N. fowleri is difficult to contract but it's often fatal when it happens.
This is the least of their problems. LJ is between Houston and Corpus, which is a weather events, floods, and industrial petrochem disaster area. Honestly, it would be better long-term to relocate residents who are in the paths of increasingly-powerful and numerous hurricanes to the northwest rather than taxpayers subsidizing time-and-time again the stupidity of allowing people to build and rebuild neighborhoods in flood plains and right next to oil refineries. Climate change.
Have you ever lived here? It's clear you have _zero_ knowledge of the area.
What about SF or Seattle? The bay area is non-stop superfund sites, and unlike the gulf coast, there's _zero_ involvement from the companies that created the mess. Here, we have a few, but with _heavy_ mitigation from the companies involved. Y'all have absurd earthquake, fire, landslide, and drought risk.
Let's turn that around... How about: "Evacuate the west coast. No one should be allowed to live in California, Oregon, or Washington. It's just a drain on taxpayers."
I dunno, it does seem reasonable to me. Including your (albeit too wide) statement.
I refuse to live in a flood plain. Why would you? Not only do i not want my house to be destroyed, but the insurance alone is a good incentive to not live there.
If fire repeatedly pops up in my neighborhood i'll do the same thing, move. Why wouldn't you?
If the insurance would be insane because statistically it's likely to repeatedly happen why should taxpayers fund that sinkhole? I'm normally super liberal with taxes, but there has to be a balance. I believe in "free" healthcare, but we can't promote bad health patterns, as it would be a needless drain on the healthcare costs. Likewise i'd support taxpayers covering these types of disasters, but if you know the area is insanely prone to disasters why should the taxpayers fund it?
You're playing the victim card too hard mate. I get your point, but i don't think it's a "region bigot" issue here. Yes, people should move out of fire prone areas, why on earth would you think otherwise?
By the logic you'd have to use to claim all of this area is "in a flood plain and uninhabitable", you'd have to apply the same to virtually every other city in the US.
The flood plains mostly aren't inhabited here. (Yes, there are some exceptions.)
The area isn't what everyone seems to think it is.
I'm not talking about any specific location. Just the idea that it's some bigoted idea to say that, if year after year an area is burned to the ground, we shouldn't spend taxpayers dollars to fund a disaster area.
If insurance can calculate costs and decide what is too expensive to insure, we can too. That's all.
Yeah, but the original was _very_ much targeted at a specific region.
First off, the idea that this entire area is all in a floodplain or is repeatedly being rebuilt is just plain false. It ain't. End of story.
The bigotry comment is due to the history of the region. Flood control has historically been used to forcibly evict black communities, particularly along the gulf coast. Its a bit of a dog whistle here.
Yes, I'm a white guy. Yes, I'm still bringing it up.
Ever notice how it's only the majority non-white cities people are calling for forcibly evicting everyone from? Case in point: Houston, but not Galveston or Corpus Christi. New Orleans but not Baton Rouge or Covington.
Ever notice how it's the poorest communities that are at risk of losing their land, and not the wealthy-but-equally-flood-prone communities next door? (E.g. no one's saying "force people out of Katy", they're saying "force people out of the third ward")
Maybe you don't, but here, it's a big deal.
Historically, that same argument (it'd be better for everybody if no one lives there) is at the heart of a lot of egregious behavior by local and state governments (mostly local).
It's the reason people were _so_ pissed off about the arguments that big swaths of New Orleans shouldn't be rebuilt. It's why "we will rebuild" was such a rallying cry.
And it's why targeting the main African American population center in the state specifically (Houston -- I'm not talking about Lake Jackson in this, as I don't know it that well.) and falsely claiming it's flooding all the time and constantly having to be rebuilt at taxpayer expense tends to provoke a strong response here.
(small preface: a lot of my replies to your comments are not intended to be combative or smug, but i fear they may come off as such. Apologies. I don't intend it, but i'm also too tired to rewrite. So fair warning :)
> Flood control has historically been used to forcibly evict black communities, particularly along the gulf coast. Its a bit of a dog whistle here.
To what end? I'm not disputing you here because frankly i have completely zero idea - but i struggle to even understand the assumed motivation. Evict black communities from their home, but then later let them return (as most evacuations are temporary)?
Or is eviction different than evacuation here? Do they kick out the black communities calling the area unsafe, then move white communities in? Seems bizarre, but i'm often quite abstracted and puzzled by racist behavior. Again, not disputing, merely questioning.
> Ever notice how it's only the majority non-white cities people are calling for forcibly evicting everyone from? Case in point: Houston, but not Galveston or Corpus Christi. New Orleans but not Baton Rouge or Covington.
