OT: 58th Obsequious Banter Thread - Something Something Leier

[Embiid]

Attempting to rob a place in Texas just seems like a bad idea all around given that a good proportion of the population probably own firearms down there.

Westworld...

 

[flyershockey]

It's kind of crappy that the mayor of Houston is getting blasted for not issuing mandatory evacuations. To his point, once they knew Houston was going to get trounced, it would have been too late to put 2+ million people on the roads out of town.

I have family both north of Houston in the Spring/Woodlands area, and on the south side of the city. Parts of the area are fine, and others are under several feet of water. It really just depends on where you are.

 

[Embiid]

It's kind of crappy that the mayor of Houston is getting blasted for not issuing mandatory evacuations. To his point, once they knew Houston was going to get trounced, it would have been too late to put 2+ million people on the roads out of town.

I have family both north of Houston in the Spring/Woodlands area, and on the south side of the city. Parts of the area are fine, and others are under several feet of water. It really just depends on where you are.

Yeah chaos could have ensued....but I'm sure some kind of better planning could have occurred. Not sure what though...not a FEMA expert. I am sure it will come out though..hindsight

 

[YEM]

that mayor is/was in a tough spot, hindsight being better than 20/20

what's getting me all pissy is Ted Cruz and his cohorts in Texas asking quickly for federal funds [deservedly so] but they all made a big deal of voting against these same type of funds for NY/NJ/CT when Sandy hit...

 

[flyershockey]

Yeah chaos could have ensued....but I'm sure some kind of better planning could have occurred. Not sure what though...not a FEMA expert. I am sure it will come out though..hindsight

For sure, but there's only so much the local, state, or even federal government can do during such a massive natural disaster. You're talking about millions of people leaving and needing be housed, fed, etc. for days and even weeks. And that's just scratching the surface of the issues.

It's a logistical nightmare that no one can handle.

 

[deadhead]

What happened to the storm? My wife told me it was knocked down to a category 1 almost immediately after hitting landfall. Did it gain strength again or something?

It basically stalled near the coast, and picked up Gulf moisture and kept dropping on the Houston area, now the main rain bands are hitting Lake Charles and S. Louisiana.

While the models don't suggest Global Warming will increase the number of tropical storms, it will increase heavy rain events like the one we're seeing - warmer Gulf of Mexico water and warmer air means more moisture for storms, thus more rain.

 

[Beef Invictus]

Yeah chaos could have ensued....but I'm sure some kind of better planning could have occurred. Not sure what though...not a FEMA expert. I am sure it will come out though..hindsight

There is not a single major city in the US that could plan for this with the level of notice ahead of time and wide area of impact. Especially the sheer scale of flooding.

 

[BackToTheBrierePatch]

It's kind of crappy that the mayor of Houston is getting blasted for not issuing mandatory evacuations. To his point, once they knew Houston was going to get trounced, it would have been too late to put 2+ million people on the roads out of town.

I have family both north of Houston in the Spring/Woodlands area, and on the south side of the city. Parts of the area are fine, and others are under several feet of water. It really just depends on where you are.

yeah in his defense the storm intensified very quickly and by the time it had become apparent that a major catastrophe was going to happen it would of been made much worse by putting that many folks on the road.
I hope common sense is used when dealing with this at all levels once the storm finally clears out.

 

[deadhead]

If you've ever driven in Houston traffic, no way they're gonna get that place evacuated in 24 or 36 hours, which would have meant hundreds of thousands of cars on the road when the heavy rains hit - which would have resulted in massive loss of life.

All it takes is a couple cars to run out of gas, break down, etc. and you have a massive bumper to bumper traffic jam, and if you saw the images of major highways underwater, well, . . .

 

[deadhead]

that mayor is/was in a tough spot, hindsight being better than 20/20

what's getting me all pissy is Ted Cruz and his cohorts in Texas asking quickly for federal funds [deservedly so] but they all made a big deal of voting against these same type of funds for NY/NJ/CT when Sandy hit...

Definition of Government waste: money spent on other people.

 

[Embiid]

One thing I know is that we kind of suck at disaster preparedness in general compared to some countries. We are more reactive than preventitive and depending on what admin is leading the country and how much funding they appropriate it can be pretty bad. Katrina was a debacle. I was reading about how Cuba prepares its people for hurricanes and it is pretty impressive for such a poor country. They prepare knowing Hurricanes are inevitable...we hope and pray they don't occur like the last 12 years.

 

[Halladay]

It's kind of crappy that the mayor of Houston is getting blasted for not issuing mandatory evacuations. To his point, once they knew Houston was going to get trounced, it would have been too late to put 2+ million people on the roads out of town.

I have family both north of Houston in the Spring/Woodlands area, and on the south side of the city. Parts of the area are fine, and others are under several feet of water. It really just depends on where you are.

There are certain spots of the city that should have been evacuated as a precaution (ones close to the bayous and at lower ground). Now they are issuing evacuations but no one can really get anywhere by road since they are all flooded. There is an area in Sugar Land close to where I work that is now under a mandatory evacuation because the Brazos River is going to blow.

