Hurricane Harvey
Hurricane Harvey
(OP)
Not an engineering disaster, but there's going to be engineering fallout.
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
well, perhaps learning from/listening to the Dutch will be beneficial . . .
RE: Hurricane Harvey
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
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Irvine, CA
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
Thoughts and prayers to all residents, care givers and rescue personnel. It sounds like they need it.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
No Problem: Duct Tape
(taken from a Houston-based website of storm photos)
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
“We’re sitting ducks. We’ve done nothing.” said Phil Bedient, an engineering professor at Rice University and co-director of the Storm Surge Prediction, Education, and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center. “We’ve done nothing to shore up the coastline, to add resiliency ... to do anything.”
It's Hurricane Katrina déjà vu all over again.
https://www.texastribune.org/hell-and-high-water/#
RE: Hurricane Harvey
http://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/discussions/nfdscc1.h...
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
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The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
Since Hurricane Ike made landfall between Galveston Island and the Bolivar Peninsula as a Category 2 with 15 foot storm surge back in September 2008, the greater Houston area has been studying and debating how to re-engineer their storm defenses...and how to fund those improvements. No doubt these events will give those discussions much more urgency.
About Houston, courtesy of the article I mentioned:
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Cost is always the elephant in the room. There are always lots of great, but expensive, solutions.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
Most hurricane migration efforts tend to deal with storm surge. With this event, storm surge is just the provably drop in the bucket.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Perhaps not in Houston, but NOAA should be well aware that the world record for 24-hr rainfall is 71.8 inches in 1966 and the record for 48-hr rainfall is 98.2 inches in 1995. The Texas coast has been hit with many severe storms in the past, Alicia, Allen, Barry, etc., resulting in flooding and deaths in Galveston, Brownsville, etc. Even Dallas got soaked with Norma.
It seems to me that hurricanes, and flooding, in general, seem to occur so often that the attitude is more of a, "meh, we'll just rebuild the same way we did last time."
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
We can't engineer our way out of that. So call this a planning disaster (we know there's the potential for this but plugged our ears and went lalalalalalalalala), or a risk management disaster (this is a 1 in 10? flood event and we are cool with everything getting destroyed when that happens), or even an emergency management disaster.
Whatever we call it, I hope the loss of life is not unnecessarily high.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
If I recall, there was a prediction that this storm could follow the path of a storm years before.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
When I was in high school, I think it was a hurricane blowing past on one side or the other that brought about 13" of rain to our area, but dumped about 27" of rain up in Alvin, just south of Houston. And yes, it flooded stuff. If I remember, that was 27" in 24 hours. Some of the rain numbers I'm hearing from the current situation are over the whole week or so, so it's hard to compare.
One problem with the information I see, it's obvious that there's a lot of water and flooding down there, but not obvious if that's 2% of Houston, or 10% or 90% or 98% or what.
My folks live south of there, and they haven't been flooded out- the major issue down that way has not been rain, but prediction of some of the rivers flooding from rain farther up the way.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
And now they are dumping the reservoirs, the Corps should have been dumping them a week ago.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, Plymouth Tube
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Recent communication from International Space Station... "Houston, you have a problem".
Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)
RE: Hurricane Harvey
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
My condolences to all those affected; Harvey can have a huge and costly impact-personal as well as financial. Also, I'm a Climate Change person, and Harvey may just be a harbinger of the future... Repairs should address the future climate conditions... it appears that from the damage done by Katrina, that repairs were modest and some not yet undertaken.
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Those reservoirs are normally dry parks/nature observation areas. There was nothing to dump a week ago.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
I was called in to restore power to the island of Guanaja among the bay islands of Honduras after the island was hit four times in four days by Hurricane Mitch.
We got temporary power connected to a seafood processing plant and about 75 working poor went back to work.
We got the second seafood plant up and running and another 100 people went back to work.
Guanaja is a small island and those jobs were the majority of the displaced working poor.
Getting those people back to work was a major boost to the local economy.
It was a nice feeling.
On a scale of 1-5 Mitch was a 6.
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Some of us might consider ANY loss of life to be "unnecessarily" high.
Please remember: we're not all guys!
RE: Hurricane Harvey
They are here right now, but maintain a residence on Spring Texas too.
His daughter cannot get to the house to see the condition.
They may be here for some time to come...
Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Enjoy...
