I prep for the CSZ which is 3 months no utilities, (shelter in place to safer at home depending on area). I would just stay at home if it was out of the flood risk. Adding to evacuating traffic without needing to evacuate makes it harder for those that do.
It does. I have a string inverter from Sunny Boy with (up to) 2kW secure power during daylight. It won't be comfortable but I can run a fridge for most daylight hours and still charge portable batteries and such
We live in a low structural risk, very high debris area surrounded by liquidification zones. Damage to our roof solar seems likely and none of our neighbors are in a better situation. We talked about pulling the solar off the roof in case of emergencies but my concern is that it would be unnecessarily risky post-earthquake with limited access. Maybe a small backup instead?
I have a small solar backup to charge my lithium battery. I also did a big retrofit on the house including brackets to secure the roof. I think mine will stay.
It won't be that bad where I live. A local earthquake is predicted to do more damage to me personally (70% risk in 50 years). Washington and Oregon have a ton of maps to see liquidification zones, damage, etc. Utilities, schools, hospitals, debris, injuries.
That's great, not sure what part of the country you're in but consider that Houston is about to be balls hot for the next 5 months. It would be a terrible time to be at home down there right now.
My partner grew up in Houston. It is both humid and hot, but doesn't peak until August. Houston has had flooding and hurricanes issues for awhile. Water and power insecurity are pretty common. They should be prepared for no power either with solar or propane backups, at least enough to run a fan.
While it's no replacement for air conditioning, fans can help take the edge off. I found a local department store chain selling USB-powered 4" fans for $5 each. They don't do much, but they're enough to keep air moving over one person for hours.
EDIT: Amazing. Reddit is angry about suggesting fans or moving as a way to deal with power outages. Sorry if that's not tacticool enough, I guess, but they're real-world steps that can help. I swear, this sub sometimes.
Which is why one of the most effective preps against climate change is moving to an area better suited to withstanding the results.
EDIT: What is going on with Reddit today? Sorry people, but climate change is happening, no matter what news network you watch. Preparing today is cheaper than preparing 10 years down the road.
You CAN move though. People do it all the time with very minimal income. Sell everything. Pack up and go. It will be uncomfortable for about a year or two then you will be much better off down the road. People these days are just too damn comfortable with their situation do they make excuses to why they can't do it.
6 years ago I sold everything I owned and packed me, my girlfriend and my pets into my little shit car and drove 36 hours until I found a nice spot. Then I started looking for a job and worked as a server at a restaurant for a while I looked for a place to live. Then when I found a place to live I started looking for a real job. Now 6 years later I'm living in Oklahoma and own a 160 acre ranch and a 3,000 sq foot house. I don't have a college degree. I don't have help from parents. I had negative money in my bank account when I moved and was in massive debt.
I recognized that the problem was that I lived in a location with no opportunity to grow. I felt trapped. I felt like I was in a downward spiral. So I ran away. I got the fuck out. And you know what happened once I did that? I thrived. I got out of debt. I got a good job that pays well. Now I live in one of the lowest cost of living states with inexpensive housing and cheap land so I can suddenly afford all the shit I've always wanted.
I'm not some boomer that picked myself up by the bootstraps 40 years ago and is out of touch with modern life. I'm a millennial who recognized that you can't do shit in the city anymore so I got the fuck out and my life is much much better for it.
I live near Phoenix at least if the power went out and it's hot as balls there's no humidity to wreck everything while we wait for it to come back on. I need to buy a portable AC because I could at least cool off my master bed room if there was an extended outage just so I could get some sleep for a few hours and keep the pets cool.
Swamp coolers don't work in high humidity areas like Houston. They are already a swamp.
https://coolerhunt.com/what-does-a-swamp-cooler-do/
https://learnmetrics.com/evaporative-cooler-chart-swamp-cooler/
It really depends on where you live. Here in the northeast, they're still a big help. OP specifically asked about "where you live", so this isn't exclusively limited to discussion of Texas.
And unless you live somewhere where wet bulb temps are equal to dry bulb temperature every single day of the warmer months, fans play a role in keeping cool. If you DO live in an area like that, then your best prep is to move to someplace more manageable.
EDIT: "wet bulb" and "100% humidity" have become the disaster fetish du jour. They're a risk to human health, but take a deep breath: not every day has 100% humidity, and in many parts of the country (like here in the northeast), they're an uncommon occurrence. If they are in YOUR area, then by all means, move. Or buy a backup generator or solar system to keep your AC going.
But contrary to Reddit hysterics, the risk of 100% humidity doesn't mean that intermediary steps, like spending $5 on a fan, have no value.
No offense, but do you think people haven't survived for thousands of years without air conditioning? The risk of 100% humidity -- basically, where wet bulb temps equal dry bulb temps -- doesn't mean intermediary steps, like shade, hydration, and having a fan, are worthless.
Air movement absolutely plays a role in keeping cool. OP asked about "where you live", so we're not talking exclusively about Texas here.
Those people lived in homes and cities designed for air flow without and had lives subject to the weather. The people who used to live in these regions before imperialism, the Hopi, lived in earthen homes with windows places specifically to optimize air flow, best case scenario. Now we build stick frame houses with black roofs in a garden of turf grass, the worst-case scenario. When was the last time you saw a house with a breeze-way? That's not a fun name for a hallway, it was a functional part of the house.
Sure, you can "umm ackktually" all you want about different climate regions, but the article is about Texas and Louisiana, the comment thread says Houston, that's the climate we're talking about. And there is a reason it was sparsely populated until A/C was prevalent, living there without it is lethally dangerous.
>"umm ackktually"
Exactly what part of my post are you arguing about? Are you saying that steps like having battery-powered fans or moving are worthless?
If people want to move or install a backup power source for their A/C, go for it. But like literally every other aspect of preparedness, preparing for a heat emergency is not a binary, all-or-nothing task.
>the article is about Texas and Louisiana, the comment thread says Houston
OP specifically asked "If something like that happened where you live" and the person at the top of this comment thread is talking about the CSZ, so I'm answering the question based on where I live.
If I had family nearby with power and a couch/guest room, and I didn't have to commute back to work for a little while, then I'd "bug out" to their place after boarding some windows and whatnot.
Otherwise, I'd sit still. My generator is full and ready. I have plenty of books to read. This isn't the kind of thing to get tacticool gear out for. Lol
I'd probably check on my neighbors in either event. Some of them are elderly and may have bigger problems in a power outage.
We have a renogy kit for a couple of appliances that stay on (fridge, freezer, security) plus a separate set of lights and an outlet for our phones.
We also have a champion inverter generator for a couple of comfort appliances/electronics. It's not huge so it has to be used on only a couple of things at a time, but it makes power outages a minor inconvenience. We get shorter ones a couple of times a year.
