Houston, Texas hit with Another Historic Flood
The Big Q: Why has the US been hit by major even historic flood after another recently?
The flooding that is hammering the City of Houston, Texas is the 8th historic flood in the US since the end of September. The Texas city’s officials have labeled the flooding that is currently slamming the city “a life-threatening emergency,” and insisting that “Houston residents should avoid travel at all costs today.”
Dozens of subdivisions have been flooded and major sections of US Interstate’s 10 and 45 were under water near Downtown during the week.
Authorities say that water is getting to areas that it has never been before, and Fire Department spokesman announced that the water is already 10 to 15 feet deep in some areas.
But even though some parts of Houston have already gotten over 20 ins of rain this past week, there is more rain forecast, this heavy weather crisis is not over yet.
The giant storm that caused all of this rain was surprise to many residents of Houston. A lot of people woke up last Monday morning to discover that their neighborhoods virtually under water.
Last Monday more than a 12 ins of rain fell in parts of Houston, submerging lots of subdivisions and several major streets and highways, forcing the closure of schools and knocking out power to thousands of residents who were urged to shelter in place.
Sylvester Turner, Mayor of the nation’s 4th-largest city, told residents to stay home to fend off a weather system he called “stubborn.” More rain was projected during the week although heavy downpours subsided somewhat by mid-day Monday, and only another 1/2 in was expected through Monday night.
If this flooding was just an isolated incident, it might not be that big a deal.
The fact is that the flooding in Houston continues a very disturbing pattern that began in early October of last year.
Since the end of September, the US has been hit by 8 historic floods, which works out to an average of more than 1 a month.
Below is a list of the 8 historic floods in the past 8 months in the US, as follows:
October: Hurricane Joaquin never makes landfall, but it tracks up the east coast of the United States causing nightmarish rainfall and flooding all over the eastern seaboard. In South Carolina the Governor declared that it was the worst rainfall that many areas of her state had seen in 1,000 years.
October: Violent storms in Southern California caused flash flooding that buried some highways in “Rivers of Mud” that were up to 6 ft deep. Hundreds of vehicles got buried in the fast moving mud, and at least 1 man was killed.
October: Hurricane Patricia was the 2nd most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded in the world, and remnants from that storm caused absolutely horrible flooding in some parts of Texas. The floodwaters were moving so fast at one point that a freight train was knocked off the tracks.
November-December: A number of violent storms blew into coastal areas of Oregon and Washington causing extensive flooding in many areas. The resulting landslides and floods made headlines, and it is going to be a long time before the region recovers. In early December residents saw the wettest day in the history of Portland, Oregon, and things were also very bad up in the Seattle area at that same time.
January: The middle part of the nation experienced record-breaking flooding. The only thing that people could compare it to was the great flood of Y 1993. Missouri Governor Jay Nixon said that some communities saw floodwaters get to “places they’ve never been before.” Normally, if the middle of the country is going to see flooding like this it is going to take place when the snow begins to thaw in the Spring. For something like this to happen in the middle of the Winter was unprecedented.
January: On 22 January one of the worst east coast blizzards in history slammed into Washington, DC, New York City; and other major Metro areas. More than 3 ft of snow fell on some areas, hundreds of thousands of people were left without power, and coastal cities all long the eastern seaboard experienced flooding that was described as “worse than Hurricane Sandy.”
March: Almost 2 ft of rain triggered historic flooding in parts of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Flooding along one area of the Sabine River broke the previous record by more than 5 ft, and some sections of Interstate 10 were closed for 4 days.
Never before has the United States experienced so many historic floods in such a short period of time, many people died and thousands of homes were destroyed, leaving citizens in very painful and difficult circumstances.
Again the Big Q: Why is this happening?
Some people believe that “Climate Change” is responsible for these weather patterns, others say El Nino, and a few others believe that this is a sign that we are approaching “the last days” described in the Bible.
What we can all agree on is that what we are seeing highly unusual weather patterns and that we must prepare and protect ourselves, and property in the best ways available to us.
Historic floods have hit almost every region of the country since the end of September, and the economic damage that has been caused has been immense.
Be alert to your local weather forecast, prepare and be safe.
Paul Ebeling