More on Houston and other parts of Texas flooding due to Hurricane/Storm Harvey

Last updated on 1st Sept. 2017

The first post that I put up on this matter is: Houston and some other parts of Texas, USA, reel under flooding impact of Hurricane/Storm Harvey, http://ravisiyermisc.blogspot.in/2017/08/houston-and-some-other-parts-of-texas.html, 28th Aug. 2017

After the above mentioned post, over the past few days I put up or shared a lot of short posts on my Facebook Timeline: https://www.facebook.com/ravi.s.iyer.7, related to the severe flooding in Houston and some other parts of Southeastern Texas, as well as a few posts on heavy rains in Mumbai. I have given below the contents of those posts (slightly edited).

4 min. 24 secs, Sen. Ted Cruz on the devastation in southeastern Texas, https://youtu.be/VZc6VoBnacU

Note that Senator Cruz represents Texas in the Senate, and that Houston is his home city. He speaks to the media from the Convention Center in Houston where rescued people are being given shelter.
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Harvey Cattle Drive: Herding 400 head of cattle to safety by Sheriff's Department & Cowboys in North Angleton. #harvey #brazoriacounty, https://www.facebook.com/BCCommuniuty/videos/1426676484048032/
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Times of India: Normal life cripples as Mumbai drowns in heavy rains, https://www.facebook.com/TimesofIndia/videos/10155763021977139/
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Times of India: Mumbai rains: Water enters Parel's KEM hospital, https://www.facebook.com/TimesofIndia/videos/10155762232437139/
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Mumbai Rains: Maximum City on the road to recovery after a hard day’s battle, http://indianexpress.com/article/india/mumbai-rains-maximum-city-on-the-road-to-recovery-after-a-hard-days-battle-water-logging-4820171/
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CNN: When I first saw the gator I though it was a piece of wood floating." This Texas woman woke up to not one but two alligators in her flooded yard, https://www.facebook.com/cnn/videos/10157238215686509/

Ravi: Well, I have seen my share of floods having lived in and around Mumbai for nearly four decades, and have seen all sorts of stuff coming along with the flood waters. ... But in this Texas city flood, you have two alligators (crocodiles) coming into a family home's yard!!! That just blows my mind.
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Ravi: How dire the situation is in some parts of Texas (or Louisiana), USA! My prayers to God to help them survive this horrific ordeal.

[Shared post:] https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1631915460186038&id=242049542505977
[Its contents:]

The U.S. Army Corp of Engineers has advised the Tyler County office of Emergency Management that the flood gates were opened to 100 feet at 3:00 pm CSDST. River levels will rise to near seventy nine feet. With additional rain fall accumulations, a potential elevation could reach near eighty two feet. All residents living in Mt. Neches, Barlow Lake Estates, Works Bluff on CR 4415, Sheffield Ferry and Bottom Loop-CR 4700 who have not already evacuated must do so immediately. Anyone who chooses to not heed this directive (cannot) expect to be rescued and should write their social security numbers in permanent marker on their arm so their bodies can be identified. The loss of life and property is certain.
GET OUT OR DIE!

*Call 911 or 409-283-2172 for anyone needing a boat assistance rescue*
Tyler County Judge Jacques Blanchette
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Ravi: Before and after pics that tell the story of Houston, and other parts of Texas, USA, floods; Last set of pics shows how recovery seems to be happening (in some places).
For those who visit the link and don't know about the pane in the middle of some of the pics - the pane has to be dragged horizontally across the pic with the mouse. The left side of the pane shows the before pic (typically), and right shows the after.

Before-and-after visuals of the massive flooding in Texas, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/national/harvey-photos-before-after/

Hurricane Harvey before-after photos flood social media, and they’re devastating, http://indianexpress.com/article/trending/trending-globally/social-media-is-flooded-with-before-and-after-pics-of-hurricane-harvey-and-its-devastating-4821912/
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Floating FireAnt colonies hazard in flooded areas of Texas

Here's a short article from a Texas university about the floating fireant colonies and how to protect oneself,
https://texashelp.tamu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/flooding-and-fire-ants-protecting-yourself-and-your-family.pdf

Here's a Washington Post article on the same having a video of a floating fireant colony in Harvey floodwaters (in Texas), and many details about floating fireants and how to destroy them: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/08/30/the-terrifying-science-behind-floating-fire-ant-colonies-and-how-to-destroy-them/

Here's a short (10 sec) video of a floating fireant colony in Harvey floodwaters, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9gL4lYqv1c

And here's a 1 min. 47 sec, 2016 (not Harvey) video where a man rowing in a boat points out a floating fireant colony (in Southern USA, I guess) and talks about its dangers, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo9dNyNB9xM.

