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Expert predicts a major hurricane hitting Houston would be “America’s Chernobyl”
- StanislavPetrov 6y agoAs an older person, I remember similar articles written about the dangers of such a hurricane hitting New Orleans and the disaster that would result due to the vulnerable levy system. Like this piece, those articles were lightly regarded and ignored. Unfortunately its not a matter of if, but when.
- redis_mlc 6y agoYup, and Galveston was literally scrubbed off the face of the earth by a hurricane in 1900. There's something weird in politics/organizations that everybody feels compelled to be a yes-man and put a positive spin on what is certain to happen. Often I'll hear, "Didn't somebody handle that?" when they already know that nobody was assigned for that. An illustration is provided by corona, where everybody tried to draw conclusions when there was literally no useful data for months, and even in Aug. 2020 there's precious little that one can say conclusively.
- screwthesouth 6y agoAnd the world would give a collective shrug. Texas gave us 2 George Bushs, a Jeb, and Ted Cruz (right-wing extremist tech billionaires Scott Bannister and his trophy wife Cyantist helped a lot with that one). Rain baby rain!
- KTallguy 6y agoTexas politics aside, plenty of innocent people from all walks of life could be displaced from their homes, left destitute, and spill over into other states. The richer folks would be just fine, so I don't think shrugging is an appropriate response.
- screwthesouth 6y agoDon’t worry. We’ll build the wall to keep them out.
- 27182818284 6y agoThis is not the type of forum you think it is--comments like this aren't welcome here. They do not add to the conversation and they reek of hate and personal issues.
- totetsu 6y agoAnd in 34 years we will get social media videographer gig workers releasing "Illegal cross country trip into the Galveston zone" VR experiences. This reminded me of the Arkema Inc. Chemical Plant Fire. https://www.csb.gov/arkema-inc-chemical-plant-fire-/ https://www.csb.gov/arkema-inc-chemical-plant-fire-/ I wonder if it is still not required by federal regulations to analyze the risk of flooding creating process safety hazards.
- EdwardDiego 6y agoGod I love CSB videos, such good post-mortems.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- arethuza 6y agoOn the subject of the release of dioxins, it's worth considering what happened at Seveso: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seveso_disaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seveso_disaster
- simplecto 6y agoBrooklyn has many issues with the Gowanus canal, also a Superfund site. It flooded parts of Brooklyn in 2012 during hurricane Sandy.
- codyswann 6y agoI wonder who will hold political office when this happens so they can say "no one could have foreseen this type of devastation."
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- thaumasiotes 6y agoEvery type of devastation, possible or not, has been "foreseen" by someone out there.
- xg15 6y agoYes but some are "foreseen" by lunatics and some by empirical science. This is the old "there is no truth, everything is subjective, so according to my alternative facts, I was in the right and everyone else was wrong" spiel again.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoAt the end of the day it all comes down to subjective decisions on what predictions are reasonable and what are not.
- reallydontask 6y agoUltimately you are right, but this is basically Popper vs Kuhn. I can confidently say that the sun will indeed rise tomorrow from the East and set on the West, to pretend otherwise is sheer folly.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoYeah you can always dumb it down to prove whatever point you want to prove but decisions like "do we spend a billion bucks building the levy one foot higher to prevent the flood or do we assume the flood will happen and spend a billion bucks on flood mitigation in our building code and emergency preparedness plans" are full of ambiguity and nobody knows the right answer ahead of time.
- buck4roo 6y agoDid @onetimemanytime find this article to submit after reading The wildest insurance fraud scheme in Texas - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24266056 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24266056 Because I did.
- mschuster91 6y ago> A detailed inventory of hazardous chemicals around the Ship Channel remains difficult to come by, thanks to a Texas law that restricts public disclosure of information that could be utilized by terrorists. Am I the only one who has to immediately think of the Beirut explosion disaster when reading this?! > At an estimated cost of $5 billion to $7 billion, the project would be far cheaper than either the Ike Dike or the cost of recovering from an epic natural disaster. And here we have the classic game of political incentives: whoever sponsors it now will be out a couple billion dollars even if the specified event never hits, so as there is no incentive for preventative work, why should it be done?