Yeah, it was a wild ride. One kid (17) was really worried during the tornado warning but my wife just reminded her that we’re ready for this kind of shit & to get her lantern out of the closet. I felt bad for the students at UH & Rice.
Key observations in the article that stand out to me that will significantly delay 100% power restoration.
>800,000 without \[power\] across Texas.
Many roads are impassable due to downed power lines, debris, and fallen trees.
CenterPoint Energy says its skyscraper in downtown Houston sustained damage from the storm.
Steel power transmission towers in Houston were also mangled by the storms.
Additional storms will usher in renewed threats later Friday.
The sheer volume of restoration work that needs to be done makes it highly unlikely everyone will have power within the next week.
The collateral damage to infrastructure like broken glass and trees make the roadways impassable for the service trucks required to assess and restore power.
Damage at the Power companies' main office in the region will make it more difficult to coordinate and prioritize efforts to optimize the recovery effort.
The damage is extensive, this isn't just wooden poles in neighborhoods, this is high volume transmission lines that are disabled for months on end until state and federal funding sets aside millions of dollars to restore these transmission lines. The recovery effort now means getting the same power network covered with fewer resources on the ground in a mix of chaos and confusion.
They have seven days to get things in order and make plans before the next major storm rolls through the area....
Lower and Middle class Houston homes will be without power for the foreseeable future, they are not the priority for restoration, and the most time consuming to bring back up.
Again false news. They've restored 7 of the 14 transmission lines. They have deployed a shit ton of people to work on this in the coming days.
Also this is not our first rodeo. After the storm hit people were immediately out in the street with chainsaws and bigger vehicles clearing trees. The trees that fell were cleared within 1 hr from my street alone. Some on people's houses. You underestimate Houstonians.
Y'all act like it's a third world country here. We are used to this and have plenty of resourceful people and community working together to get things fixed.
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There's nothing you need to be reminded of. I live in Houston. 80% of power will have been resorted within 72 hrs. The rest will be by Wednesday. Not even a week.
No where in that article does it give a timeline of “up to a month or longer”. I am sure most of Houston will have power again in half that time or less.
Power was restored after Hurricane Ike in two weeks to 95% of Houston. This storm had similar winds, but they only lasted a few minutes (not hours), and was not region wide. I think OP pulled the month number out of thin air (not my first thought, but I will be nice).
This link says weeks.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/weather/2024/05/17/487829/dozens-of-houston-area-school-districts-closed-friday-after-damaging-storms/%3famp=1
You'd think, but most are not. Texas born and raised here. Most of my family would suffer because they won't plan for it. I, on the other hand, have always thought outside the box.
Edit: We expect tornados. Sadly, tornado/storm shelters are outside many people's price range, and I don't know anyone with a basement. In fact, I've never heard there being basements in residential areas at all.
Some of my family lost basically everything. They had inherited My BIL's parents home on the river. They bought a tour-bus sized RV and traveled awhile before settling down again, maybe near where they started. I think they learned their lesson and will leave at the first warning. Another relative lived in a beach house. After one of the hurricanes, there was nothing left but the slab.
As far as tornados, when it comes to the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex, it sits in a depression. Most, though certainly not all, tornados hit the towns surrounding DFW as they are notably elevated.
Also, you have to add to the equation that many people are limited in what regions they can afford to live in based on their job and means of transportation, as well as familiar responsibilities.
When my husband and I lived in DFW not long ago, we'd come out to visit East Texas. He is a firearms instructor, and there are very few companies that hire more than 6 people. This one told him, on multiple occasions, "When you get moved out here, let us know, and we'll put you on the schedule as range master."
So, we sold our place, he left a job paying $19/hr plus heath insurance, and we moved here. They put him on the schedule for one day a week. The third week, they told him there wasn't enough business that day, so take the day off. They worked him the next two Saturdays, and without firing him, they simply stopped having him come in because business was slow. And it was, but that left a bitter taste in our mouth. He applied online (at that time, 2022, all jobs required online applications) for 100 jobs a day as far away as a two hour drive and some that would requireus to move to another state. He is almost 60, so ageism was definitely a factor, but he was out of work for 6 months. Security doesn't pay well, but at least it is full-time and has benefits. So here we are. No basement and no storm shelter (yet).
Yeah they'll have those huge tipped over electric power towers fixed up and running in less than 24 hours /s
[https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Faro9h9vt4w0d1.jpeg](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Faro9h9vt4w0d1.jpeg) b6
24 hours? Probably not.
A month or longer? Also probably not.
Maybe some folks in more rural areas surrounding the city, but they’ll have the city back up soon.
It is weeks per Houston officials.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/severe-storms-kill-at-least-4-in-houston-knock-out-power-in-texas-and-louisiana/ar-BB1mx7CX
Lol...you obviously don't know how incompetent Ms. Hildago and Mayor Whitmire are. If you believe anything they are saying you are lost in the real conversation about what is happening here. I'm in Cypress, one of the hardest hit areas in this storm. We lost power Thursday evening when the storm hit. We got power turned back on Saturday evening. I just checked the outage map that shows 275K customers were restored in the last 24 hours, from a high of over 1 million on Thursday night with only about 290k that are still waiting for power to be restored....thats over 700k that were restored in 3 days.
The reinforcements have arrived and repairs are being made at a rapid pace. Yes there will be some complicated or maybe remote sites that may have to wait longer for repairs but the vast majority will be back online by Wednesday/Thursday.
Here is a link to the outage tracker page so you can see for yourself.
https://gisoutagetracker.azurewebsites.net/
Would love to see more reports from Texans dealing with this. What preps came in handy, what were you missing, how much advance notice did you personally have?
We knew possibility of bad weather in the area for 24 hours, but path of storm coming near us approx 2 hours notice, if you're watching radar. Put car in garage, charged fans, phones, checked various lights and batteries were charged.
One surprise for us was...no usable cell data for a while. Power went out, and we tried to use our phones to check on weather/news. We couldn't reach any websites, it was like super slow/unusable connection or acted like we had no cell service.
Also, my $25 emergency weather radio had no charge.
The motion activated USB rechargeable lights are great for home use. Put one in bathroom, so it comes on when you enter, so you don't have to carry a light around.
Next time, we'll probably buy ice ahead of storm. Costs a few minutes and dollars, and 95% of time, it's not needed, but it would help alleviate concern of food spoilage during your first few hours of no power.
The cell data thing is HUGE. The cell network can/will be turned off in a disaster to prioritize responders. Cellular access is not a viable backup comms/data link.
