When Katrina hit the good old boys said it was God's revenge because God hates
blacks and they shouldn't be helped. When Sandi hit the good old boys said it
was God's revenge on liberals, feminists, New Englanders, homosexuals, and they
deserve no help. Now that Mother nature has hit the good old boys I don't see
them refusing all of this help from Blue States.
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
Sent: Friday, September 1, 2017 11:15 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Harvey ravages Houston: A glimpse of future
disasters?
As I send this article Harvey's rain has reached me. It is coming down pretty
hard outside right now.
https://socialistaction.org/2017/08/31/harvey-ravages-houston-a-glimpse-of-future-disasters/
Harvey ravages Houston: A glimpse of future disasters?
/ 18 hours ago
Sept. 2017 Houston Joe Readle:GettyBy MICHAEL SCHREIBER
After swamping Houston and the Galveston Bay region, Tropical Storm
Harvey wheeled into eastern Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Residents
of Tyler County, Texas, were told by authorities, “Get out or die!” Over
two feet of water was dumped on cities and towns that were still
rebuilding from the legendary Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Tennessee, Arkansas, and Kentucky lie in the storm’s path, and are
bracing for heavy rains and flash floods. The area hit by Harvey exceeds
that affected by either Katrina or Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
Although Houston dodged the full brunt of Harvey when it was at
hurricane strength, the nation’s fourth largest city was battered by
disastrous flooding. The Houston Chronicle headlined: “Epic flooding
shows no mercy,” as the downpour continued for five days. Rain gauges
showed that as much as 52 inches had fallen—the heaviest rain total to
have fallen in any tropical cyclone in the continental United States
since records began in 1950.
As the storm shifted to the east, much of the city was left underwater,
with higher sections reduced to soggy islands. Over 40,000 houses were
damaged in the region and over 7000 completely destroyed—with much of
the damage in poorer and working-class neighborhoods where people lack
flood insurance. At least 32,000 people sought emergency housing in
public shelters; 31 people have been confirmed dead, but the casualties
are still being tallied.
Government first-responders were supplemented by legions of civilian
volunteers who carried thousands of people to safety. Three truck
drivers gained media attention for driving 200 miles to the Houston
area, where they rescued over 1000 people. Several hundred members of
the Cajun Navy (Louisiana “bad asses who save lives,” who first got
together because of government inaction following Katrina) and many
others used boats, canoes, and hand-to-hand human chains to pull victims
out of the oil and sewage-laced floodwaters.
Chemical explosion; oil tanks toppled
The flooding was made more perilous by the fact that the Houston area,
the so-called “Chemical Coast,” is by far the largest oil-refining and
petro-chemical center in the country. Generally, the region produces 4.5
million barrels of refined petroleum products per day—25 percent of the
nation’s total. Fracked oil and gas from around the country are piped to
the region for processing, and the products are then exported around the
world. Oil prices rose worldwide as at least a dozen Texas refineries
halted their operations.
Well over 3400 oil and chemical storage tanks line the sides of the
Houston Ship Channel, presenting a constant danger in heavy storms. But
no design standards exist in Texas to protect the tanks from storm
surges. A surge of water toppled two tanks in South Texas, spilling
almost 30,000 gallons of raw crude oil. A pipeline ruptured east of
Houston, releasing hydrogen chloride, a gas that “can cause serious or
permanent injury” if inhaled, according to a federal safety guide.
Officials believe that more damage to the oil and chemical industry
infrastructure will probably be discovered as the water recedes.
Over 300,000 people live in areas of metropolitan Houston that are in
particular danger from the effects of an oil or chemical spill,
according to a study cited by The Texas Tribune. In addition, Harris
County, home to Houston, contains at least a dozen Superfund sites, plus
other sites listed by the state as being highly toxic. Now the sites
have been inundated by water, potentially spreading the contaminants
over a wide area.
ExxonMobil acknowledged on Aug. 29 that Harvey had damaged two of its
refineries, releasing hazardous pollutants into the atmosphere. That
followed numerous complaints on Twitter of an “unbearable” chemical
smell over Houston.
Sept. 2017 Houston 1 David J. Phillip:AP
Both ExxonMobile and Chevron Philips indicated that additional chemicals
would be emitted because of the shutdown of their plants. Luke Metzger,
director of the group Environment Texas, explained in The Texas Tribune,
“Most of the unauthorized emissions come from the process of shutting
down, and then starting up, the various units of the plant, when
pollution control devices can’t be operated properly and there’s lots of
flaring.”
