HOUSTON: LAND OF DROUGHTS AND FLOODS

I agree that we need to help Houston get back on its feet, but in the recovery, I think as a nation we need to consider that Houston do some things to help itself if American tax payers are to bail them out.  I mean Harvey aside , Houston seemingly has floods almost every year.

Texas has always been a land of weather extremes—in 1927, an unnamed National Weather Service meteorologist famously said "Texas is a land of perennial drought, broken by the occasional devastating flood”—but what’s happening now seems more extreme than ever. The current floods are happening just five years after the driest year on record in Texas, in which statewide rainfall was just 14.88 inches. Brenham, Texas, about 50 miles northwest of Houston’s suburbs, got more than that in just one day last week.*

For southeast Texas, this is at least the sixth major flood in just the past 12 months. Houston received more than 10 inches of rainfall in May, June, and October of 2015, and in April and May of this year, and has already racked up more than 7.5 inches in the first two days of June. (It’s still raining there as I type this.) April’s “Tax Day” deluge in Houston was estimated by the local flood control district to be a one-in-10,000 year rainfall event.*

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Texas has seen some of the most drastic change in the United States, with Houston registering a 167 percent increase in the biggest downpours since the 1950s. Combined with rapid population growth and a laissez faire urbanization policy that prioritizes parking lots over flood control, Houston is nearing a breaking point. At the moment, the region’s reservoirs are fulll and unable to release more water without adding to the deluge. With land prices cheap, acres of swamp and grasslands are being cleared for more subdivisions—cutting into the city’s natural defenses and creating a billion-dollar flooding problem. A drive into Houston these days is a glimpse of a future where weather has gone wild.*

Flooding in Houston seems to be a common event.  Here is a report from 2016 (Just last year and well before Harvey)*  One recent flood is named the Tax Day Flood (2016) and another the Memorial Day Flood (2015).  Then there was the "hundred year flood " of 2012.***

The 2015 storm impacted more of central Houston, and the heaviest areas reported between 11 to 12 inches. Again, the only event that compares  [until Havey]- since at least the 1960s - was the July 2012 storm [also before Harvey]. **

But wait, there is more.  The standard seems to be Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 with  23 deaths.*** And, oh, did I mention Hurricane Ike in 2008?  Hurricane Ike was the 4th most costly storm on record at $35 billion pl;us 74 killed in Texas after Katrina $160 (2005),**** Sandy $70 billion (2012), and Hurricane Andrew  $48 billion (1992) .

* http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/06/03/historic_floods_in_houston_texas.html 
 http://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/article/How-floods-compare-7330750.php

** https://www.cbsnews.com/news/100-year-rainfall-event-drenches-houston-area
*** https://weather.com/storms/severe/news/houston-flood-history-may2015-allison/
**** https://weather.com/storms/severe/news/houston-flood-history-may2015-allison