- roenxi 6y agoChernobyl is like terrorism - pretty much everything is more damaging if a risk adjusted data-driven comparison is done. It is hard to describe a major disaster that is less damaging then Chernobyl. There are train wrecks that are comparable to Chernobyl by deaths [0]. On that note; wow, what a horrific rain wreck that must have been. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_disasters_by_death_toll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_disaster...
- mhh__ 6y agoAnd if you take the value of land into account? Chernobyl displaced a lot of people and cost a lot of money In direct deaths, Chernobyl didn't cause that many but I have seen estimates of the cancer toll that are a lot higher than most accidents
- roenxi 6y agoI'd rather have 50,000 displaced than 5,000 dead. Being dead is pretty bad vs displaced. I move around a lot; although I can see the argument it is bad it is not a fate worse than death. If Oroville Dam had given way back in 2017 that could easily have been America's Chernobyl. It made for exciting news.
- xg15 6y ago> I move around a lot Others don't. Also, did you into account all the indirect effects of radiation?
- wukerplank 6y agoI found your comment quite cynical and hand wavy. The nuclear fallout affected a huge area and still impacted parts of central Europe. This goes hand in hand with increased cancer rates. Yes, better than dying immediately, but still not a fate you would wish upon anybody.
- boomboomsubban 6y agoMost of those estimates haven't held up, after this many years those deaths should be noticeable. The only cancer they can observe Chernobyl having an effect is thyroid cancer, which kills very few people.
- acvny 6y agoClickbait title. If it doesn't involve radiation leak, it cannot be compared to Chernobyl.
- rurban 6y agoYou missed the high-risk experimental South Texas Nuclear powerstation near Houston, which almost went off after the last hurricane. If the river levels swap over into the coolant ponds, the pumps get dirty and stop working. Last time it was something like 30 cm left. This wouldn't be a simple radiation leak, more like a Fukushima meltdown. Just with double sized 1600MW vessels, not simple 800MW. The safety measures were always substandard. Palo Verde, which is an even bigger risk reactor, is much better protected and managed. Even if they have not enough cooling water.
- Hnrobert42 6y agoI think you misunderstand how metaphors work.
- Tepix 6y agoIt makes a large region uninhabitable for a long time.
- sschueller 6y agoAnd thanks to the inaccurate and sensationalized depiction of radiation poisoning/exposure by TV shows like HBOs Chernobyl people will be in additional panic causing more harm.
- ghostcluster 6y agoFukushima would be a better metaphor because it was triggered by a natural disaster
- Noughmad 6y agoYeah but every hurricane is already worse than Fukushima. Remember that the only damage to health in Fukushima came from the evacuation itself.
- throwaway5752 6y agoThe earthquake and tsunami killed almost 20,000 people. Your point might be about the nuclear power station incident, but you might be forgetting what caused it.
- Noughmad 6y agoOnly the nuclear disaster gets called "Fukushima" though. The earthquake and tsunami impacted a much larger area.
- jupp0r 6y agoIn the meantime, tropical storm Laura is both possibly becoming a major hurricane and potentially making land fall near Houston: https://www.google.com/maps/@/data=!4m4!15m3!1m1!1s%2Fg%2F11hjjy3f_b!2e1?hl=en https://www.google.com/maps/@/data=!4m4!15m3!1m1!1s%2Fg%2F11...
- monadic2 6y agoChernobyl is already a tiny disaster compared to the covid19 handling. Hell, Puerto Rico's being devastated by Hurricane Maria already qualifies as an event that has caused more preventable destruction than Chernobyl did. You don't have to use your imagination.
- culopatin 6y agoAre you accounting for all the kids born in Easter Europe in the early 90s that either have developed cancer in the last 10 years or are dealing with it now? Or at least all the 90's kid from Belarus that are still dying to this day because of cancer?