“This pollution will hurt public health in Houston,” affirmed Bakeyah
Nelson, executive director of Air Alliance Houston. “When petrochemical
plants prepare for storms, they release thousands of pounds of
pollutants into the air. … It is a stark reminder of the dangers of
living near industry.”
The danger of chemical pollution was highlighted early on the morning of
Aug. 31 when the Arkema chemical plant in Crosby, Texas, twice exploded,
triggering a fire that officials said would likely “burn itself out.”
Employees and nearby residents had been evacuated from the vicinity two
days earlier. Floodwaters had knocked out the refrigeration units at the
facility, and Arkema officials had warned that it was virtually
“inevitable” that the organic peroxide stored there would explode if it
got too hot.
Following the explosions, an Arkema spokeperson hastened to downplay the
effects, assuring the media that the smoky plume was not dangerous to
people. However, Brock Long of the Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) said that it was “incredibly dangerous.”
When Richard Rennard, president of Arkema, was asked by the media what
else he might have done to avoid the risk of burning chemicals at his
plant, he shrugged his shoulders. The Houston Chronicle identified the
plant as a potential source of danger in 2016, but nothing was done to
ameliorate the danger.
Climate change and capitalist greed
Harvey was the third crippling storm that Houston has experienced in the
last three years. And it is only 16 years since tropical storm
Allison—until now the second deadliest in U.S. history—concentrated its
force on the Houston area.Sept. 2017 Houston 2 David J. Phillip:AP
“The exact same storm that comes along today has more rain associated
with it than it would have 50 or 100 years ago,” climate scientist
Katharine Hayhoe told The Texas Tribune last year. The reason has to do
with climate change.
The warm ocean temperatures associated with climate change are making
storms stronger and wetter. Warm water means more evaporation, so there
is more water vapor for a passing storm to pick up. And rising sea
levels due to climate change are worsening the effects of a tidal surge
during a storm. Since 1960, the level of water in the Gulf has risen
over a foot along the Texas coast.
Michael E. Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science at
Pennsylvania State University, wrote in the Guardian, “While we cannot
say climate change ‘caused’ Hurricane Harvey, we can say is that it
exacerbated several characteristics of the storm in a way that greatly
increased the risk of damage and loss of life.”
Mann wrote, “Harvey was able to feed upon warmer waters deeper within
the Gulf when it intensified at near record pace as it neared the
coast.” Another potential link to climate change, he said, is how the
storm stalled near the coast, allowing it to increase flooding and
damage in a pattern “associated with a greatly expanded subtropical high
pressure system over much of the U.S. at the moment, with the jet stream
pushed well to the north.”
The water in the Gulf of Mexico registered 85 degrees on the day that
Harvey struck land. Metropolitan Houston, because it sits next to the
Gulf and is very flat, is especially vulnerable to the more frequent and
intense rainstorms affected by climate change. Moreover, according to a
study at Texas A&M, Houston is the worst city in the United States for
recurrences of flooding.
Buoyed by oil money, Houston has become a paradise for big capitalist
developers. Unchecked sprawl has greatly increased in recent years,
allowing former pastureland and wetlands that once soaked up floodwaters
to be smothered by buildings, roads, and parking lots. In the years
since Hurricane Allison, about 167,000 additional acres were developed
in Harris County, mainly to the west of Houston; a lot of the new
construction was in floodplains.
But local county officials shrugged off any plans to stave off the
dangers by protecting green space and strengthening building
regulations. And when the Houston city council authorized flood gauges
to be erected in some areas to demonstrate how high the water could get,
they were lobbied by real estate interests who feared scaring off
potential homeowners, and the signs were removed.
A few years ago, the city tried to ban buildings in the most flood-prone
areas. But developers sued, and the city council voted to weaken the
policy. When the city attempted to set aside a section of pastureland in
its western suburbs to serve as an emergency drainage reservoir, they
were again defeated, and houses were built there instead.
Houston’s top flood-control officials insisted that the monster storms
that have hit the city in recent years were “freak occurrences,” and
that the region’s dams and spillways, and other infrastructure projects
in the works, would be adequate to contain any storms that they might
ordinarily expect.
A year ago, the outgoing head of the flood-control district, Mike
Talbot, told The Texas Tribune and ProPublica that he spurned any notion
that covering the land with concrete would make flooding worse. The
claim that “these magic sponges out in the prairie would have absorbed
all that water is absurd,” he said. Talbot said that his committee had
no plans to study the effects of climate change on Harris County. He
criticized scientists and environmentalists for being “anti-development.”