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
So regardless of whether people consciously or unconsciously run the math, they typically decide to bet on the come, and as in craps, the roller will eventually lose.
Whether it's Texas and floods, or California with earthquakes, we're all betting that disaster won't strike in our lifetimes.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
His company is trying to reopen as many of their local restaurants as possible (they have three in the greater Houston area over which our son is directly responsible) so he's going to attempt to drive in to one of them where the flooding has not been as bad so as to help to try and get it open, but that's still about 15 miles from where he lives.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
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Irvine, CA
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
But FEMA gives us this assurance that the chance of an F5 tornado is small:
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Sharing is Caring Link
RE: Hurricane Harvey
You are so much an optimist!
Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)
RE: Hurricane Harvey
I knew it wasn't going to happen... I was just hoping... same thing with some of the remedial work with Katrina, I understand.
You're missing the most important monkey, "Do No Evil."
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
How do they keep the will to live?
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: Hurricane Harvey
I don't know why NOAA makes these stupid statements. In addition to the above, one NOAA spokesman called Harvey a "500 year storm". In both 1900 and 1935 water levels in Houston reached more than twice the height of the predicted water levels from Harvey. Don't get me wrong, 40 ft of water in Downtown Houston is a very big deal, and the economic impact will be staggering (maybe even unprecedented due to the current population density in the Greater Houston area), but there were 2 hurricanes in the 20th century that put more water on the ground in Houston than Harvey will.
The hyperbole from NOAA and the media is making me sick, while the individual acts of bravery and kindness being reported make me proud to be an American. The folks-helping-folks stories are coming out by the thousands, a very different atmosphere than Katrina in New Orleans, but Houston is a very different place than New Orleans.
David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist
RE: Hurricane Harvey
1900 hurricane hit Galveston and killed as many as 8000 people: http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/art...
1935 hurricane hit Florida, killing 408 people: http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/art...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Texas_hurric...)
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
The listing above just says "Major hurricane makes landfall in Galveston. Harris County experiences widespread flooding" about the 1900 Hurricane that killed 6000-8000 in Galveston. The story that the bayous crested at 56 ft in Harris County was from a Facebook post that may or may not be accurate.
Harvey is horrible, but it isn't a 500 year storm or in any way unprecedented.
David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
As for their attempt to get at least a few of their restaurants open, he said someone at corporate has had second thoughts and while he did manage to finally get to the store closest to his house, all they did was clean-up spoiled food (there was no damage whatsoever to the building).
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
Therefore, the "no one expected..." statement earlier is just random reporter BS.
NOAA's archived rainfall prediction from Friday was for 30-40 inches of rain: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2017/al09/al092017...
Note also "...CATASTROPHIC FLOODING EXPECTED DUE TO HEAVY RAINFALL AND STORM SURGE..."
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
I don't think you know what a 500 year storm is. It does not mean there will only be one every 500 years. It means that in any given year, there is a 1 in 500 chance of it happening. These things are defined. It is not a term randomly grabbed out of the air and slapped on a storm.
Considering that Houston has had 3 500-year storms in a row the past three years (a 1 in 125 million chance), one might think that these things are happening... well, more frequently than they should.
Given that the predicted return periods are based on past climatological observations, it might be safe to assume that the climate is... changing.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Your definition of a 500 year storm coincides with my definition. But who sets the probabilities? If you say that a storm that raises the water level in the Bayous by more than 20 ft has a one in 500 year probability, and it happens 4 times in a 117 years, then you might wonder if it is more likely that the interpretation of the climate record is flawed.
One thing that the climate observations have not taken into consideration is the change in land use. A 20 ft change in the Bayous in the year 1500 would have been a LOT more water than a 20 ft change today because the volume of the structures that 6.5 million people (in the SMSA) have constructed is huge, and the amount of pavement and elevated roadways is very large, both factors making the same volume of water rise to a much higher level. But the definition hasn't changed. A weather event that shows up in the archaeological record from the time of Christ would have a much smaller impact on the landscape than the same weather event today.
Rather than showing this event as a 500 year storm, which is smaller than at least two and probably three events in the 20th century, as a one in 125 million chance, change the definitions to account for land use and call it a 30 year flood.
And of course the climate is changing, the only constant in the natural world is that all things will try to move towards lower entropy (less organized) and when one thing lowers its entropy it will raise the entropy of something else. Nature is always changing, and the only way to mitigate that change is the input of huge amounts of energy.