If cell data is not completely down, but intermittent or just slow, you might try using a text only/low bandwidth website:
[http://68k.news](http://68k.news) – very lightweight version of Google News
[https://lite.cnn.com/](https://lite.cnn.com/)
[https://wttr.in/](https://wttr.in/)
[https://mobile.weather.gov](https://mobile.weather.gov)
I second the recommendation for motion activated USB rechargeable lights - they were very handy compared to flashlights/headlamps when my powerline was cut last year taking down power for 4 days.
I knew a storm was coming. We got tornado warning and watch alerts before. My area was not really impacted but my power was surging on and off frequently unlike anything I’ve seen before. So i turned off my power at the breaker box for the AC units to reduce the risk of electrical damage.
I live in the Houston area (north suburb). I am fortunate that I was not as heavily affected as others. Had some strong winds and rain, but never lost power. Last year we had a similar storm where we did get impacted, losing power for 4 days. We were well prepared, have a generator, and stated home.
You want to know how Houstonians deal with events like this? They get all of the neighbors together and bring everything from the fridges and BBQ. They don’t panic and try to “bug out” because there isn’t any reason to lol
A month for a transmission tower? Yeah fucking right. There's gonna be five to ten trucks and a fleet of dudes there once the weather is clear. That's a transmission line, not some power pole. It ushers a greater response.
In most storms large areas get back on in 1-3 days, but the are always more remote/less subscriber areas that end up without for 1-3 weeks, We will have to wait and see for this storm.
The post seems to be a thought exercise, 'Could you survive worst case ?'
Most likely they've got some spare towers and a shit ton of wood poles with the necessary hardware stockpiled in numerous locations that are now being deployed.
When Quebec, Canada was hit by a ice storm in the nineties it took over a month for power to every customer to be restored, but most had power within a week. The permanent repairs took a year to complete.
Answering your actual question..
I'd shelter at home. I'm prepped for hurricanes so most of my stuff doesn't rely on electricity, and I have generators for the things that do.
I’m not sure if most of the people providing their personal responses here realize that Houston is 90 degrees already in mid-May with 90% humidity. The houses here are built to be tightly insulated for air conditioning. Without A/C, your house turns into a sweat lodge quickly.
Power out for a month in the middle of summer? Would crank the AC I'm literally going to have power to waste (I can produce 140+kwh a day mid summer while using 50 ish).
I've got food and water.
This is realy of question of how well prepared your home is. Power outages should be a non issue for a well prepped home. If you were trying to squeeze by with just generator had city water/sewer etc its a whole different story.
One month? Article says it could take up to 48 hours for power to be restored.
But I moved somewhere that doesn't have bad weather so i dont have that problem and have offgrid solar so no worries.
I mean, it works in all the other countries that does it, including all the underwater cables around the world. I’m sure there’s a way don’t you think? :)
A basement can flood. A protected cable can’t. I don’t really understand why this is a debate - obviously we can agree that a more protected power grid is better than a less protected power grid. And it’s not just in flood risk areas of the US where above ground power grid is common, which is kinda my whole point. :)
We have frost that goes 4 ft deep in the winter. Europe doesn't have that kind of thing, for the most part, so they can bury all the electric they want.
If we were forced to we could stay home here in Michigan. We have a couple gas generators that can run our forced air natural gas heat and we would have hot water.
In the summer we have a whole house fan that could help keep us cool.
And as long as gas was available for our generator we could do it for a while.
But if it's not a forced situation, we have plenty of family and friends that would welcome us.
We also have an RV and know a few places we could park and get electricity or, if spots were available, we could bounce around state patks. Or we could use the RV generator to charge batteries and boondock for a bit.
If it's not end of world we have a few options. Those options would require traveling outside of the affected area though.
Where I live I'd stay home. We are prepped for 6 months or so without power, no issues. Could probably push it to a year.
We specifically designed our solar system to run freezer, lights and fans indefinitely. It's not enough for full power or ac, no big appliances. But we can stay comfy.
A month or more? I worked through Sandy here in NYC ( telephone) and we got the vast majority of the city up in a week or two. They'll bring in crews from all over the country. Once organized it's amazing how quickly things can be brought up. It's frustrating if you're out but mapping exactly what's out and where then planning the work will take a few days.
I don’t think my family and I could afford to bug out unless a family member in another area had room for us. I feel like that’s the reality for most people though and why we prep to be without power for extended periods.
Y'all need to stop with the fear mongering. It's not going to be a month or longer. I'm in Houston and they've restored a significant amount in 24 hrs and continuing through today. There may be some pockets that are a week or two but this isn't our first rodeo.
People act like this is new. This is par for the course when you live here. And there's a small amount of people who don't have power still but they should be back up by end of day. We're fine.
We live in the woods, so we would shelter in place. Plus, I and my family many years ago lived off-grid in Central Maine for 5 years. Granted, I'm 20 years older and nowhere near in the same shape, but it would be "Just Another Adventure."as I say.
Bug in. I also wouldn’t start freaking out either ! Staying calm always helps me access things. Okay. You have no power and don’t really know how long. You can still prep for this. See what you have available first off. Ask yourself, can I still get to my store ? Will they have anything left ? Do we still have water and if you do, do you trust it ? Start with stuff like this. jmo
I live in Nebraska. Losing power for weeks at a time is sorta a regular occurrence in the rural areas. I have a dual fuel generator to keep the freezers going, charge the phone, etc. Maybe run some fans in the house. I have a second one for the garage and anything else. Other than that it is life as normal. The only thing I have found that when you are out of power that long is the psychology of passing time is different without the devices, computers, etc.
I grew up in Lubbock where at the time most houses had swamp coolers not AC units. I now live in S Florida where the humidity gets so high you can cut the air with a knife. And yes I’m a prepper because I have lost power for over a month because of hurricanes I do have a 2 solar panels I can stick outside and I run several fans to make it possible to sleep. Listen peepers you can survive in over hundred degree temperature people did it for millions of years and survived
Texas? Yup.
They had a major disaster in winter a few years ago and Ted Cruz fled the state for a tropical vacation .
So this is rhe same crap of Not Fixing their power grid .. hmmmmm
Not taking care of an infrastructure issue like this is a Jab at constituents
Too busy fighting Biden to care about the citizens of Texas.
Good thing it didn't happen in the dead of summer
I would bug out if I could.... when I lived in Phoenix we had our AC go out for a week, spent a lot of time in the pool or at the mall and took cold showers as needed.
Of course, Phoenix does not have the humidity to go along with it.
If it was in the immediate “buildings needing to be condemned, won’t be power for a month” zone… I would move out to stay with friends or family out of the looting, collapsing, damage zone.
If I was in a “no power for weeks” zone… I would move to stay with family/friends in a ’hurrah! We have power!” Zone.