- serpix 6y agoplease post some references to these claims
- Noughmad 6y agoAre you counting every kid that dies of cancer in Eastern Europe as caused by Chernobyl? The reality is that only one kind of cancer rose noticeably because of Chernobyl, this is thyroid cancer. And note that the base rate is one per million per year, so even a "statistically significant increase" doesn't mean a lot of cases.
- monadic2 6y agoDo you have any offers for that estimate? I've seen numbers that peg estimated fatalities on the order of thousands of people. I am very confident what I said will hold up. I grant that radioactive contamination has widespread non-fatal effects that are detrimental to longevity but that's true of natural disasters, as well.
- throWaythxMod 6y agoInstead of deaths, we should use number of years of life lost. When primarily 80+ year olds are dying from COVID, it looks worse than a nuclear accident that killed everyone.
- caro_douglos 6y agoTexas tea is a mainstay of the economy so it’s not terribly surprising that a member of the southern ivies has some groups and alumni decrying oil refinery waste as a big issue. While reading the article try not to judge the people or political structures involved since a huge chunk of the population is tied to the price of oil. It’s a fool’s errand to try to convince everyday people of the dangers involved with an industry which pays their bills.
- fractal618 6y agoI wouldn't say it's a fools errand. I normally have a laugh sending my fools to get things that don't even exist like a dozen mouse eggs, or some quartz oil. This is more like "a hermits dream"
- ryanmarsh 6y agoThis article is major clickbait hand-wavey garbage. There’s so many exaggerations and half truths I don’t know where to start. Peter Holly has been in Houston long enough to know he could have called the guys who designed those storage vessels and other refinery equipment (they’re likely neighbors) and get a quote about the tolerances they were designed for. He could have included a map showing the placement of the various container ports (there’s more than one, this isn’t Long Beach) and refineries or storage. This information is all easily obtained in Houston. Every time something happens here with a hurricane people here and across the country see fit to write inflammatory articles that are pure bullshit. Is there some risk of a LOPC (loss of primary containment) somewhere near the coast? Yes. How big? Which facilities? What category storm? What storm track? Would it be like Chernobyl? No.
- paulcole 6y agoLess of a pollution issue, but a major earthquake hitting St. Louis would be absolutely devastating. I’ve seen estimates saying it would be the biggest natural disaster in US history. https://www.kansas.com/news/nation-world/national/article223049475.html https://www.kansas.com/news/nation-world/national/article223...
- NoOneNew 6y agoThe danger mentioned is realistic and should be taken seriously. However, for those who dont live in a hurricane danger zone (I'm in Florida), these doomsday articles are a normal, everyday thing. Every single year since I was 12 and paid attention/tracked hurricanes (that's 21 years ago), "Experts predict ~3 major hurricanes will make landfall this year..." killing everyone, washing away Florida, flattening civilization, ending life as we know it, yadda yadda. This is the Weather Channel as well. It gets old. What's sad, the 2 or 3 honest concerned studies are drowned out by the millions of fear mongering, wolf criers. Do I think this article is honest? Other than the unneeded slow burn beginning, yea. But at the same time, hurricane zones have different building codes. This isn't as big of a "surprise" problem as people imagine. No one is really surprised that anything is "vulnerable" on the gulf coast. The American Chernobyl is just clickbait.
- MisterBastahrd 6y agoI thought this article was going to be about Houston's hilariously bad drainage infrastructure for a coastal city on a coast prone to hurricanes. IIRC, Houston's drainage system maxes out at a 1/2 inch an hour for an event that lasts a day. Rainfall totals that wouldn't phase New Orleans' drainage system are life threatening in Houston. Covering everything in asphalt and concrete leaves you with a ground that is unable to absorb some rainwater. Green spaces are more useful than just allowing cities to look pretty. They are a necessary part of a flood mitigation strategy.
- ryanmarsh 6y agoThe bayous (the most significant aspect of Houston's drainage infra) do not max out with 1/2 inch of rain. Maybe you're thinking of something else?
