake. But wishful thinking, just like blind obedience is not going to cut it in the hell-scape we are responsible for creating; in fact it really becomes another significant compounding driver. Add in the never ending growth and overpopulation expectations and a very real 'compassion fatigue' sets in and undermines our best human instincts for cooperativeness that made us survivors - to this point, at least.
I cannot even begin to fathom the scope of what you’re enduring. And can’t even find words that could in any way give comfort or support. At a minimum I hope you stay safe, sound, and dry for a good while.
I used to live in Houston, from 1998 to 2012. In that time, I experienced three hurricanes, and one tropical storm that drowned a lot of people. The first one was the tropical storm in 2001 that dropped about 30" of rain on Houston in 24 hours. People drowned in elevators, parking garages, and culverts. Next was Hurricane Rita in 2005, a few weeks after Hurricane Katrina in NOLA. Millions of Houstonians tried to evacuate in advance of Hurricane Rita, only to find themselves stuck on outbound interstates with no water and no gas. People died from heat exhaustion in that traffic jam, but the hurricane went east to Mississippi instead of hitting Houston.
A few weeks prior, I had experienced the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, where my partner's father had been living. We cleaned out his house which had been flooded four feet deep. The father, who was then in his 80s, had been evacuated to a hospital, but the hospital lost power for days, and for a while, my partner did not know where his father was or if he was even still alive. It turned out he had been flown from a hospital in New Orleans to a nursing home in Alabama. The house had to be bulldozed: it was not salvageable.
Then in 2008, Hurricane Ike hit. By that time I had learned to leave by airplane well before the hurricane, and I went back to TN while my partner stayed in Houston (his choice). He had no power for more than a week. It was just lucky that the temperatures were moderate that September. But the roof blew off his office building and his office was flooded. The flooding on Galveston Island killed live oaks that were over a hundred years old.
A few years later, I left Houston to live in TN again. I had decided that Houston had become unlivable. The constant weather disasters, the intense heat, the huge bursts of mosquitoes that made it impossible to be outside, the toxic fumes from the refineries, the traffic, the long commutes, the noise from elevated freeways, the muggings: it was all just unbearable. There would be a few months in winter when Houston was fairly pleasant but the rest of the time it was like some form of hell.
My partner stayed, though, and he died of cancer in 2015, like so many of his friends had already.
In 2017, Hurricane Harvey flooded Houston. Tom was dead by that time, but other friends had to live through that. I'm glad I got out "in time." It's hard for me to understand why people stay, and why they are loyal to a city that doesn't seem to care at all about its human inhabitants. It was built for cars. Cars are the real citizens of Houston, and the humans are just there to service the cars and the refineries that run the cars and the hospitals that treat people who die of cancer because of the refineries and the cars.
Where I live now is not perfect: we've had intense heat this summer, and some storms that knocked down trees, and a drought in June. A few years ago, there was a tornado that killed some people on one side of town. But 90% of the time, everything is fine. In Houston, 90% of the time it was pretty stressful.
This is so important. I heard somewhere that ancient humans didn't fathom the concept of living past age 35.
I hope you do well.
I suggest that, instead of spending our dwindling resources "rebuilding" to satisfy a nostalgic view of how things "used to be," we start planning for a future that will get steadily worse. I'm not an engineer, but rainfall and river flow can be directed. We could salvage more of our civilization that way.
We need to become 'rock beavers' making small check / fill basins in every watershed...much like Joe and Valer Austin started with El Coronado Ranch in 1982
A basic human failing is that we assume things will always be as they have always been. It makes adapting to fundamental change, like the climate crisis very challenging. We have always rebuilt after disasters. We always will, with the generous help of the government. But what happens when the disasters keep coming, bigger and faster and everywhere all at once? What happens when the government runs out of money, or decides it has rebuilt your town too many times? Can we adjust our thinking for a new future?
Awful, Bill. Please be safe.
Sigh... My poor home state is headed into uncharted territory. As if farmers don't have it hard enough. I feel so much sadness for them.
I understand the importance of disaster relief. What I don’t understand is why so many people continue to burn the dirty oil, gas and other fossil fuels that are responsible for the climate change that causes these extreme weather disasters. Especially when there are so many available sources of clean energy such as solar panels, wind power, and electric air-sourced heat pumps.
If anyone on this site can explain this to me I would be very grateful.
Another question is why we don't come together and fix things?