David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist
RE: Hurricane Harvey
'500 year storm', '100 year storm', '1,000 year storm', etc are scientifically defined terms- yours/my/Spartan/zdas opinions do not matter with regard to how meteorological data is compiled and reported.
The '500 year' storm nomenclature is also a local one- and doesn't refer to weather patterns on a national or global scale.
For reference, here's a nice Washington Post graphic showing '500 year' events recorded over the last 7 years
https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/file...
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Should the data on which those probabilities change over time, so should future probabilities.
Every storm event changes the base for the picture.
Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Mike: Recent rain events will have a direct bearing on future probabilities... it's a moving target... and future 500 year return periods, for some affected areas, will be adjusted upwards.
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
As for who "sets the probabilities" if you want some light reading on the matter, here is 295 pages that outlines the methodologies and data that is used to define the storms:
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oh/hdsc/PF_documents/Atlas...
And stop conflating the return period for storms with the return period for floods. The land use has no bearing on the return period for a storm. None. This event, the storm, is not smaller than any storm event in the 20th century. Specifically for Houston, or for anywhere else in the lower 48 for that matter. As for the floods, it would be great if they treated it like a 30 year flood... and actually deigned for it and mitigated the effects of our unfettered consumption of natural resources. Instead we celebrate Houston's haphazard sprawl across hundreds of square miles of land.
Regarding your comments on change, that "the only constant in the natural world is that all things will try to move towards lower entropy"; "all things" do not try to move towards lower entropy. Only energy. Take evolution for instance. Or, if that is against your system of beliefs, shake a jar of sand silt and clay up in some water and let me know if it is more or less organized when it all settles. Yes. Entropy is a thing. But as it pertains to climate change (anthropomorphic global warming), aside from the underlying fundamental law, it has nothing really at all to do with it.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
This is true.
The other factor at work when we talk about '500 year' events of any kind is that those reclassifications of events, which will inevitably occur, are less valid until the data set is long enough that the true frequency of these events can be properly scaled. In 10 years or 50 years or 100 years, this '500 year' event might actually be determined to be a 100 year or 200 year (or 10 year) event.
In simple terms- we are calling this a '500 year' event, but we don't have 500 years of detailed flood data for the Gulf Coast. We don't actually know this to be a 500 year event- that statistical determination is based on some assumptions.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Back in June of 2013, Calgary (Alberta) and area suffered a major flooding event, due to upstream rain combined with said rain melting substantial mountain snow. The prevailing scientific opinions at the time were that an event of this magnitude was at least a 1-in->500 year event. However, a post-facto evaluation of the event and the geological history that the flood event unearthed indicated that it was actually more like a 1-in-30/40 year event (source - see the last paragraph on page 10). It just turned out that the base-time period had been an unusually (but still statistically plausible) dry period.
Combine that with the rampant growth seen in the greater Houston area (Harris County population up 35% from 2000 to 2016(est) - source) and the concurrent land use (zdas04) and a lack of upgrades to the overall flood-management system, due in part to the fractured municipal structure in the region, and you have what we see here.
If we were to call such a rainfall/flood event a 1-in-30 year event, that would change how the engineers would (have to) manage it. Mislabeling it as a 1-in->500 year event is the real "engineering disaster" here.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
We're saying the same thing... "Hydrologists are more likely to say that a 1000-year event has a 1000-year recurrence interval. The United States Geological Survey website further provides details on the procedure:"
This means that there is a 0.1% chance of it occurring in any year...
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Spartan5, "THE DEFINITION"???? Really???? That science is totally settled, right? I'm glad that JohnRBaker keeps giving you stars for attacking me, but your agenda is showing. I will not participate in turning this discussion of a major storm event in Houston into a global warming discussion. Sorry. My only reason for stepping in is that the hyperbole of arbitrary labels is hindering the discussion instead of facilitating it.
David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Just because you can do something mathematically, doesn't mean you should...
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
http://www.nws.noaa.gov/oh/hdsc/PF_documents/Atlas...
I'll look through the comments that you provided, but I highly doubt any of them support the position that you are advocating; that the 500-year storm should be called the 30-year storm
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Read the link that I posted above. People that USE these classifications to design watersheds, spillways, set insurance rates, etc, find them to be nonsense. I may be out of my element, but the responders to the request for comments are deeply within their element and find the definition to be worthless. I'll go with that and pass on the your 295 page document.