Those saying that the entire city should be evacuated are wrong, no way can close to 6 million people leave an area in a few days, it is a logistical nightmare. Plus where would they go, this is a massive storm that impacted Austin and San Antonio to a degree.

 

[Beef Invictus]

One thing I know is that we kind of suck at disaster preparedness in general compared to some countries. We are more reactive than preventitive and depending on what admin is leading the country and how much funding they appropriate it can be pretty bad. Katrina was a debacle. I was reading about how Cuba prepares its people for hurricanes and it is pretty impressive for such a poor country. They prepare knowing Hurricanes are inevitable...we hope and pray they don't occur like the last 12 years.

As someone who works closely with EMAs including FEMA and DHS this is flat-out false.


We have a wide variety of possible disasters spread over a huge chunk of land and a large population. All of that has to be planned for, and there are people doing exactly that day-to-day as their jobs. And, how can you prevent something like this? It can't be done. There is no preventative measure that anybody would reasonably sink billions of dollars into that can deal with 40-50 inches of rain. What other country might has the potential for a hurricane like this, a massive wildfire, a massive earthquake, and a massive blizzard all in the same year?

Frankly, the notion of "prevention" is silly. Mitigation is the name of the game, and tons of money gets sunk into that around the country at local, state, and federal levels.


Cuba is good at hurricanes because they get them a lot. You know who else is good at hurricanes? Florida. Florida can handle large hurricanes with minimal federal aid. However, basically the entire Gulf and East Coast is vulnerable to possible huge storms without getting them all the time. Practice counts for a lot. Theory and planning are there, but the majority of states don't have much chance for practical experience.

 

[flyershockey]

There are certain spots of the city that should have been evacuated as a precaution (ones close to the bayous and at lower ground). Now they are issuing evacuations but no one can really get anywhere by road since they are all flooded. There is an area in Sugar Land close to where I work that is now under a mandatory evacuation because the Brazos River is going to blow.

Those saying that the entire city should be evacuated are wrong, no way can close to 6 million people leave an area in a few days, it is a logistical nightmare. Plus where would they go, this is a massive storm that impacted Austin and San Antonio to a degree.

What part of the Houston area are you in? My parents are in the Woodlands and we were having the exact same conversation earlier today. What were 6 million people going to do? Live in their cars in Dallas for a week?

Even the 2 million in the most heavily affected areas would have been a nightmare trying to get out of the city. There's no doubt that this storm going to take some lives, but it could have been disastrous if people were caught outside in it when the floods started, especially on the highways which are now in a lot of places completely flooded over.

 

[Embiid]

As someone who works closely with EMAs including FEMA and DHS this is flat-out false.


We have a wide variety of possible disasters spread over a huge chunk of land and a large population. All of that has to be planned for, and there are people doing exactly that day-to-day as their jobs. And, how can you prevent something like this? It can't be done. There is no preventative measure that anybody would reasonably sink billions of dollars into that can deal with 40-50 inches of rain. What other country might has the potential for a hurricane like this, a massive wildfire, a massive earthquake, and a massive blizzard all in the same year?

Frankly, the notion of "prevention" is silly. Mitigation is the name of the game, and tons of money gets sunk into that around the country at local, state, and federal levels.


Cuba is good at hurricanes because they get them a lot. You know who else is good at hurricanes? Florida. Florida can handle large hurricanes with minimal federal aid. However, basically the entire Gulf and East Coast is vulnerable to possible huge storms without getting them all the time. Practice counts for a lot. Theory and planning are there, but the majority of states don't have much chance for practical experience.

You are correct...Mitigation is more the proper term. That was my bad with semantics. Cuba is the example of proper mitigation hence why I used it as an example. All I know is we better start getting better at mitigation bc these supposed century type storms are becoming more frequent. Heck places like Bangladesh and Miami better start figuring out how to completely transfer populations because in our children's lifetimes those places will be Waterworld.

Btw..you have to however take into account Federal funding....it does ebb and flow depending on administrations. Look at Katrina...that was also a failure of leadership. I mean a horse whisperer as the head of FEMA...seriously?

 

[JojoTheWhale]

What part of the Houston area are you in? My parents are in the Woodlands and we were having the exact same conversation earlier today. What were 6 million people going to do? Live in their cars in Dallas for a week?

Even the 2 million in the most heavily affected areas would have been a nightmare trying to get out of the city. There's no doubt that this storm going to take some lives, but it could have been disastrous if people were caught outside in it when the floods started, especially on the highways which are now in a lot of places completely flooded over.

My buddy and his wife moved down there and live in midtown now. He sent me a video of a National Gaurd helicopter landing on the highway to rescue people near his place.

It's a really fun city, but the traffic is awful even during simpler times. They stayed for the same reasons -- where do you actually go and when do you have to leave to be sure you're not stuck in transit when it hits?

