Thursday, September 19, 2019

Imelda and points east


I've been getting a lot of inquiries about our well being what with Imelda beating up on the Texas Gulf Coast and while I am in the same general area and we are getting some much needed rain, 2” yesterday but only 1/2” today, all the flooding is happening to the south and east of us...the coast, Houston, and communities east of Houston. Some of them are getting hammered with over 40” of rain, worse than Harvey in some areas. Houston is horrible. I am glad I no longer live in the city. My daughter has been stranded at her work, can't leave til the water recedes and she was lucky this time. This time for her the water only came up to the sidewalk at home...so far. I'd like to say that this is a rare occurrence but coupled with the unrestricted and unregulated growth with no real plan or thought about drainage that has been Houston coupled with climate change and these tremendous storms that sit on you and drop unimaginable amounts of water, there is no system or infrastructure that can accommodate that. All our coastal communities are doomed to abandonment and those populations are going to be displaced. It's already happening. How many times do you fix up your house after it floods before you just let it go? How many times can you fix up your house before you have to let it go?

Wharton has a flood plan that they are supposed to be implementing that's been years in the developing as I understand it and it will probably be years before anything tangible is done at this rate since I have seen nothing especially since Harvey but perhaps actual physical progress is being made elsewhere. At any rate, if we flood again I'm going to see how much it would cost to raise the house. I'm sure it will be prohibitive especially as we are on pier and beam and slab. But I would like to know. I think about our high and dry nearly 150 year old (would be) house on pier and beam in the Heights part of Houston so called because it was the highest area and we were in a high part of that, no worries about our house ever flooding, hell, the neighborhood didn't even flood even when the rest of the city did. We'd be like a little island but then even the Heights finally started flooding when these events happened. I loved that house but it had some serious problems of its own not the least of which was it was being devoured by termites due to my aversion towards poisoning my environment, also it's ancient plumbing and it's ancient wiring and the fact that we would have had to sell it to have the money to fix it up. See the problem? As it is, that house did us one last mitzvah, it gave us the resources to be able to recover completely from Harvey and in an improved way.

I no longer have hope that this trend in climate change can be reversed. It was probably too late even before Trump who has torpedoed any regulation aimed at restraining global warming. I've looked at the projections and where we are will still be above water and not even on the actual coast when all the ice melts but I think we will be in danger of constant flooding. If I was a 20 something at this point and I cared about the continuation of the species in general and my particular gene pool specifically, I'd research the hell out of projected changes in the shapes of our continents and hoof it to someplace I thought I would have the greatest chance of survival, this country or some other. Because now is the time to do that. Fortunately for me, my time on this planet is running out. I can stay put and not suffer too much and I think my children will be mostly OK. I can't even imagine the world my grandchildren will be dealing with.

Anyway, what I meant to say is thank you to all who have checked in with me and inquired about my safety.





13 comments:

  1. It is quite a thing to be reflecting on

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm glad you're not getting any severe flooding where you are. When I read the news this morning I wondered about you right away! I too feel like I can probably live out my life without too much disruption, and I don't have kids (fortunately) -- I worry more about the environment, the animals, nature, than I do the billions and billions of people already crowding the planet.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Seeing the news of the rain and flooding, my first thought was of you, Ellen and your safety. I am so glad that you and your home are far enough away from the disaster area. My heart goes out to all those people who are suffering through this terrible, terrible storm.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Glad to hear that you're not in harm's way with this one. You're right though- most of us are already seeing the changes in a far more dramatic way than we thought would happen. And yeah, it's going to get worse. So much worse.
    Stay safe, Ellen. I hate hearing about your daughter being stranded at work. May the waters recede soon.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I often wonder how people with children and grandchildren can be so blase about climate change and the extreme weather it has and will wrought. Then, again, people who don't care are totally self-focused and anything that happens outside of a six-inch radius of their being doesn't interest them. I was hoping that you were outside of the worst of it. So much rain.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm glad you're not affected by this particular storm - and maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised (ha) & be able to afford to raise the house. At this point I'm also glad that we never had kids.

    ReplyDelete
  7. A sobering reflection indeed. My husband recently wondered at the wisdom of bringing more children into this battered world. I told him perhaps our grandchildren will be the ones to finally turn the tide. I guess I’m not so hopeless after all. Stay safe, my friend. You and yours.

    ReplyDelete
  8. David says we live on the 500 year flood plain. I really don't like the sound of that since we live near a river that has flooded 7 times since I moved here 17 years ago. I would be happier living somewhere in New Mexico, really. I'm glad you are okay and not flooded out. Incidentally we had a whopper of a storm that moved down from Austin and hit us around 9 last night. Got 3 much needed inches of rain.

    ReplyDelete
  9. We live NE of Dallas, Dimi works in Frisco. When we bought this house I insisted we not get near the lakes...for that very reason. We are almost on the top of a small hill. It's Texas, in this part of the state there are no hills. Today we are just seeing the edge of the storm approach us. They predict thunder storms later in the day.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I've been smug about "living on top of the hill" for most of my life. The best part of that deal is the ability to take the mop and buckets and shop vac and brute force and go down in the valley and help friends as they are periodically flooded out by hundred year storms. We've had a lot of those these last ten or twenty years.
    I thought about those hundreds of thousands of youngsters out protesting in the streets today. A great number of them need to be elected to office at a very young age. I read, or heard on PBS today, we have the span of only a few generations left.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Glad to know that you are safe, but it's disconcerting to hear about your daughter. I hope the water didn't rise for her anymore.
    I heard on NPR the other night that this younger and, thankfully, proactive generation is seriously contemplating having children. Some of them have even vowed not to. Not that the planet needs anymore, but that's sad to hear.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Depressing when you think about it. Probably why so many don't think about it. I do worry about my grandchildren, but then realize that I can only do my part and preach it to them. Glad you are safe and dry.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Glad to read that you are out of harm's way. Another flooding would be gruesome. In 2014/15 we had a flooded basement and a storm damaged garden/neighbourhood two years in a row and it took a lot out of me at the time. I am expecting more in years to come.

    ReplyDelete

I opened my big mouth, now it's your turn.