David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist
RE: Hurricane Harvey
I read the link. Have you even read it? It says at the outset that there was support for both discontinuing the publication of the 1,000-year data, and for continuing to publish it. I'd hardly come to the conclusion that the consensus is that it is "nonsense" after having read it. Most of the comments against continuing to publish them are that they simply don't have the occasion to use it. There are plenty of comments from the professionals that do use it supporting continued publication.
Regardless of that, your document is a non-sequitur because it in no ways supports your contention that the 30-year storm is wrong and should be made the equivalent of the current 500-year storm.
You might actually stand to learn from reading something developed by leading professionals in the field (instead of a series of anecdotes). But don't let me get in the way of your bliss.
EDIT: Again... looking at the document, more than half of it is people supporting the continuation of development and publication of the 1,000 year storm data. That's a far cry from your statement that "They are nearly unanimous in decrying the quality of 500 year and 1000 year events, and their impact on the environment. I found their comments quite interesting." Did you read it?
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
The flaw in that statement is that the tendency is towards higher entropy. Any local reversals are at the expense of increased entropy that occurs to produce it.
Is there any cooperation between the meteorologists and the hydrologists and the city planners to determine the rainfall levels that will result in problematic conditions? Giving a 'X years' event seems worthless to me. If it doesn't offer even short term predictions about where people need to leave on a street-by-street basis then it seems to be of only academic interest.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
"Houston's system of bayous and reservoirs was built to drain a tabletop-flat city prone to heavy rains. But its Depression-era design is no match for the stresses brought by explosive development and ever-wetter storms.
Nearly any city would be overwhelmed by the more than 1.2 metres of rain that Hurricane Harvey has dumped since Friday, but Houston is unique in that it gets regular massive floods and has an inability to cope with them. This is the third 100-year-or-more type of flood in three years.
Experts blame too many people, too much concrete, insufficient upstream storage, not enough green space for water drainage and, especially, too little regulation.
"Houston is the most flood-prone city in the United States," said Rice University environmental engineering professor Phil Bedient. "No one is even a close second — not even New Orleans, because at least they have pumps there."
The entire system is designed to clear out only 30 centimetres of rain per 24-hour period, said Jim Blackburn, an environmental law professor at Rice University: "That's so obsolete it's just unbelievable."
'We're not done with this:' Harvey floodwaters continue to wreak havoc as forecast brightens
Also, Houston's Harris County has the loosest, least-regulated drainage policy and system in the entire country, Bedient said."
Link: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/houston-harvey-draina...
That's quite a critique... I guess profits, first... the heck with anything else...
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
As for his attempt to reopen his three restaurants, they accomplished that yesterday by 3:00 pm and while they had very limited menus (just what they had on hand that hadn't spoiled) he said that he was expecting his vendors to start making deliveries today and he should be fully up and running by tomorrow for the weekend. He hopes corporate is happy since his was the only concept that got all of their stores open so far, albeit only three locations in the Houston area (nationally, he's responsible for something over 60 restaurants).
He said that it's still somewhat of an adventure getting to work. When I talked to him this morning he had about 5 miles yet to get to his primary store, near the Galleria in uptown Houston, which is normally a 25 mile drive. He said he had already been on the road for better than 90 minutes and figured it was going to be at least another 20 or 30 minutes.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Hurricane Harvey
I guess they lucked out. It was not flooded out.
Mike McCann, PE, SE (WA)
RE: Hurricane Harvey
I know it isn't Waffle House.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
And here are the Texas locations:
http://www.mccormickandschmicks.com/locationmap.as...
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Right, since Houston is super far from a major seafood harvesting area. I'm sure there's no fresh seafood for restaurants there.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
That is exactly the thought I had when I read DavidBeach's post. Some of the best seafood I've ever had was at McC&S in Chicago. Followed closely by a half dozen restaurants of various brands in Houston and Lafayette, LA (I've had better luck there than in New Orleans), a tiny hole in the wall place with only boat access in East Kalimantan Indonesia and a place in Manila. Good sea food mostly requires it to be fresh and handled in a clean environment. Great sea food has to start with fresh and clean and add preparation techniques and seasoning.
David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist
RE: Hurricane Harvey
And let's hope that we're not dinged for the off-topic nature of the this recent exchange
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
E.ON's Papalote Creek wind farm near Corpus Christi back online
https://seekingalpha.com/news/3293341-e-ons-papalo...
