You gulf coasters okay?

Hmmm.

I'm going to assume that we don't have any members who live along the gulf coast then.

But what about edgarblythe. Isn't he in Tomball, or somewehere around there? Has anyone seen him post so that we know he's okay?

mac11 is the middle of that mess

wmcjr is also in the target area

just heard from edgar's wife




(blah so I can post the same thing in 2 places)

Please let Edgar and Edgar's wife know we're thinking of them . Let's hope they weather this storm with no damage or disruption.

Thanks ehBeth. I hope they're still okay.

My Corpus sister is fine, back home, relatively little damage.

My Houston sister is a mess. They're still dry but life isn't easy for them right now.

Texas Lawmakers Who Voted Against Relief for Hurricane Sandy Now Ask For Help With Harvey
All of a sudden, Ted Cruz is a big fan of disaster relief.

Ashley Dejean

http://www.motherjones.com/

Before Hurricane Harvey hit this weekend, Texas senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn sent a letter to the president urging him to sign the major disaster declaration that had been requested by Gov. Greg Abbott, so the state could access key federal resources as swiftly as possible.

“Given the potential catastrophic impact that the Hurricane may have on Texas communities,” the senators wrote, “we strongly support this request and urge you to provide any and all emergency protective measures available by a major disaster declaration.”

The irony of this request was not lost on lawmakers from states that had been devastated by hurricane Sandy in 2012. At that time, Texas lawmakers overwhelmingly voted against recovery assistance for New York and New Jersey. When asked about that hypocrisy today on MSNBC, Cruz dodged the question. “There’s time for political sniping later,” he said. “I think our focus needs to be on this crisis and this disaster.”

Rep. John Culberson, whose district includes parts of Houston, was the only Texas Republican in Congress to support the $50.7 billion relief effort after the 2012 storm. The total damage was estimated to be $65 billion to assist in recovery for states from NorthCarolina to New England—with New Jersey and New York suffering the greatest devastation. (Culberson’s district has been hit hard by Harvey, and according to an investigation last year by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, it has been especially vulnerable to hurricanes.) Both Cruz and Cornyn had opposed the Sandy aid, citing concerns about additional spending—which consisted of funding for disaster preparedness and relief in other parts of the country as a way to garner more support for the relief effort.

“Hurricane Sandy inflicted devastating damage on the East Coast, and Congress appropriately responded with hurricane relief,” Cruz said in a statement at the time. “Unfortunately, cynical politicians in Washington could not resist loading up this relief bill with billions in new spending utterly unrelated to Sandy.”

Despite the lack of support from their Texas colleagues five years ago, several lawmakers from New Jersey and New York are stepping forward to say they’ll support additional appropriations for The Lone Star State’s recovery, which was estimated to be $40 billion by CoreLogic, a company that conducts property and financial analysis. But they made this estimate when the storm was still expected to be a category 3 event. The storm was upgraded to Category 4 when it made landfall Friday night.

“Despite my Texas colleagues’ refusal to support aid in South Jersey’s time of need, I will support emergency disaster $$ for those impacted,” Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ) wrote in a tweet.


Rep. Pete King (R-NY) promised not to abandon Texas and made a reference to Cruz’s attack on “New York values” on the campaign trail.


Cruz would be smart to ask for the kind of aid he opposed after Superstorm Sandy—it would give Texas additional money to get ready for such devastating storms, which appear to be getting more frequent.

OK here, little damage but no electricity other than at a friend's office, week to two weeks to get back to normal. 140 mph winds, sounded like pandemonium, sections of fences down, roof tiles lying around all over, new roof time no other damage. Most of city without electric, Houston much worse off.