The local authorities’ inability to take steps to mitigate storm
disasters has been made worse by federal policies under Trump. The
Trump-appointed Environmental Protection Agency leadership denied the
information brought forward by scientists that Harvey’s force had a link
to worldwide climate change, calling it “an attempt to politicize an
ongoing tragedy.”
On Aug. 15, days before Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas coast, Trump
signed an executive order that revoked an Obama-era rule requiring
projects built in coastal floodplains that receive federal aid to
account for the impact of sea-level rise. Trump trumpeted that the order
was part of his efforts to rid corporations and industry of what he sees
as burdensome and unnecessary regulations. The Trump administration has
pruned back safeguards against pollution caused by oil production, and
has moved to eliminate the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice.
And Republicans in the House have been looking to cut $876 million from
federal disaster relief funds—a sum that would pay for half of the down
payment on Trump’s promised wall on the Mexican border. It is expected
that after Harvey, however, the GOP will probably back away from cuts in
disaster relief, at least for a while, viewing them as politically
inexpedient.
A glimpse of the future?
The disaster in Houston provides a glimpse of the fate of many other
U.S. coastal cities if nothing is done to avoid the worst effects of
climate change. A large portion of the U.S. shoreline is at risk from
weather-related catastrophes—which are sure to get worse as the planet
warms.
Many scientists predict that warming oceans and glacier and polar ice
melt will cause a sea level rise of from four to six feet—or even
more—by the end of the century. If the ocean rises six feet, almost 300
U.S. cities will lose half of their houses, according to the real estate
company Zillow. One in eight houses in Florida will be underwater; a
third of the houses in Miami will be at risk. It is likely that the
damage caused by large hurricanes under those circumstances would
greatly dwarf what we have seen recently with Harvey, Katrina, and Sandy.
And the problem, of course, is worldwide. Climate catastrophes have
killed thousands in Africa and Southeast Asia. Local officials in Sierra
Leone’s capital, Freetown, reported that the death toll from floods and
mudslides triggered by overnight rainfall on Aug. 14 had passed 1000.
In the meantime, deaths from floods amid unusually severe monsoon rains
in Nepal, India, and Bangladesh have surpassed 1200. The United Nations
said that 41 million people in those three countries were affected by
the floods. And this happened while Somalia and Ethiopia were facing
famine after four years of drought.
The simultaneous climate-related disasters in Texas, Sierra Leone,
Bangladesh, and Somalia signal the catastrophe that the planet faces,
and demonstrate that it is necessary to immediately shake loose from
capitalism’s oil-based economy. It would be counterproductive, even
criminal, for the federal government to hand over any more “disaster
relief” funds to the oil companies to repair their Texas facilities that
were damaged by Harvey. Instead, federal funding should be dedicated to
building a huge network of renewable power projects along the Gulf Coast
and nationwide.
Now that its oil industry has been crippled, Houston can once more
become the leader in generating power—wind power. The Texas Gulf Coast
has good resources for wind power, exceeding the average annual wind
speeds (6.5 meters per second) that are generally considered suitable.
Houston can also point the way forward in restoring the land and undoing
the damage caused by unrestrained capitalist development. Houston can
allow the prairies, wetlands, ponds, and bayous to perform their earlier
function in absorbing the rains to avoid major flooding.
As people search for victims and begin to repair the damage of Hurricane
Harvey, we can expect that the corporations will sweep in with
billion-dollar schemes to “rebuild” the area and further entrench their
interests. It’s been done before.
Following the destruction caused by Sandy in 2012, Naomi Klein wrote an
article in The Guardian warning of “America’s disaster capitalists,” who
had now embarked on a “cash grab” within the stricken area. She showed,
for example, how bosses had urged public officials to allow private
industry to spearhead the rebuilding, to ignore union contracts, and
even to create new “free-trade” zones to stimulate the influx of
capital. Similarly, Hurricane Katrina spawned attempts by the
capitalists to further privatize public services and the schools in
Louisiana.
But at some point, working people will say, “Enough!” The thousands of
civilian volunteers who saved lives during the worst days of Harvey
demonstrated how working people will respond vigorously and
resourcefully in a crisis when they see few other options.
In time, the working class will refuse to be chewed up by big business
or to stand aside for a government that refuses to listen to their
demands. The workers will come to the realization that the capitalist
system as a whole must be dismantled, and replaced with a new society
aimed at protecting the planet and fulfilling human needs.
Top photo: Joe Readle / Getty Images
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August 31, 2017 in Environment.
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