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
But as a structural engineer, I'm curious about the major structural damage. The winds weren't that high (I don't think they exceeded even minimum code values in the worst area; this wasn't a windy storm) and floods shouldn't knock down steel framed buildings. Does the siding fail due to a non hurricane wind, take out bracing members, and in turn, take down the building?
I'd be interested in the post mortem. Who does these things?
RE: Hurricane Harvey
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Hurricane Harvey
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
The main 'secret' in having a good 'wind proof' building is detail to the flashings at the corner and eaves to make sure they are well secured. I don't think you can secure them enough. I've seen failures where fasteners are @8" o/c.
In a windstorm, the wind pressures are higher on the edges and, in particular, the corners. Once a flashed edge fails, then the wind gets in under the roofing/siding and simply tears it off... it then becomes a dangerous 'projectile'.
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
The pictures I see are not from engineers. But they look more like wind failures. I think dik is on the right path. The fasteners fail and the siding or roof ends up supported by a whole different mechanism than it's designed for. One girt or purlin might be taking three times the tributary area it was planned for. When it fails, it twists the main frames and that's all she wrote.
Note that the wood framed commercial buildings and residences are even worse. You've got some guy with a nail gun shooting nails blindly into a 1 1/2 inch wide truss or rafter. Even if they were designed correctly, what's the odds that they're dead center in the 2 by? Some of the roofing sits on my favorite, OSB. The advantage of this besides its price is, when it gets wet, you can spoon it off.
When Florida had hurricane and wind failures they beefed up their codes. Any chance Texas will follow? And by the way, Florida is thinking about relaxing their codes.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Your windspeed comment is a concern I have have with the code changes. It is my understanding that Rockport got up to 130 mph sustained winds.
Based on ASCE7-10: ULT 3 sec gust varies between 136 and 156 mph in Rockport. (147 for Risk Cat II)
Based on ASCE7-05, ASD 3 sec gust is 130 mph
Based on ASCE7-93, fastest mile (ASD) is 93 mph
The calculated pressures are relatively close to each other.
This has been one of my pet-peeves with these code changes. Clients can't comprehend that 147 mph now is the same as 130 mph a few years ago, which is the same as 93 mph before that. What design wind speed is the media using when they say winds are higher than code requirements???
RE: Hurricane Harvey
As hawkaz said, the Port Aransas (I'm sure Rockport is about the same)ASCE 7-10 mapped values range from 138 mph to 158 mph, depending on the design category.
I think what we structural engineers are going to find is that there are details that are design critical, but are not designed. For Hurricane Andrew, is was the gable ends, These fail, and start stressing our critical members. Mother nature is very good at finding the weak link.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
I purchased a stucco home in Houston and was very leary and still am some about it due to the humidity we have. The issue with stucco is that it doesn't breath well. Planked siding allow breathing. You never want to seal up a building. Newer stucco homes have venting put in the stucco to help facilitate breathing. Brick I believe has weep holes for breathing as well.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
There have been huge social changes over the decades... more moisture generated in homes, more time spent in homes, etc. The problem is getting more complicated from the inside and the outside...
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
The info contained in your link:
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/harvey/2017/09/05/...
has more information. If I were the insurance companies, based on the new information, that was not acted on, I'd be refusing coverage to at least the City of Houston. It would be a hardship to refuse coverage to the residents... but, they could start up a class action...
Good post...
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
From this observer, it seems like until Houston starts condemning and tearing out houses in the flood plane, creating retention areas and encouraging vertical growth, rather than horizontal, this flooding will repeat.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
http://www.newsweek.com/katia-and-jose-have-reache...
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
The city, being part of a government structure, has an obligation to look after the long term best interests of the people... Houston failed miserably. Like the Texas legislation where a chemical plant is not obligated/required to provide data on the chemicals on site; this IMHO, is not conscionable.
I'm certain, if I were an insurance company, I would be refusing coverage based on Houston's prior knowledge... it clearly falls under my 'definition' of negligence, "Negligence arises when one person owes to another a duty of care and breaches that duty, and reasonably foreseeable harm arises as a result of that breach."
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
So why are we talking about insurance companies?
So if FEMA deems the land uninsurable no one can get a normal loan on those homes.
Now if your house were to burn down, that is a different story.