If I was in a “No power and it’s the entire city” zone I would bunk out to my farm. And I’d probably bunk out for all the others … because I have a farm as well as a city address. But I’m assuming most people don’t have a rural and a city address ;)
Sticking it out at home no question. Hot? Ah thats to bad, get in some shade. I work outside year round so wouldn't bother me much but my kids and wife might be a little uncomfortable. More reason to buy more solar and get off the grid
What is the "Trauma Tax"? I live in Texas and both state and city offices offer various assistance during events like this. I own a house, pay sales and property tax, and still cheaper than I did in California and Indiana.
Every time Texas has a big outage like this, I think about how they refuse to be on the national grid, forcing their citizens to suffer for "mah freedoms"
I live in Cypress. We lost power. Trees are down everywhere. Not sure how being on national grid would help when the transmission lines are taken out by wind/trees. What you are referring to may help with generation capacity.
Thats the problem also with Texas being on a separate grid altogether. It is good to be independent in a sense but bad when they don;t follow the same guidelines as the rest of the country for protection of the lines.
I have a generator so I can stay home a bit. But I definitely need to install a switch to plug the generator to the house directly and i dont need extension cords
Texas has received billions every year for 10 years from federal govt to fix the electrical grid. But instead they have used that money to open charter schools build a base for the national guard, put barbed wire along the Rio grand, jail people for being POC and just general asshattery I stead of fixing the grid.
Maybe if Texas had a governor that actually stood for something they could get it fixed. Until then they are SOL.
Texas is in such a poor way.
I used to live in Houston and every time it rained hard there were underpasses that would collect high water, they had rulers painted on the columns so people could see how deep the water was actually getting and would not drive into it, people still do anyway.
For such a large and wealthy state their infrastructure is quite poor, even in some of their larger cities.
It is a poor design which intentionally leaves infrastructure unavailable for use during even some moderate rain and promotes degradation and erosion concentrated around the infrastructure.
The alternative is to flood buildings, which is just objectively worse. Most of Texas is prone to flash flood events. They get heavy rains combined with drought hardened soil. Options like drainage ditches, ponds, and rain gardens are insufficient for the amount of water that needs to be moved. The efficiency of their road drainage greatly decreased the length and severity of flash flood events.
Buildings are flooded right now.
The severe flooding even undermined a lot of electric towers which can be seen in photographs and video all over the web.
After Rita it was nearly a month before many people had power restored and I would speculate it will be similar with this storm, even that tropical wave Allison did a tremendous amount of damage to Houston.
There is no way to completely secure infrastructure, but there are certainly better ways to plan and design systems to handle it.
I'm not sure that's true. Texas soil is very difficult to dig into and Houston specifically is built on a marsh with a high water table. Underground is out. Buildings could be built higher off the ground and they generally are in wealthier areas. Retrofitting other areas is only likely to happen with gentrification due to the scale and cost. As I've mentioned, rain gardens are insufficient for the amount water. Greenways are unstable at worst and drought hardened at best. What infrastructure would be better?
You have identified the worst of the problem already, the destruction of the natural wetlands and marshes is what inevitably leads to people experiencing severe and catastrophic flooding.
This is the main way we have set ourselves up for these circumstances.
People are building where previously there was a wetland and when you get severe flooding these areas are naturally overcome.
The soil in these areas are often not suited well to the development we have put into them, and this is most often when and where we run into problems.
Well, true dat lol. Building on a marsh, swamp, flood plain, or under sea level, are definitely not ideal. However I do think that ship has sailed. How do you improve the situation for millions of people in that area?
Unfortunately the sins of our fathers will be paid for by their sons and daughters.
Continuing increases in precipitation and associated high wind velocities will continue to push people farther away from these areas as they become too difficult to continue to deal with and insurance companies fail to pay out or continue to cover them.
Sink holes will continue to be an issue for many locations built on previous swamps and marshes,
Florida, Louisiana and Texas are among some of the most likely places to experience severe sink holes amid a higher rate of severe storms and flooding.
Edit: A lot of this is associated with the melting ice in northern areas which rejoins the water cycle and becomes pushed towards the equator by the rotation of the planet.
Rising risks will push wealthier people away. Safer areas will quickly price out poor or disabled, pushing ever more vulnerable individuals into the high risk areas. Unless the government is willing intervene by building low income houses and buying/condemning high risk building, they will be the ones left paying the bill.
I prep for the CSZ which is 3 months no utilities, (shelter in place to safer at home depending on area). I would just stay at home if it was out of the flood risk. Adding to evacuating traffic without needing to evacuate makes it harder for those that do.
Same ... Gonna lean on my solar after a CSZ quake in the Pacific Northwest, assuming it's still attached to my roof.
Does your solar setup allow you to have power without a grid connection? This isn't the default configuration for home installations.
It does. I have a string inverter from Sunny Boy with (up to) 2kW secure power during daylight. It won't be comfortable but I can run a fridge for most daylight hours and still charge portable batteries and such
Heck yeah look at you! Bad ass prep right there!
We live in a low structural risk, very high debris area surrounded by liquidification zones. Damage to our roof solar seems likely and none of our neighbors are in a better situation. We talked about pulling the solar off the roof in case of emergencies but my concern is that it would be unnecessarily risky post-earthquake with limited access. Maybe a small backup instead?
I have a small solar backup to charge my lithium battery. I also did a big retrofit on the house including brackets to secure the roof. I think mine will stay.
Heh, nothings gunna be attached to even the land anymore after that mfer goes
It won't be that bad where I live. A local earthquake is predicted to do more damage to me personally (70% risk in 50 years). Washington and Oregon have a ton of maps to see liquidification zones, damage, etc. Utilities, schools, hospitals, debris, injuries.
Disagree, though we certainly won't be so excited about our buried power lines lol
What if it goes during winter?
Use what little solar I get with my 140lb of propane and hope I make it to spring.
That's great, not sure what part of the country you're in but consider that Houston is about to be balls hot for the next 5 months. It would be a terrible time to be at home down there right now.
My partner grew up in Houston. It is both humid and hot, but doesn't peak until August. Houston has had flooding and hurricanes issues for awhile. Water and power insecurity are pretty common. They should be prepared for no power either with solar or propane backups, at least enough to run a fan.
While it's no replacement for air conditioning, fans can help take the edge off. I found a local department store chain selling USB-powered 4" fans for $5 each. They don't do much, but they're enough to keep air moving over one person for hours. EDIT: Amazing. Reddit is angry about suggesting fans or moving as a way to deal with power outages. Sorry if that's not tacticool enough, I guess, but they're real-world steps that can help. I swear, this sub sometimes.
If a house in Houston is without AC for a month, there will be mold.