Ravi: I have to say that I have waded through floodwaters in and around Mumbai umpteen times during the almost two decades that I was living and working there after becoming an adult. [I am excluding the pre-adult 'protected' days; I was born and brought up till adulthood in Mumbai.] The flood waters in Mumbai would be messy and once one got home a bath and change of clothes  was typical followed by an enjoyable hot cup of chai (tea). But I do not recall even once when I had to deal with attacks on me from such scary groups of insects (or water borne dangerous creatures like alligators/crocodiles which are not uncommon in parts of south USA including Texas).

I think it is the congested city life of Mumbai and surrounding areas along with action from people who saw such threats, that perhaps kept away such dangers in the flood waters that I have waded through. That's a safety advantage of concentrated cluster of people living together.

In Houston city and suburbs of Texas, USA, what I am seeing is that the more widely dispersed populace with individual houses typically as against apartment housing colonies in Mumbai and surrounding areas, are facing a variety of problems that Mumbai does not face during its quite regular monsoon floods. Sure, Houston city and suburbs would also have apartment housing societies too. But they perhaps are a much smaller percentage of the total populace of Houston as compared to Mumbai.

[Almost all of the nearly four decades of my life in Mumbai and surrounding areas have been in apartment (housing society) flats barring few and very short stays as a visitor in individual houses with their individual front and back yards, of friends and relatives.]

My earnest prayers to God and best wishes to the people of Texas, USA, to be safe and protected from such hazards of Harvey floods.
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From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Harvey, "Harvey is the wettest tropical cyclone on record in the contiguous United States. The resulting floods prompted more than 13,000 rescues, displaced more than 30,000 people, and inundated hundreds of thousands of homes." [Ravi: I repeat, hundreds of thousands of homes were inundated!]
...
"Catastrophic inland flooding is ongoing in the Greater Houston metropolitan area. FEMA director Brock Long called Harvey the worst disaster in Texas history, and expected the recovery to take many years. Preliminary estimates of economic losses range from $10 billion to $160 billion, with a large portion of losses sustained by uninsured homeowners."
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USA President Donald J. Trump
Texas and Louisiana: We are with you today, we are with you tomorrow, and we will be with you EVERY SINGLE DAY AFTER, to restore, recover, and REBUILD!
https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump/videos/10159755136110725/

Ravi: My prayers and best wishes to all people in Texas and Louisiana who have been impacted by Harvey.
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Harvey in Pictures, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/27/us/harvey-pictures-hurricane-storm.html

New York Times: Videos reveal the emotional and physical toll of the storm in Houston and the surrounding area.
https://www.facebook.com/nytimes/videos/1909602499257263/
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Viviana Saldana, Why go out looking for food when the food is coming to our living room? 😂😂 y'all help me get this to the news lmao
https://www.facebook.com/vivvy.saldana/posts/1536927626366801 [Has 3 videos]
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Finally, some good news for Texas

From Harvey is pulling away from Texas and Louisiana, and taking the flood risk with it, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/08/31/harvey-is-pulling-away-from-texas-and-louisiana-and-its-taking-the-flood-risk-with-it/

"Hurricane Harvey’s rain is all but over in Texas and Louisiana, but the catastrophe it inflicted will continue for weeks. Hundreds of square miles are still underwater, thousands of people remain displaced and new terrors are developing in the wake of the nation’s worst hurricane since Katrina in 2005."

Ravi: At least the tropical storm seems to be almost over. That means the skies will not be pouring more water, thereby giving time for disaster management people to pump out the water in flooded areas and natural means for the floods to recede will also come into play.

[Source for the following is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Harvey] Hurricane Harvey made landfall on Aug. 26th 2017 at 03:00 UTC near Rockport, Texas as a Category 4 hurricane with high speed winds causing a lot of devastation in a few areas. But it slowed down to a tropical storm on Aug. 26th itself and started dumping enormous amounts of rainfall in some areas of South Eastern Texas including Houston (4th largest city in the USA) and surrounding areas.

"Many locations in the Houston metropolitan area observed at least 30 in (760 mm) of precipitation, with a maximum of 51.88 in (1,318 mm) in Cedar Bayou. This makes Harvey the wettest tropical cyclone on record for Texas, and the contiguous United States, surpassing the previous rainfall record held by Tropical Storm Amelia. The local National Weather Service office in Houston observed consecutive all-time daily rainfall accumulations on August 26 and 27, measured at 14.4 in (370 mm) and 16.08 in (408 mm) respectively."