Flood-plain land is still usable, but not so much for housing. It would be a real good for selling boats, a race track, pasture land, etc.
A class action suit on the developers is an idea that can happen.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Hurricane Harvey
levee
levees
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
The economic problem is a decent levee allows a developer to make money by using land that is otherwise unusable, but is near already fully developed areas. That's what pushes states/localities to allow levee building.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Hurricane Harvey
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Have you seen what property taxes (~3%) and sales taxes (8.75%) are in the Houston Metro? Nobody is going to push for tax increases here.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
The government took it over. I believe that was before reinsurance, and as much regulations as we have now.
Some business regulation are necessary because of stupid decisions, but a government takeover is over the top.
Here's the kicker, you could have higher taxes to pay for flood control measures, that may not meet the minimum, and still be required to purchase flood insurance by your lender.
I still stand behind a class action on the developers, who should have known better. This sounds like a greed issue (I am not a friend of developers).
Someone told me today that it might help to keep stuff from water damage, to place it in your dishwasher before you leave your house (any thoughts?).
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
That's ironic, the reason the government is running it and earthquake insurance is precisely because the free market doesn't want to. Floods and earthquakes have no upper bound on damage costs. That's not something that's covered by classical actuarial risk analysis, since the near infinite downside is not adequately compensated by the low probability.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Traditionally underwritten insurance only works if the risk pool is relatively large compared to the statistical rate of having to make payouts, which is what actuarial tables are used to project or estimate, and as has been already noted, any financially sound actuarial table designed to predict the payouts for earthquakes and floods would be so horrendous that no for-profit organization would touch it at any price.
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
If companies can sell spacecraft launch insurance, why can't they sell flood insurance? Part of the reason is simple, government regulations in each state limit the ability of companies to sell usable insurance.
By usable I mean the states add requirements that increase the costs.
Yes I know the insurance commissions are there to protect the customers, but they also add baggage to what products are sold in each state.
I suspect another reason insurance companies don't want to sell flood insurance is the agents don't know how to rate the property. I've seen flood maps, and in cases they were wrong. It led me to find a different lender who had better maps. Here again, people could be looking at lenders with bad maps to get lower payments on homes, due to the fact that the lender does not require flood insurance.
But in the case of hurricane Irma with 15 foot storm surges, how many homes are above 15 feet above high tide level?
Another detail on electric utilities, most public companies are in part or completely self insured, like many city owned electric companies, but RECs will turn to FEMA for the cost of rebuilding.
This detail will eat into the payouts from FEMA, and we the taxpayers pay for that.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Probably should ask the residents near Mount St. Helens.
"If companies can sell spacecraft launch insurance, why can't they sell flood insurance?"
Launch insurance is for a single launch, and is limited to the actual cost of the hardware; which is fully bounding, i.e., you know the maximum loss is $250 million or whatever. You can insure a multiple of launches, but those are all separate events, and the loss of one satellite does not in any way affect the potential loss of a different satellite. The premiums have historically been sufficient to cover the losses.
When you sell flood insurance to, say, 500,000 people, if a few get flooded, the premiums can cover the losses; if 100,000 get flooded, at $500k per loss, that's $50 billion dollars. If that only happens once every 66 years, the premiums at, say, $1500 annual, could cover the losses, but that's obviously not happening.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: Hurricane Harvey
The problem with flood insurance is that if a flood happens, you're going to end up with whole cities of claims. You can't cover hundred of thousands of dollars in losses for hundreds of thousands of clients. But the government can't practically stop people from living in flood plains (they can try, but as long as developers give campaign donations, they can't succeed), especially 500 year flood plains, and they can't leave them to die in poverty after a flood. It's a horrible system, but I can't think of a better one. If there's a house there, someone is living in it and that house contains voters and heart wrenching stories for the news.
Maybe if there was a lifetime limit on a house on flood insurance. You get it once, but the second time, you get enough for another house, and that one is torn down and the land is condemned.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Jed, I think you hit the nail on the head. Let the market (insurability of a piece of land) dictate zoning for floods, i.e. if a claim is placed against flood insurance, the land becomes permanently un-insurable against floods. The user could still build on that property, but would have to mitigate against flood damage on his/her own dime (i.e. build on a berm, build a floating house, whatever).
I think search and rescue operations should operate similarly, i.e. you get one free rescue from a dangerous place, after that you are on your own.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:
The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without
RE: Hurricane Harvey
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: Hurricane Harvey
But just try to add on a bedroom.