LaRouchePAC
Hurricane Exposes Huge Costs of Not Promoting the General Welfare
Aug. 29 (EIRNS)—After Hurricane Katrina killed thousands of Americans in 2005, made hundreds of thousands homeless, and cost an estimated $130 billion in economic losses, new flood-control and seagate infrastructure was built—at last—for New Orleans at a fraction of even the economic costs. More importantly, it would have prevented some of the human costs.
After plans for seagates to protect New York Harbor, projected to cost $9 billion, were set aside, Superstorm Sandy killed 117 people in 2012 and cost $65 billion in economic losses. Its damages to New York’s obsolete transportation system were NOT reconstructed, and that system’s collapse has turned into a life-threatening crisis in the past year.
The plan of the Harris County Flood Control Authority for a new flood control infrastructure to “harden” the Houston area against its repeated flooding disasters, was most recently estimated to require $26 billion in investment. Since this was not done, Houston’s people are suffering an immense “natural disaster,” whose economic costs may equal Katrina’s $130 billion, and in which the loss of human life and livelihood still can’t be told.
During Franklin Roosevelt’s Presidency and through the 1940s, the new infrastructure to prevent such “natural disasters”—such as the Tennessee Valley Authority—was funded by national credit through the Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the Works Progress Authority. Hurricane Harvey could be the national alarm which ends 70 years in which the country has gone without any such national credit institutions.
President Trump, who toured Texas today and will return on Saturday, said, “The real [funds] number, which will be many billions of dollars, will go through Congress. It will happen very quickly.” This will require a thoroughly bipartisan vote which isolates the “no government” wing of “Cruz Republicans.” And it will fund neighborhood reconstruction, but not the new infrastructure needed.
Trump also said, “Every asset at my command is at the disposal of local officials.”
Houston is flooded by water up to 8-10 feet deep, except for the center of downtown and a few residential areas, and is now bracing for a “second pass” of the storm overnight and tomorrow, after it doubled back over Galveston Bay. The two reservoirs in the county’s flood-control system overflowed in all directions Tuesday, and the Brazos River overtopped its levees into residential areas. Houston’s small and unpumped drainage canals and bayous—which were to be multiplied, widened, and provided with pumps in the neglected $26 billion new infrastructure plan—have all flooded, and its highways have become unintentional drainage canals. At least one bridge has fallen, and highways will fail.
FEMA director Long estimates that 30,000 people will have to be rescued to prevent their drowning, and that half a million will need Federal assistance to recover their homes and livelihoods. As of Tuesday, 15 people had been confirmed drowned or killed by hurricane debris. These could well be low estimates. Thousands of rescue personnel are involved, including all of Texas’s National Guard and Coast Guard, National Guard units from other states, and FEMA personnel. U.S. Army units are also mobilized, should Texas call for them.
About 15% of U.S. port capacity is shut down in Houston and Corpus Christi ports, with damage unknown; East Texas highways and rails are under water. National freight traffic has already been affected, and this will have international trade impacts as well. More than 20% of U.S. oil refinery capacity is shut in, with damage unknown.

There is a severe question of priorities inherent in our spending 57% of discretionary funds on military things while our infrastructure and we have no borders with neighboring countries.

Can't you save the wooooo for later?

Thumb up for that!

Chemical Plant Near Houston Warns It’s About To Explode

Flooding swamped backup generators, and volatile chemicals are getting warm enough to ignite. “There’s no way to prevent it,” the CEO said.
By Ryan Grenoble

A fire or explosion in the next few days at a flooded chemical plant on the outskirts of Houston is virtually inevitable, its CEO warned on a call with reporters Wednesday.

The Arkema Inc. factory in Crosby, Texas, 20 miles northeast of downtown Houston, lost power early Sunday, which it needs to refrigerate volatile chemicals. Those chemicals ignite if they get too warm ― something likely to happen in the next six days, Arkema North America CEO Richard Rowe said.

“Materials could now explode and cause a subsequent intense fire,” Rowe said. “The high water that exists on site, and the lack of power, leave us with no way to prevent it.”

“We’re really blocked from taking meaningful action,” he added.

The company powered its coolers with backup generators at first, but they were overwhelmed by water and have failed, leaving the chemicals to warm.

Residents living within 1.5-mile radius of the plant were evacuated Tuesday, along with a skeleton crew of Arkema workers who had stayed behind during the storm in case of an emergency.

Arkema manufactures organic peroxides at the Crosby plant. According to a safe storage manual by AkzoNobel, a rival chemical manufacturer, that class of chemicals is considered “highly combustible.” At high ambient temperatures, “a violent combustion or thermal explosion” is possible, the manual says.

Arkema is among dozens of chemical plants and refineries in the Houston area, many of which have sustained damage in this week’s flooding, causing harm to residents’ health and the environment.

One of the first things I noticed when I moved to Texas five years ago (originally from the Washington DC area) was that the driving in Texas was substantially more polite than I was used to. For instance, I use my horn about once every couple of months in Texas; a day never went by in the DC area in which I didn't use horns while driving.

See if you can believe this: in and around Victoria Texas for the last several days most traffic signals have been down or reduced to blinking status, most are simply not working at all and, yet, the traffic is actually flowing BETTER than it does when the traffic signals are working. People are simply behaving in a rational and polite/civilized manner and taking turns going through intersections.

People from Texas obviously don't see anything unusual in this but to a person from the mid-Atlantic (such as myself), the sight is pretty much astonishing. I mean, I'm trying to picture the same situation in northern Virginia or suburban Maryland... My guess is that there would be dead bodies lying around all over the place, pyramids of skulls, and lakes of human fat like when the Mongols invaded North China in 1208.