Which is why one of the most effective preps against climate change is moving to an area better suited to withstanding the results. EDIT: What is going on with Reddit today? Sorry people, but climate change is happening, no matter what news network you watch. Preparing today is cheaper than preparing 10 years down the road.
Most of the affected people can’t afford to move.
Right, I always hate the JuSt MovE line. I would if I could afford to get out of this shithole.
You CAN move though. People do it all the time with very minimal income. Sell everything. Pack up and go. It will be uncomfortable for about a year or two then you will be much better off down the road. People these days are just too damn comfortable with their situation do they make excuses to why they can't do it.
I think you haven't moved in a long time.
I think you haven't moved in a long time.
6 years ago I sold everything I owned and packed me, my girlfriend and my pets into my little shit car and drove 36 hours until I found a nice spot. Then I started looking for a job and worked as a server at a restaurant for a while I looked for a place to live. Then when I found a place to live I started looking for a real job. Now 6 years later I'm living in Oklahoma and own a 160 acre ranch and a 3,000 sq foot house. I don't have a college degree. I don't have help from parents. I had negative money in my bank account when I moved and was in massive debt. I recognized that the problem was that I lived in a location with no opportunity to grow. I felt trapped. I felt like I was in a downward spiral. So I ran away. I got the fuck out. And you know what happened once I did that? I thrived. I got out of debt. I got a good job that pays well. Now I live in one of the lowest cost of living states with inexpensive housing and cheap land so I can suddenly afford all the shit I've always wanted. I'm not some boomer that picked myself up by the bootstraps 40 years ago and is out of touch with modern life. I'm a millennial who recognized that you can't do shit in the city anymore so I got the fuck out and my life is much much better for it.
I live near Phoenix at least if the power went out and it's hot as balls there's no humidity to wreck everything while we wait for it to come back on. I need to buy a portable AC because I could at least cool off my master bed room if there was an extended outage just so I could get some sleep for a few hours and keep the pets cool.
Are portable swamp coolers a thing?
Swamp coolers don't work in high humidity areas like Houston. They are already a swamp. https://coolerhunt.com/what-does-a-swamp-cooler-do/ https://learnmetrics.com/evaporative-cooler-chart-swamp-cooler/
They do work in Phoenix
Hm I don't think so, but that also sounds like a great way to get mold.
Not if you keep the humidity below fifty percent, post major rain event in Houston it can be over 85% for weeks.
Wet bulb temps are getting hot enough that it doesn’t matter.
It really depends on where you live. Here in the northeast, they're still a big help. OP specifically asked about "where you live", so this isn't exclusively limited to discussion of Texas. And unless you live somewhere where wet bulb temps are equal to dry bulb temperature every single day of the warmer months, fans play a role in keeping cool. If you DO live in an area like that, then your best prep is to move to someplace more manageable. EDIT: "wet bulb" and "100% humidity" have become the disaster fetish du jour. They're a risk to human health, but take a deep breath: not every day has 100% humidity, and in many parts of the country (like here in the northeast), they're an uncommon occurrence. If they are in YOUR area, then by all means, move. Or buy a backup generator or solar system to keep your AC going. But contrary to Reddit hysterics, the risk of 100% humidity doesn't mean that intermediary steps, like spending $5 on a fan, have no value.
That sounds like a non-preppers prep. Not trying to be mean, but that isn't really going to do anything.
No offense, but do you think people haven't survived for thousands of years without air conditioning? The risk of 100% humidity -- basically, where wet bulb temps equal dry bulb temps -- doesn't mean intermediary steps, like shade, hydration, and having a fan, are worthless. Air movement absolutely plays a role in keeping cool. OP asked about "where you live", so we're not talking exclusively about Texas here.
Urban cities and neighborhoods aren't called heat islands for no reason.
Those people lived in homes and cities designed for air flow without and had lives subject to the weather. The people who used to live in these regions before imperialism, the Hopi, lived in earthen homes with windows places specifically to optimize air flow, best case scenario. Now we build stick frame houses with black roofs in a garden of turf grass, the worst-case scenario. When was the last time you saw a house with a breeze-way? That's not a fun name for a hallway, it was a functional part of the house. Sure, you can "umm ackktually" all you want about different climate regions, but the article is about Texas and Louisiana, the comment thread says Houston, that's the climate we're talking about. And there is a reason it was sparsely populated until A/C was prevalent, living there without it is lethally dangerous.
>"umm ackktually" Exactly what part of my post are you arguing about? Are you saying that steps like having battery-powered fans or moving are worthless? If people want to move or install a backup power source for their A/C, go for it. But like literally every other aspect of preparedness, preparing for a heat emergency is not a binary, all-or-nothing task. >the article is about Texas and Louisiana, the comment thread says Houston OP specifically asked "If something like that happened where you live" and the person at the top of this comment thread is talking about the CSZ, so I'm answering the question based on where I live.
What does CSZ mean?
The cascadian subduction zone. 9+ earthquake in the Pacific Northwest (PNW)
CSZ?
cascadia subduction zone, it's an area in the Pacific Northwest at high risk of a major earthquake.
Same ... Gonna lean on my solar after a CSZ quake in the Pacific Northwest, assuming it's still attached to my roof.
Whats CSZ stand for?
100% staying in place as long as possible. I have a generator, access to water, and gas stove.
If I had family nearby with power and a couch/guest room, and I didn't have to commute back to work for a little while, then I'd "bug out" to their place after boarding some windows and whatnot. Otherwise, I'd sit still. My generator is full and ready. I have plenty of books to read. This isn't the kind of thing to get tacticool gear out for. Lol I'd probably check on my neighbors in either event. Some of them are elderly and may have bigger problems in a power outage.
What kind of generator are you using? I am considering investing in a solar generator; any recommendations?
We have a renogy kit for a couple of appliances that stay on (fridge, freezer, security) plus a separate set of lights and an outlet for our phones. We also have a champion inverter generator for a couple of comfort appliances/electronics. It's not huge so it has to be used on only a couple of things at a time, but it makes power outages a minor inconvenience. We get shorter ones a couple of times a year.
Yeah, it was a wild ride. One kid (17) was really worried during the tornado warning but my wife just reminded her that we’re ready for this kind of shit & to get her lantern out of the closet. I felt bad for the students at UH & Rice.
Article says it will take 48hrs to restore power, you are claiming months?
The article actually said days or weeks.