I really haven't, but this isn't something i pay attention to. I certainly wouldn't have read someones comment about forcibly evicting someone to assume they wanted to then, later, move white folks in.
> Ever notice how it's the poorest communities that are at risk of losing their land, and not the wealthy-but-equally-flood-prone communities next door? (E.g. no one's saying "force people out of Katy", they're saying "force people out of the third ward")
I'd be in favor of this situation if the state/taxes were paying for the "third ward", but less so Katy. Rich folks tend to live in nice areas, regardless of how much of a risk that area was in before money moved in.
Which isn't to say that taxpayers didn't _also_ cover the rich folks. I'm just saying i wouldn't immediately assume rich areas need tax payers to have their homes protected from floods. And, i'm generally against tax payers helping constant flood areas. Seems a waste of resources.
> Historically, that same argument (it'd be better for everybody if no one lives there) is at the heart of a lot of egregious behavior by local and state governments (mostly local).
Plenty of things have been used to commit horrible things - i don't see that as an argument of the idea being inherently bad. You can do good or bad with just about any tool/power.
You may be correct, but does it make living in Tornado Alley (or w/e random example) any more safe? Any less of a burden on the taxpayer? I'd imagine not.
> And it's why targeting the main African American population center in the state specifically (Houston -- I'm not talking about Lake Jackson in this, as I don't know it that well.) and falsely claiming it's flooding all the time and constantly having to be rebuilt at taxpayer expense tends to provoke a strong response here.
That seems perfectly fair. With all of this said, i haven't changed my view, but i imagine we agree more than disagree. Since i'm not making, imo, any grand exclamations. Merely saying that we shouldn't live in areas that cost too much to be worth it.
I know very, very little about the New Orleans incident, rebuild, etc. It just seems foolish to build a house on sand, is all.
By "eviction" here, I mean permanently not being able to return to your home, regardless of the exact mechanism.
Historically, the evictions are eminent domain. There's no returning. The local government simply forces you off your property, nominally paying you something, but often pennies on the dollar. At a broad brush, national-level, this is a good start: https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=756342 I'll try to find some gulf-coast specific historical summaries in a bit.
The land usually then gets sold, often to developers. Here, the rationale is "flood control". Elsewhere it's "urban renewal". The end result is the same: "You can't stay here. Go to some other state/county".
Next, there's development. The real culprit in a lot of urban flooding is more urbanization than climate change. When you pave over more and more of the watershed, water reaches the streams more quickly. This leads to more flash floods, as more water reaches the trunk stream quickly (or reaches a drain that can't handle the volume in a lot of cases). Zoning doesn't help with this much. Buildings, roads, and parking lots just don't slow down and trap water the way trees and winding bayous do.
The main issue is that the poor communities are in the lower-lying / downstream areas, usually. Development happens upstream / in higher areas. Places downstream that _never_ flooded before now flood multiple times a year, because everything upstream is paved. The community that paved things over does great, the community downstream suddenly has to deal with all kinds of issues.
The community that paved things over then complains about the "taxpayer dollars that are going to support those stupid people that built where it floods". The folks downstream are forced out, and their property is sold to developers, and the cycle repeats.
This is the historical pattern that explains a lot of why people get _really_ touchy about the whole "why would you live here" part.
At present, the main controversy is around targeted buyouts, which can be a very reasonable way of handling things overall. They're voluntary (we'll give you X for your house, will you take it?), and only offered if a property has flooded multiple times or is deemed at extremely high risk of flooding. They're supposed to be held by govt and kept in an undeveloped state. In practice, it often gets more murky, with the properties quickly being sold, yet again, to developers. Targeted buyouts are a very good way to handle things -- it's the execution that folks often object to. Again, history plays a role.
One thing to end on: Nowhere is particularly immune to disasters. There are certainly lower-risk and higher-risk areas, but trying to mark _vast_ swaths off-limits will end poorly. My point is, saying all of the broader Houston-Beaumont region is uninhabitable is just silly. We have floods due to hurricanes. Other places have fires, or droughts, or earthquakes, etc. It's a game of "pick your poison". We're higher risk than, say, Denver, sure. We're lower risk than say, SF, or Seattle, or Miami though.
Following the same logic, we should evacuate all the states that depend on the Ogallala aquifer, an aquifer that will be pumped dry in a couple of decades from now.
Those states will become a desert: South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico.
It also won't necessarily be "desert" when the aquifer is pumped dry. Best case, it looks more like the great plains and less like corn fields. Cheyenne gets 17 inches of rain per year, Amarillo gets 20 inches, so neither would be a desert.