Ravi: The flooding that this enormous amount of rain caused in these areas including Houston continues even now in at least some of these areas on 31st Aug. 2017. The waters are receding in Houston but not gone yet! I guess the flooding would have started becoming significant on Aug. 27th. That makes it 5 days (Aug. 27th to Aug. 31st inclusive of both days) of significant flooding in some areas of Texas, including Houston, with many of these areas losing power!

Thank God that finally the Hurricane/Storm Harvey is almost gone from Texas!
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"Chemical reactions" NOT "massive explosions" in Arkema plant in Crosby, Texas near Houston

Initial reports about the fire and smoke in Arkema plant in Crosby, Texas, USA seem to have painted a more grim picture than the reality.

This report says it is not so bad. Pops not explosions ... http://www.huffingtonpost.in/entry/arkema-chemical-plant-crosby-texas_us_59a71237e4b07e81d354cda6

This report has a middle approach:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/08/31/harveys-wrath-moves-across-the-louisiana-texas-border-as-water-recedes-in-houston/

A small extract from it:

While local officials described the blasts early Thursday at the plant in Crosby as “chemical reactions” and not “massive explosions,” federal authorities used dire language to describe the impact of the fumes from the plant.

The chemical plume in Crosby is “incredibly dangerous,” William “Brock” Long, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said at a briefing Thursday morning.
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Watched most of this:
PBS Newshour: WATCH LIVE: Officials hold news conference on explosions at Harvey-flooded Texas chemical plant, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyfMMywnNF8, 32 min 35 mins., streamed live on 31st Aug. 2017

The fire marshal of the town followed by the sheriff and then some Arkema officials speak in the above video. I think these guys seem to know what they are talking about. The fire marshal confirmed that "massive explosions" DID NOT happen but were pops and the black smoke did NOT have really dangerous toxic stuff. That contradicts the FEMA chief's words but I get the impression that the fire marshal knows what he is talking about and the company people who spoke did not contradict him.

8 more such containers are still there in the plant. And similar such stuff could happen with them or most of them.

So I think the situ seems under control. And people may not have to really worry about hazardous chemical pollution from this plant from these containers. The issue is fire when the materials catch fire and the perhaps normal smoke they produce can cause problems like any other smoke. But it does not seem to be an especially poisonous kind of thing. Of course, normal smoke can kill too. But that happens with all big fires.

However, it MUST BE NOTED that Arkema company has tried to play it safe by refusing to state that the smoke from the fire is normal kind of smoke. This tweet by a reporter, https://twitter.com/AlexandravonNah/status/903262616969195521, states that the Arkema official said, "Toxicity is a relative thing"! So Arkema is playing safe in contrast to the fire marshal and the sheriff who were giving the impression that the smoke was normal smoke from a fire.
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Tragic and avoidable loss of senior Doctor in Mumbai floods due to open manhole, http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/mumbai-rain-deepak-amarapurkar-missing-doctors-body-found-in-worli-4823240/

He decided to get out of his car which was stuck in traffic, telling his driver he would make the short remaining distance to his home on foot!

Ravi: The most dangerous thing while wading in Mumbai floods is the open manhole. Once a person gets sucked into it, possibility of survival is low. Usually, such open manholes are marked by a contraption put up by the municipal workers which is clearly visible above the flood water level. In this case, it seems that the manhole was opened by locals and not  municipal officials and so may not have had that warning contraption.

Another danger while wading in Mumbai floodwaters, which I recall from my many such floodwater wading experiences in the past, is falling into/tripping up due to a gutter by the side of the road, or some pothole in the road. As the water would be muddy, one can't see the road/ground that one is walking on. One has to feel it with one's feet. So people walking in line together are far safer than somebody negotiating floodwaters by wading on his/her own.

It is tragic that this senior doctor chose to wade in the floodwaters on his own and so did not have people around him to save him or at least try to save him. Some onlookers were around it seems as the report says they shouted about the open manhole to him but perhaps they were quite some distance away.
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New York Times, Before and after: Satellite images show the scale of flooding in towns outside of Houston. https://www.facebook.com/nytimes/videos/1910206942530152/
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USA President Donald J. Trump
Thank you to all of the brave first responders and volunteers from around the United States helping with the ongoing rescue and relief efforts in Texas. https://twitter.com/i/moments/903314408394199041 (tweet has a pic of such first responders)
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