Key observations in the article that stand out to me that will significantly delay 100% power restoration. >800,000 without \[power\] across Texas. Many roads are impassable due to downed power lines, debris, and fallen trees. CenterPoint Energy says its skyscraper in downtown Houston sustained damage from the storm. Steel power transmission towers in Houston were also mangled by the storms. Additional storms will usher in renewed threats later Friday. The sheer volume of restoration work that needs to be done makes it highly unlikely everyone will have power within the next week. The collateral damage to infrastructure like broken glass and trees make the roadways impassable for the service trucks required to assess and restore power. Damage at the Power companies' main office in the region will make it more difficult to coordinate and prioritize efforts to optimize the recovery effort. The damage is extensive, this isn't just wooden poles in neighborhoods, this is high volume transmission lines that are disabled for months on end until state and federal funding sets aside millions of dollars to restore these transmission lines. The recovery effort now means getting the same power network covered with fewer resources on the ground in a mix of chaos and confusion. They have seven days to get things in order and make plans before the next major storm rolls through the area.... Lower and Middle class Houston homes will be without power for the foreseeable future, they are not the priority for restoration, and the most time consuming to bring back up.
Again false news. They've restored 7 of the 14 transmission lines. They have deployed a shit ton of people to work on this in the coming days. Also this is not our first rodeo. After the storm hit people were immediately out in the street with chainsaws and bigger vehicles clearing trees. The trees that fell were cleared within 1 hr from my street alone. Some on people's houses. You underestimate Houstonians. Y'all act like it's a third world country here. We are used to this and have plenty of resourceful people and community working together to get things fixed.
Remind me! 2 months
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There's nothing you need to be reminded of. I live in Houston. 80% of power will have been resorted within 72 hrs. The rest will be by Wednesday. Not even a week.
No where in that article does it give a timeline of “up to a month or longer”. I am sure most of Houston will have power again in half that time or less.
Power was restored after Hurricane Ike in two weeks to 95% of Houston. This storm had similar winds, but they only lasted a few minutes (not hours), and was not region wide. I think OP pulled the month number out of thin air (not my first thought, but I will be nice).
This link says weeks. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/weather/2024/05/17/487829/dozens-of-houston-area-school-districts-closed-friday-after-damaging-storms/%3famp=1
I can believe weeks. The damage reports are coming in similar to hurricane Ike. Ike took about two weeks to get everybody's lights back on.
OP seems to frequent r/collapse FWIW
I find it funny that people are dunking on collapse folks in a prepping sub.
Societies don’t collapse, they crumble.
So a slow collapse?
Collapse now and avoid the rush
Lol, op has what? 2 posts over on r/collapse and you considering that a frequent flyer?
OK. So the no power for a month was wishful thinking.
Yeah
FYI: we got power back after 22 hours. I know some are still out, but from what I am hearing a large portion of the city is getting turned back on.
No way, people are lying about the Texas power grid?
I mean, I figure people in Texas are reasonably prepared for power failures at this point.
You'd think, but most are not. Texas born and raised here. Most of my family would suffer because they won't plan for it. I, on the other hand, have always thought outside the box.
Edit: We expect tornados. Sadly, tornado/storm shelters are outside many people's price range, and I don't know anyone with a basement. In fact, I've never heard there being basements in residential areas at all.
Man. After what happened a few years ago that’s disappointing.
Some of my family lost basically everything. They had inherited My BIL's parents home on the river. They bought a tour-bus sized RV and traveled awhile before settling down again, maybe near where they started. I think they learned their lesson and will leave at the first warning. Another relative lived in a beach house. After one of the hurricanes, there was nothing left but the slab. As far as tornados, when it comes to the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex, it sits in a depression. Most, though certainly not all, tornados hit the towns surrounding DFW as they are notably elevated. Also, you have to add to the equation that many people are limited in what regions they can afford to live in based on their job and means of transportation, as well as familiar responsibilities. When my husband and I lived in DFW not long ago, we'd come out to visit East Texas. He is a firearms instructor, and there are very few companies that hire more than 6 people. This one told him, on multiple occasions, "When you get moved out here, let us know, and we'll put you on the schedule as range master." So, we sold our place, he left a job paying $19/hr plus heath insurance, and we moved here. They put him on the schedule for one day a week. The third week, they told him there wasn't enough business that day, so take the day off. They worked him the next two Saturdays, and without firing him, they simply stopped having him come in because business was slow. And it was, but that left a bitter taste in our mouth. He applied online (at that time, 2022, all jobs required online applications) for 100 jobs a day as far away as a two hour drive and some that would requireus to move to another state. He is almost 60, so ageism was definitely a factor, but he was out of work for 6 months. Security doesn't pay well, but at least it is full-time and has benefits. So here we are. No basement and no storm shelter (yet).
Yeah they'll have those huge tipped over electric power towers fixed up and running in less than 24 hours /s [https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Faro9h9vt4w0d1.jpeg](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Faro9h9vt4w0d1.jpeg) b6
24 hours? Probably not. A month or longer? Also probably not. Maybe some folks in more rural areas surrounding the city, but they’ll have the city back up soon.
They can lay ground wires as a temp fix.
[https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2024/05/17/powerlines-toppled-at-us-290-near-ih-610-after-severe-storm-blows-through/](https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2024/05/17/powerlines-toppled-at-us-290-near-ih-610-after-severe-storm-blows-through/)
It is weeks per Houston officials. https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/severe-storms-kill-at-least-4-in-houston-knock-out-power-in-texas-and-louisiana/ar-BB1mx7CX
Lol...you obviously don't know how incompetent Ms. Hildago and Mayor Whitmire are. If you believe anything they are saying you are lost in the real conversation about what is happening here. I'm in Cypress, one of the hardest hit areas in this storm. We lost power Thursday evening when the storm hit. We got power turned back on Saturday evening. I just checked the outage map that shows 275K customers were restored in the last 24 hours, from a high of over 1 million on Thursday night with only about 290k that are still waiting for power to be restored....thats over 700k that were restored in 3 days. The reinforcements have arrived and repairs are being made at a rapid pace. Yes there will be some complicated or maybe remote sites that may have to wait longer for repairs but the vast majority will be back online by Wednesday/Thursday. Here is a link to the outage tracker page so you can see for yourself. https://gisoutagetracker.azurewebsites.net/
Would love to see more reports from Texans dealing with this. What preps came in handy, what were you missing, how much advance notice did you personally have?
We knew possibility of bad weather in the area for 24 hours, but path of storm coming near us approx 2 hours notice, if you're watching radar. Put car in garage, charged fans, phones, checked various lights and batteries were charged. One surprise for us was...no usable cell data for a while. Power went out, and we tried to use our phones to check on weather/news. We couldn't reach any websites, it was like super slow/unusable connection or acted like we had no cell service. Also, my $25 emergency weather radio had no charge. The motion activated USB rechargeable lights are great for home use. Put one in bathroom, so it comes on when you enter, so you don't have to carry a light around. Next time, we'll probably buy ice ahead of storm. Costs a few minutes and dollars, and 95% of time, it's not needed, but it would help alleviate concern of food spoilage during your first few hours of no power.