Without the aquifer you cannot sustain the current crop yield, livestock headcount, many jobs would be impacted, and cost of living will rise. These phenomenons can have a cascading impact on other sectors of the economy... not only in the states sitting on top of the aquifer, but the entire country.
Perhaps it will not be a literal desert, but it will be a desert for the purposes of agriculture.
Given the comments I've repeatedly received due to my accent, I'd disagree.
I'm a bit sick of being called an "ignorant hick" or a "fucking stupid redneck" just because everyone can tell where I grew up if they hear me speak.
Yeah, I can be outspoken, but being told that because I'm disagreeing about something technical in a professional setting really gets under my skin, and it happens a lot. People on the east/west coast really do hold it against you if you're not from the east or west coast.
It's odd to call foul in a thread about climate change disasters when Texas politicians continue to deny that it even exists. Or to reject Federal aid to coastal states but beg for relief yourselves after Harvey. "Hick" is a supremely ignorant word to use but "hypocrite" seems accurate for the good ole' Republic of Texas.
And you assume we're all the same? All the cities in Texas are solidly democratic, fwiw. State politics are controlled by rural counties, similar to the US as a whole.
Not just Texas. When most of my friends were freaking out after the 2016 election I spent a bunch of time drilling down into the detailed election results. My take, there are no red states/blue states.
The divide is totally 'rural' / 'urban'. I put scare quotes because I think the definition is local and fungible. There are towns of 100,000 in New York that voted 'red' and little cities in places like Montana that voted 'blue'
Sure but pretty much all cities are solidly blue unless you look at Oklahoma or Kansas or something like that. The Texas oil industry has a unique place in skewing the discussion on climate change. Even if TX flipped blue, it will be hard to dislodge the prevailing denialism. Insert Upton Sinclair quote here.
That all said, I'm sorry you get roped into the same crowd pushing for Bible study and creationism in public schools. Identity and politics are viewed as inseparable these days.
Agreed. I grew up in the PNW, but in a predominantly black neighborhood. I married somebody who was from a very white new england suburb. They were downright intolerant of folks with a southern accent and literally called them stupid (the most memorable was an expert scientist being interviewed on NPR). It took several years of me bringing up that bigotry for them to come around and try to work on it.
Seconded, and I don't have much of an accent at all (especially if I'm focusing on it). Even without that, east- and west-coast natives hear I'm from Texas and jump to the "stupid redneck" thing.
I just wanted to corroborate this. Im originally from up north and have lived in texas for over 30 years and my brain still interprets a southern accent as ignorant/lack of education. I still have cognitive dissonance when I hear rocket scientists from nasa (houston) with southern accents.
Are we proposing to relocate every resident and business along the US gulf coast? I don't think Texas is more or less susceptible to hurricanes than the rest of the gulf.
And from the looks of the northwest, there's a chance we'd be relocating folks into the path of worsening wildfires.
Climate change is serious and we should respond with corresponding urgency, but let's not pretend that there's anywhere in the US that is 100% guaranteed to be a safe haven.
Maybe less than others but we're not unaffected. Boston is very susceptible to sea level rise and fisheries are going to be turned upside down from a warming ocean.
As someone who lives in the Houston metro area, I totally agree that there are places in the country better situated at the present moment. My broader point aligns with the other comment here - on the timeframe in which we'd think about these problems, virtually every area of the country will find itself wrestling with changing conditions, many of them with a net negative result. There was an interesting map I came across that tracked where climate change forecasts would move the "ideal zone" of habitation in North America - IIRC, quite a bit of the zone shifts into southern Canada and the northern midwest.
It's pretty simple to prevent neighborhoods from having to be "rebuilt" after a hurricane: require all construction to be concrete. Such laws are common in Florida and the Caribbean and probably need to be put in place along the Gulf Coast too.
That would be counter-productive. The risk from hurricanes in this area (i.e. relatively inland western gulf coast) isn't wind. It's water.
Build on stilts, not concrete. There's a reason we build the way we do here. We're not stupid.
Concrete just _guarantees_ that the building is uninhabitable in 2-3 years due to the shrink-swell clays in the soils here. Wood flexes. Brick and concrete don't.
This is the least of their problems. LJ is between Houston and Corpus, which is a weather events, floods, and industrial petrochem disaster area. Honestly, it would be better long-term to relocate residents who are in the paths of increasingly-powerful and numerous hurricanes to the northwest rather than taxpayers subsidizing time-and-time again the stupidity of allowing people to build and rebuild neighborhoods in flood plains and right next to oil refineries. Climate change.