I was told, and it may or may not be true, that in some places that were once flooded the people have to sell the land because of the new requirement of rebuilding on peers. The owners are older and can not climb the stairs. Even if it were not true, how do you make homes like that ADA compliant?
I believe the flood insurance issue is a company must spread the risk, but state insurance laws make that difficult, except within that state.
But what if someone put insurance on the net? You could buy, say 0.1% risk in 5000 homes, and you make 0.1% profit less transaction fees on 5000 homes.
So your home would be insured by a pool of 1000 people that are betting your home will not flood within some period of time.
If the pool were to include 100 homes in each of the 50 states, the risk is much less that a large number would be flooded.
But something like that would put government workers out of a job, so that won't fly.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
only a minor problem that 0.1% of 5000 homes at $375k each comes to $1.875 million, which is exactly the same math that the insurance companies ran and they ran.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: Hurricane Harvey
I think it's really silly for the government to underwrite flood insurance... they have no idea of what the future holds... and it's a waste of taxpayer money... the states are all for it because it means money in their coffers for a long time to come...
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
No, they don't; be they Republican, who then cut taxes until there's nothing in the coffer, or be they Democrat, who then spends it until there's nothing in the coffer.
I think government is actually in a good spot to do this, since they could crank premiums high enough to discourage people from risking taxpayer dollars, but no one seems to wan to be the bad guy. If the government didn't do this, every year there would a hundred thousand or so new homeless people roaming the streets of the mid-West and Southeast.
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Isn't that a bit draconian?
I believe Holland has areas where the homes can all float if needed.
Keith Cress
kcress - http://www.flaminsystems.com
RE: Hurricane Harvey
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Actually FEMA has a political problem with being the bad guy. Insurance companies have no problem being the bad guy, which is why flood insurance should not be government run.
But insurance companies, because of state insurance laws, have a problem in spreading the risk enough to offer flood insurance.
So why is flood insurance that much different than fire insurance in the West?
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Please remember: we're not all guys!
RE: Hurricane Harvey
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
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RE: Hurricane Harvey
----------------------------------------
The Help for this program was created in Windows Help format, which depends on a feature that isn't included in this version of Windows.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
5056 years on Christine Keeler is still alive.Years ago there were false assumptions that Christine Keeler had died,based on reports that her body had been found under an old British Peer.
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
http://www.chron.com/news/politics/houston/article...
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Dik
RE: Hurricane Harvey
RE: Hurricane Harvey
If a business is in good shape, than by all means they should give. If the business is not in good shape, they have other concerns to take care of first.
There are morals at play here, not forced mandates.
When you ask how much you should give, the answer is more, more, more. This applies to both giving and taxes.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
The state has a rainy day fund but I expect that it won't use it. The state is slow or won't fix things unless it is forced to. There are pollution sites up and down the coast and the state won't do anything because they are hoping the federal government will declare them superfund sites and pick up the tab. I think Texas will hope and wait for the federal government to fix it unless enough noise is made by the city and all the plants that shutdown.
The mindset of the state is very different from where I moved here from, Minnesota. Minnesota has much higher taxes but there are a lot of things that get resolved ,in my opinion, better because the state spends the money to resolve problems that affect everyone. Schooling ,almost, across the board is very good to excellent, even in the rural areas. In Texas, it is very hit or miss depending on how much tax revenue that school district can bring in. If you have a plant in your school district, you'll be flush with cash. Some of the high schools have football stadiums that are far better than the division 2 college I went to for most of my undergrad. Texas is just very different. The fact that a high speed train is going to be built between Houston and Dallas still blows my mind. I think that someone is getting a kick back or made a large donation or something. Public transit ,at least, in Houston is very subpar for a metro but I think that is due to the Texan independent mindset. Large expensive projects that will be paid for in a socialized manner are not a Texas thing.
RE: Hurricane Harvey
TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies forum1529: Translation Assistance for Engineers Entire Forum list http://www.eng-tips.com/forumlist.cfm
RE: Hurricane Harvey
Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter
RE: Hurricane Harvey
My favorite peer joke is the one about the horse thief who is told he will be tried by a jury of his peers and then taken out and strung up. He asks what a peer is and they tell him.
"You mean I am going to be tried by a jury of horse thieves?"
--
JHG