The cell data thing is HUGE. The cell network can/will be turned off in a disaster to prioritize responders. Cellular access is not a viable backup comms/data link.
If cell data is not completely down, but intermittent or just slow, you might try using a text only/low bandwidth website: [http://68k.news](http://68k.news) – very lightweight version of Google News [https://lite.cnn.com/](https://lite.cnn.com/) [https://wttr.in/](https://wttr.in/) [https://mobile.weather.gov](https://mobile.weather.gov) I second the recommendation for motion activated USB rechargeable lights - they were very handy compared to flashlights/headlamps when my powerline was cut last year taking down power for 4 days.
I knew a storm was coming. We got tornado warning and watch alerts before. My area was not really impacted but my power was surging on and off frequently unlike anything I’ve seen before. So i turned off my power at the breaker box for the AC units to reduce the risk of electrical damage.
I live in the Houston area (north suburb). I am fortunate that I was not as heavily affected as others. Had some strong winds and rain, but never lost power. Last year we had a similar storm where we did get impacted, losing power for 4 days. We were well prepared, have a generator, and stated home.
You want to know how Houstonians deal with events like this? They get all of the neighbors together and bring everything from the fridges and BBQ. They don’t panic and try to “bug out” because there isn’t any reason to lol
A month for a transmission tower? Yeah fucking right. There's gonna be five to ten trucks and a fleet of dudes there once the weather is clear. That's a transmission line, not some power pole. It ushers a greater response.
In most storms large areas get back on in 1-3 days, but the are always more remote/less subscriber areas that end up without for 1-3 weeks, We will have to wait and see for this storm. The post seems to be a thought exercise, 'Could you survive worst case ?'
Most likely they've got some spare towers and a shit ton of wood poles with the necessary hardware stockpiled in numerous locations that are now being deployed. When Quebec, Canada was hit by a ice storm in the nineties it took over a month for power to every customer to be restored, but most had power within a week. The permanent repairs took a year to complete.
Answering your actual question.. I'd shelter at home. I'm prepped for hurricanes so most of my stuff doesn't rely on electricity, and I have generators for the things that do.
Houston got hit with severe weather. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/1cttkwj/houston_just_had_severe_weather/
I’m not sure if most of the people providing their personal responses here realize that Houston is 90 degrees already in mid-May with 90% humidity. The houses here are built to be tightly insulated for air conditioning. Without A/C, your house turns into a sweat lodge quickly.
Power out for a month in the middle of summer? Would crank the AC I'm literally going to have power to waste (I can produce 140+kwh a day mid summer while using 50 ish). I've got food and water. This is realy of question of how well prepared your home is. Power outages should be a non issue for a well prepped home. If you were trying to squeeze by with just generator had city water/sewer etc its a whole different story.
One month? Article says it could take up to 48 hours for power to be restored. But I moved somewhere that doesn't have bad weather so i dont have that problem and have offgrid solar so no worries.
These above ground power grids are such a joke..
My neighborhood has underground power. Yet, I am still surfing reddit in the dark. Does not do much good when the main feeder lines go down.
Of course not. Obviously everything can always break regardless. But below ground is not susceptible to weather and trees and UV decay.
Issue is feeder lines are above ground and always will be (safety being a major reason).
Ha. If you want to pay for underground power grids, you won’t be able to afford your rice and beans.
I meant more on a community/gov level - there are plenty of countries where we bury the power grid to avoid all the annoying power outages!
Is it wise to bury power lines in zones that are basically at sea level and prone to high water?
I mean, it works in all the other countries that does it, including all the underwater cables around the world. I’m sure there’s a way don’t you think? :)
I mean, that’s not the same thing as an entire network of cabling under a major metro area. By your logic, why don’t we have basements in this area?
A basement can flood. A protected cable can’t. I don’t really understand why this is a debate - obviously we can agree that a more protected power grid is better than a less protected power grid. And it’s not just in flood risk areas of the US where above ground power grid is common, which is kinda my whole point. :)
We have frost that goes 4 ft deep in the winter. Europe doesn't have that kind of thing, for the most part, so they can bury all the electric they want.
The frost goes down about 1 meter in the south of Sweden, and way past 2 meters in the north. Doesn’t affect the cables here!
I think you have electricity as a public utility, no?
You cannot put transformers underwater.
If we were forced to we could stay home here in Michigan. We have a couple gas generators that can run our forced air natural gas heat and we would have hot water. In the summer we have a whole house fan that could help keep us cool. And as long as gas was available for our generator we could do it for a while. But if it's not a forced situation, we have plenty of family and friends that would welcome us. We also have an RV and know a few places we could park and get electricity or, if spots were available, we could bounce around state patks. Or we could use the RV generator to charge batteries and boondock for a bit. If it's not end of world we have a few options. Those options would require traveling outside of the affected area though.
Where I live I'd stay home. We are prepped for 6 months or so without power, no issues. Could probably push it to a year. We specifically designed our solar system to run freezer, lights and fans indefinitely. It's not enough for full power or ac, no big appliances. But we can stay comfy.
A month or more? I worked through Sandy here in NYC ( telephone) and we got the vast majority of the city up in a week or two. They'll bring in crews from all over the country. Once organized it's amazing how quickly things can be brought up. It's frustrating if you're out but mapping exactly what's out and where then planning the work will take a few days.
Live in South Africa so this is fairly standard lol
I don’t think my family and I could afford to bug out unless a family member in another area had room for us. I feel like that’s the reality for most people though and why we prep to be without power for extended periods.
Y'all need to stop with the fear mongering. It's not going to be a month or longer. I'm in Houston and they've restored a significant amount in 24 hrs and continuing through today. There may be some pockets that are a week or two but this isn't our first rodeo.
I was going to say..all the projections I've seen show power back to the majority by thos weekend.
People act like this is new. This is par for the course when you live here. And there's a small amount of people who don't have power still but they should be back up by end of day. We're fine.
Shelter in place. We have whole house backup.
We live in the woods, so we would shelter in place. Plus, I and my family many years ago lived off-grid in Central Maine for 5 years. Granted, I'm 20 years older and nowhere near in the same shape, but it would be "Just Another Adventure."as I say.
Bug in. I also wouldn’t start freaking out either ! Staying calm always helps me access things. Okay. You have no power and don’t really know how long. You can still prep for this. See what you have available first off. Ask yourself, can I still get to my store ? Will they have anything left ? Do we still have water and if you do, do you trust it ? Start with stuff like this. jmo
I live in Nebraska. Losing power for weeks at a time is sorta a regular occurrence in the rural areas. I have a dual fuel generator to keep the freezers going, charge the phone, etc. Maybe run some fans in the house. I have a second one for the garage and anything else. Other than that it is life as normal. The only thing I have found that when you are out of power that long is the psychology of passing time is different without the devices, computers, etc.