- NoOneNew 6y agoNot the commentor, but I think they're referring to those flood zones that were recently built on that were the worst hit by flooding. To be fair, those parts were disasters waiting to happen because the flood surveys weren't taken seriously when they decided to build on them.
- johnohara 6y agoOne would think Deepwater Horizon would be mentioned by comparison. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spill
- ryanmarsh 6y agoIf you're interested in sane weather reporting on Houston you can do no better than Space City Weather https://spacecityweather.com/ https://spacecityweather.com/ Also of use, the Space City Weather Flood Scale, now widely in use. https://spacecityweather.com/the-space-city-weather-flood-scale/ https://spacecityweather.com/the-space-city-weather-flood-sc...
- engineer_22 6y agoHurricane Ike, a category 4 hurricane, made landfall on the eastern end of Galveston Island in 2008. Wikipedia has an article detailing the damages, including a mention of chemical pollution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Ike
- nkingsy 6y agoJust looking at the numbers, the damage from Harvey (which they call small/lucky) was something like 6x the cost of the cheaper "artificial island" option proposed. The arguments for UBI have the implication that we have too many people with not enough to do, but that's not the case. We could employ the globe 1000x over in activities for the betterment of humanity, but the system for allocating non-profit-driven work is reliably corrupted by profit-driven enterprises.
- todd8 6y agoThere is a widespread belief that hurricanes and tropical cyclonic storms in general have increased in frequency and strength. This is a justified concern due to the existence of global warming and the potential loss of life and property damage generated by these immense storms. I'm not a climate scientist, but I have read about climate change and hurricanes (and cyclones): * In 1886 there were 7 major hurricanes that year, four hit Texas and three that hit florida. (See the hurricane tracking map for that year[1].) This was the most active year on record for hurricanes in the US, see[8]. * Barack Obama had the best record for hurricanes, only four hurricanes over eight years. Taft (1909-1913) had 13 in just four years over five times the rate that Obama had. Bush had 18, and Trump has had 7. The numbers are all over the place.[2] * Claims that increasing ocean surface temperature will clearly generate more intense hurricane activity need to be tempered by an understanding of the energy source that drives hurricanes. It is not temperature; it is the temperature delta between the surface temperature and the overlying air that provides the energy for hurricanes, see [3], and the troposhere is warming faster than the surface according to climate scientists [4]. Wouldn't this mean that there should be less powerful and or less frequent hurricanes. * Global climate-related deaths have dropped dramatically over the last century according to data from Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters [5] and cited with a figure on p. 74 of [6]. * The IPCC 5 Summary Volume Final report technical summary (TFE.9, Table 1 on page 110) has this to say concerning the statement: "Increases in intense tropical cyclone activity". "Low confidence" that changes occured (since 1950), "Low confidence" of a human contribution to observed changes, and "Low confidence" of further changes in early 21st century. See p. 110 [7]. The IPCC, in general, has low confidence that climate change is currently responsible for changes in hurricane intensity. * We can't rely on our own personal experience for understanding hurricane frequency, obviously. [1] https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tracks/tracks-at-1886.png https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tracks/tracks-at-1886.png [2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpielke/2019/11/26/us-hurricanes-by-president-since-1900-trump-tops-obama-but-bush-beats-them-both/#74647be821d0 https://www.forbes.com/sites/rogerpielke/2019/11/26/us-hurri... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_cyclone [4] https://www.washington.edu/news/2004/05/06/troposphere-warming-faster-than-earths-surface-new-measurement-shows/ https://www.washington.edu/news/2004/05/06/troposphere-warmi... [5] https://www.emdat.be https://www.emdat.be [6] Bjorn Lomborg, False Alarm, Basic Books, NY, 2020. [7] https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/WG1AR5_SummaryVolume_FINAL.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/WG1AR5_Summa... [8] https://rogerpielkejr.com/2019/01/17/global-tropical-cyclone-landfalls-updated-1970-2018/ https://rogerpielkejr.com/2019/01/17/global-tropical-cyclone...