I was displaced for a few weeks after Sandy and quite frankly you remember which people checked in just to make sure you were ok, so I do periodically to see if there's anything at all I can do.

 

[Beef Invictus]

You are correct...Mitigation is more the proper term. That was my bad with semantics. Cuba is the example of proper mitigation hence why I used it as an example. All I know is we better start getting better at mitigation bc these supposed century type storms are becoming more frequent. Heck places like Bangladesh and Miami better start figuring out how to completely transfer populations because in our children's lifetimes those places will be Waterworld.

Btw..you have to however take into account Federal funding....it does ebb and flow depending on administrations. Look at Katrina...that was also a failure of leadership. I mean a horse whisperer as the head of FEMA...seriously?

I suppose it's semantics, but I can assure you people in Emergency Management become annoyed when they're knocked for not preventing disasters rather than doing a better job of mitigating their aftermath.

Funding is also dependent on Congress; a President can ask for more or ask for cuts, and in either case might get the finger. It's also worth noting that our national ability to manage incidents has improved massively since then, in large part because of the lessons learned from Katrina. Katrina was the first in-depth, real test of the brand new National Incident Management System conceived in the wake of 9/11 and there was still a lot of confusion at all levels (If I'm remembering correctly, nationwide training and implementation was still ongoing); as you noted, weak leadership aggravated that issue. A decade on, everyone is better at it now.

Still, our rather unique challenge is that we have to plan response for a wide array of disasters. We can't just focus on one type like Cuba can.

 

[Flyotes]

I suppose

Since you work with those departments or seem to be in the know, wasn't there a rollback of disaster preparedness signed by the President on the day he came out to talk about infrastructure? It was meant to ease infrastructure restrictions but ended up knocking down a peg some disaster planning as a consequence, IIRC, now for the life of me I can't find it. It would take a long time to go into effect I'd wager, but the timing of it isn't great given Harvey. Or am I an idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about? Just wondering if some departments are annoyed.

 

[Beef Invictus]

I should probably know that for sure, but if that's what I think it is I believe it's just requested cuts. It's still up to Congress to make them happen

 

[Halladay]

What part of the Houston area are you in? My parents are in the Woodlands and we were having the exact same conversation earlier today. What were 6 million people going to do? Live in their cars in Dallas for a week?

Even the 2 million in the most heavily affected areas would have been a nightmare trying to get out of the city. There's no doubt that this storm going to take some lives, but it could have been disastrous if people were caught outside in it when the floods started, especially on the highways which are now in a lot of places completely flooded over.

I live in West Houston about 3 miles south of 10. I haven't gone outside yet today, but yesterday I did and my street looked normal. I doubt that is the same though right. I knew this was going to be bad, but looking back I would have gotten on plane and flown to Atlanta on Wednesday or Thursday.

 

[flyershockey]

My buddy and his wife moved down there and live in midtown now. He sent me a video of a National Gaurd helicopter landing on the highway to rescue people near his place.

It's a really fun city, but the traffic is awful even during simpler times. They stayed for the same reasons -- where do you actually go and when do you have to leave to be sure you're not stuck in transit when it hits?

I was displaced for a few weeks after Sandy and quite frankly you remember which people checked in just to make sure you were ok, so I do periodically to see if there's anything at all I can do.

My parents love it out there. Two jersey liberals that spent their entire lives living on the east coast that love Texas. Go figure.

I'm planning a trip out there around the holidays. It'll be my first time, but I've heard nothing but good things.

I live in West Houston about 3 miles south of 10. I haven't gone outside yet today, but yesterday I did and my street looked normal. I doubt that is the same though right. I knew this was going to be bad, but looking back I would have gotten on plane and flown to Atlanta on Wednesday or Thursday.

Stay safe, my man. A flooded out Houston is still better than Atlanta .

 

[Embiid]

Since you work with those departments or seem to be in the know, wasn't there a rollback of disaster preparedness signed by the President on the day he came out to talk about infrastructure? It was meant to ease infrastructure restrictions but ended up knocking down a peg some disaster planning as a consequence, IIRC, now for the life of me I can't find it. It would take a long time to go into effect I'd wager, but the timing of it isn't great given Harvey. Or am I an idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about? Just wondering if some departments are annoyed.

Yup...here it is...or better yet....Trump there it is!

Trump reversed regulations to protect infrastructure against flooding just days before Hurricane Harvey - Read at Business Insider:

http://www.businessinsider.com/trum...rricane-harvey-2017-8?&platform=bi-androidapp

 

[LegionOfDoom91]

Seems like back in 2005 with Hurricane Rita which hit Houston a lot of the deaths during that (there was like a 100 some) were because of people being stuck in traffic trying to evacuate.

I saw some on twitter mentioning that as response to those questioning the efforts by those at the top.

 

[Danko]

How does one go about getting the call of duty ww2 beta? I just got a ps4 but cant figure out where i can get it without preordering.

 

[Striiker]

You have to pre-order if you want to play it this weekend.