I've not found a complete answer other than my own. Denial is the strongest of coping strategies, until a greater force can over come it. Even then, the new power may not.
I hope this resolves quickly for you.
Totally agree with the set back to 'normal' is getting longer and longer. Living through the 'eye' (covering Biloxi and Long Beach, MS) of 1969's Camille, I still have issues with high winds. Only the steady of trades of Hawaii kept me soothed, but the Santa Anas of SoCal with fire incidents are a nightmare. Any smoke is triggering. I don't enjoy barbecues and teach solar cooking to avoid combustion.
I remember the month and years of Camille's recovery period and see the years needed to come from our Wildfires (Thomas fire was in our sights for days).
Despite all the effort and money put into the house making it more resilient(20years work), now I only want a buried dome home.
After the Northern Rivers flood in 2022 here in Australia, 5,303 homes were left uninhabitable, and 14,637 homes damaged. On top of an existing housing crisis. The local action group says promised recovery funds have not reached people - and only 686 buybacks and 1 house raising have occurred.
The colossal “black summer” fires in Australia were years ago now but there are still some towns where only a fraction of houses have been rebuilt.
We are also seeing short but severe storms felling trees like the one in The Dandenongs near Melbourne.
I'm glad you were able to skip at least one evening's drivel from DT; we can only dream of him fading away like last year's fashion. Here in West Michigan, the storm that came through a while back (a couple of weeks before Beryl) took out quite a number of century-old trees in residential areas surrounding Muskegon Lake.
Here's an odd fact: when a large storm comes through and knocks down these old trees, the tree-slaughtering crowd rises up and says, "Look at the damage to homes!! We need to cut down these big trees near the houses so this doesn't happen again!" and boom - thousands of trees get wiped out, which gives the planet fewer tools to combat the problem. Meanwhile, of course, the tree-slayers are using their gas & oil powered chain saws that spew even more carbon into the atmosphere. Talk about a lose-lose situation!
As for the orange dinosaur who wants to resurrect his tenancy behind the Resolute Desk - let's just say America will get the leader it deserves. I wonder if Norway will accept immigrants from the US - I hear they like electric cars there.
I hate that pattern of storm followed by cutting of perfectly healthy old trees. People are afraid of the wrong things. They fear trees but not cars which kill people daily in accidents and are killing us slowly by destroying the climate we depend on.
It isn't easy to move to Norway but there are some paths: https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnikel/2023/03/01/need-a-fresh-start-heres-how-to-move-to-norway-in-2023/
These are the early stages of complete collapse. I too, dwell in the northeast, mostly spared from the worst effects of climate change to date, but I remember Irene years ago and its wind and high water that devastated a portion of upstate NY. Trees were blown over for miles on one drive along a rural creek in Schoharie County. In Rensselaerville, the water reached 60 feet high in a canyon, the mud covering trees. The destruction was heartbreaking, but of course it was nothing compared to what's happening now in so many places. The cumulative effect on communities large and small, and increasing agricultural failure globe over, are scary portents of worse locked in to come. The stakes cannot be higher in this election. Hope for saving a liveable planet ends if Trump takes office again.
There is survival value in accepting and adapting to climate disasters, but this is based on the premise that these events are out of our control and cannot be slowed by our mitigation efforts. In British Columbia, I do not see news of the forest fires ravaging the province. First I heard of them was a report on Bloomberg talking about impacts to the oil patch. So, I guess forest fires are not newsworthy any more?
Thank you for all the reporting that you do. It's so sad to keep hearing these stories over and over at such a rapidly increasing rate.
the economics/mechanics of the problem are essentially this:
Humankind does not have resource-means to resist the opposing forces of nature.
but many of us remain convinced that we have
You make a good point, and one that is often overlooked due to the natural tendency toward maintaining an 'optimistic' attitude for our society's sake. But wishful thinking, just like blind obedience is not going to cut it in the hell-scape we are responsible for creating; in fact it really becomes another significant compounding driver. Add in the never ending growth and overpopulation expectations and a very real 'compassion fatigue' sets in and undermines our best human instincts for cooperativeness that made us survivors - to this point, at least.
Greetings from Chautauqua! We're looking forward to hearing you again!
I cannot even begin to fathom the scope of what you’re enduring. And can’t even find words that could in any way give comfort or support. At a minimum I hope you stay safe, sound, and dry for a good while.