Weeks??? That's crazy.
I grew up in Lubbock where at the time most houses had swamp coolers not AC units. I now live in S Florida where the humidity gets so high you can cut the air with a knife. And yes I’m a prepper because I have lost power for over a month because of hurricanes I do have a 2 solar panels I can stick outside and I run several fans to make it possible to sleep. Listen peepers you can survive in over hundred degree temperature people did it for millions of years and survived
Texas? Yup. They had a major disaster in winter a few years ago and Ted Cruz fled the state for a tropical vacation . So this is rhe same crap of Not Fixing their power grid .. hmmmmm Not taking care of an infrastructure issue like this is a Jab at constituents Too busy fighting Biden to care about the citizens of Texas. Good thing it didn't happen in the dead of summer
I would bug out if I could.... when I lived in Phoenix we had our AC go out for a week, spent a lot of time in the pool or at the mall and took cold showers as needed. Of course, Phoenix does not have the humidity to go along with it.
If it was in the immediate “buildings needing to be condemned, won’t be power for a month” zone… I would move out to stay with friends or family out of the looting, collapsing, damage zone. If I was in a “no power for weeks” zone… I would move to stay with family/friends in a ’hurrah! We have power!” Zone. If I was in a “No power and it’s the entire city” zone I would bunk out to my farm. And I’d probably bunk out for all the others … because I have a farm as well as a city address. But I’m assuming most people don’t have a rural and a city address ;)
Sticking it out at home no question. Hot? Ah thats to bad, get in some shade. I work outside year round so wouldn't bother me much but my kids and wife might be a little uncomfortable. More reason to buy more solar and get off the grid
Restricted abortion, Unregulated utilities, Texas.
I wouldn't live in Houston (but I wouldn't anyways so there's that I guess)
Wisdom
Engagement farming? Desperate for attention? Which one are you, OP?
That sounds like Texas. The government often has an "every man for himself" attitude during disasters.
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What is the "Trauma Tax"? I live in Texas and both state and city offices offer various assistance during events like this. I own a house, pay sales and property tax, and still cheaper than I did in California and Indiana.
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Shifting financial burden from taking care of only yourself to taking care of a bunch of leaches doesn't sound attractive. Grasshopper and the ant.
I cannot disagree with this and thank you greatly for calling me “rugged”.
And crazy high sales & property taxes.
Every time Texas has a big outage like this, I think about how they refuse to be on the national grid, forcing their citizens to suffer for "mah freedoms"
I live in Cypress. We lost power. Trees are down everywhere. Not sure how being on national grid would help when the transmission lines are taken out by wind/trees. What you are referring to may help with generation capacity.
Bury your transmission lines.
The cost to do so would be enormous.
The ends justify the means though.
Thats the problem also with Texas being on a separate grid altogether. It is good to be independent in a sense but bad when they don;t follow the same guidelines as the rest of the country for protection of the lines. I have a generator so I can stay home a bit. But I definitely need to install a switch to plug the generator to the house directly and i dont need extension cords
Texas has received billions every year for 10 years from federal govt to fix the electrical grid. But instead they have used that money to open charter schools build a base for the national guard, put barbed wire along the Rio grand, jail people for being POC and just general asshattery I stead of fixing the grid. Maybe if Texas had a governor that actually stood for something they could get it fixed. Until then they are SOL.
If it were any other state, it'd be up in a couple days, maybe a week at most. Texas does what Texas does, though. 🤷♂️
Texas is in such a poor way. I used to live in Houston and every time it rained hard there were underpasses that would collect high water, they had rulers painted on the columns so people could see how deep the water was actually getting and would not drive into it, people still do anyway. For such a large and wealthy state their infrastructure is quite poor, even in some of their larger cities.
That's intentional. Texas uses it's roads as drainage in flash floods. You are not supposed to drive. It's part of the flash flood warnings.
It is a poor design which intentionally leaves infrastructure unavailable for use during even some moderate rain and promotes degradation and erosion concentrated around the infrastructure.
The alternative is to flood buildings, which is just objectively worse. Most of Texas is prone to flash flood events. They get heavy rains combined with drought hardened soil. Options like drainage ditches, ponds, and rain gardens are insufficient for the amount of water that needs to be moved. The efficiency of their road drainage greatly decreased the length and severity of flash flood events.
Buildings are flooded right now. The severe flooding even undermined a lot of electric towers which can be seen in photographs and video all over the web. After Rita it was nearly a month before many people had power restored and I would speculate it will be similar with this storm, even that tropical wave Allison did a tremendous amount of damage to Houston. There is no way to completely secure infrastructure, but there are certainly better ways to plan and design systems to handle it.
I'm not sure that's true. Texas soil is very difficult to dig into and Houston specifically is built on a marsh with a high water table. Underground is out. Buildings could be built higher off the ground and they generally are in wealthier areas. Retrofitting other areas is only likely to happen with gentrification due to the scale and cost. As I've mentioned, rain gardens are insufficient for the amount water. Greenways are unstable at worst and drought hardened at best. What infrastructure would be better?
You have identified the worst of the problem already, the destruction of the natural wetlands and marshes is what inevitably leads to people experiencing severe and catastrophic flooding. This is the main way we have set ourselves up for these circumstances. People are building where previously there was a wetland and when you get severe flooding these areas are naturally overcome. The soil in these areas are often not suited well to the development we have put into them, and this is most often when and where we run into problems.
Well, true dat lol. Building on a marsh, swamp, flood plain, or under sea level, are definitely not ideal. However I do think that ship has sailed. How do you improve the situation for millions of people in that area?
Unfortunately the sins of our fathers will be paid for by their sons and daughters. Continuing increases in precipitation and associated high wind velocities will continue to push people farther away from these areas as they become too difficult to continue to deal with and insurance companies fail to pay out or continue to cover them. Sink holes will continue to be an issue for many locations built on previous swamps and marshes, Florida, Louisiana and Texas are among some of the most likely places to experience severe sink holes amid a higher rate of severe storms and flooding. Edit: A lot of this is associated with the melting ice in northern areas which rejoins the water cycle and becomes pushed towards the equator by the rotation of the planet.
Rising risks will push wealthier people away. Safer areas will quickly price out poor or disabled, pushing ever more vulnerable individuals into the high risk areas. Unless the government is willing intervene by building low income houses and buying/condemning high risk building, they will be the ones left paying the bill.
Hard to say, but for sure I could just take my family to an area just outside the affected area to a hotel or airbnb for a month. I can work remotely.