The recovery process is always long and difficult, but the reasons for local problems vary. See this account from The Guardian: ‘We’ve been forgotten’: Hurricane Harvey and the long path to recovery
Nearly six months after the storm, residents of a Texas town face red tape, long waits and ‘a gigantic housing crisis’
Four months after Hurricane Harvey, four major questions about recovery for 2018. Harvey’s historic floods left behind epic damage — and some urgent questions that will take months, if not years, to answer.
From Reuters, yet another take on the costly and sometimes tragic outcomes from lack of regulation and the problems of the National Flood Ins. Program. See: Unfettered building, scant oversight add to cost of hurricanes in U.S.
In the wake of a ferocious storm season, Reuters finds that homes built in violation of flood-mitigation rules add to the billions of dollars in claims on the already-broke federal flood insurance program
Mr. Trump’s Paper Towels Aren’t Helping Puerto Rico
Two months after Puerto Rico was devastated by Hurricane Maria, a sense of desperation seems to be yielding to resignation at best. More than half of the island is still without power, and hundreds of thousands of residents are fleeing to the American mainland in an extraordinary exodus.
It has been weeks since President Trump visited to jovially toss rolls of paper towels to needy fellow Americans and brag about how successful the recovery effort was. But true evidence of progress has been hard to come by. Even the simplest symbols of government, like traffic lights, remain useless. Most of the Pentagon’s emergency troops have begun pulling out, except for those working on the island’s shattered power grid.
Clearly, the Houston area could have done more to be prepared for a major hurricane. And it seems that the science of climate change and meteorology indicate that Harvey was not a once in a lifetime event.
Harvey Hindsight: Local Mitigation, Sensible Zoning Would Make a Difference
Relying on the federal government to mitigate flooding is a recipe for disaster.
Global warming makes ‘biblical’ rain like that from Hurricane Harvey much more likely
From Governing magazine online: What Temporary Housing? Harvey Victims Are Still Waiting. Thanks to Eric Holdeman for sharing this article. See his commentary on this on his blog. Of note, the discussion of resilience in Houston.
Update: See Eric’s blog on the last mentioned article.
The Diva has been contemplating the concept of resilience, as described in the document Disaster Resilience; A National Imperative, published by the National Academy of Sciences in 2012. Reviewing it against the present setting of disaster recovery efforts in Houston, TX, the State of FL, and all of Puerto Rico has raised many questions.
Reading this powerful article in the N.Y. Times suggests to me that it is time to review current thinking about resilience and about emergency management in general. See: Lessons From Hurricane Harvey: Houston’s Struggle Is America’s Tale. Some key excerpts:
For years, the local authorities turned a blind eye to runaway development. Thousands of homes have been built next to, and even inside, the boundaries of the two big reservoirs devised by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1940s after devastating floods. Back then, Houston was 20 miles downstream, its population 400,000. Today, these reservoirs are smack in the middle of an urban agglomeration of six million.
Unfortunately, nature always gets the last word. Houston’s growth contributed to the misery Harvey unleashed. The very forces that pushed the city forward are threatening its way of life.
Sprawl is only part of the story. Houston is also built on an upbeat, pro-business strategy of low taxes and little government. Many Texans regard this as the key to prosperity, an antidote to Washington. It encapsulates a potent vision of an unfettered America.
After every natural calamity, American politicians make big promises. They say: We will rebuild. We will not be defeated. Never again will we be caught unprepared.
But they rarely tackle the toughest obstacles. The hard truth, scientists say, is that climate change will increasingly require moving — not just rebuilding — entire neighborhoods, reshaping cities, even abandoning coastlines.We need a whole new structure of governance,” he insisted. “We’ve built in watersheds, paved roads and highways because we don’t have mass transit.
“Inevitably, it all catches up with us,” the judge said. “Mother Nature has a long memory.”
See also this posting dated Sept. 7th: What H. Harvey Says about Risk, Climate, and Resilience.
From the WSJ: Two Months After Harvey, Houston Continues to Count the Cost
Tens of thousands are still living in hotel rooms from the August hurricane, which is estimated to have cost $73.5 billion in economic loss.
Note that the chart in the article shows total estimated costs for the recent hurricanes with H. Maria and H. Irma numbers lower than for H. Harvey.
It has been 25 days since H. Harvey made landfall, but the preliminary cost estimates are really high. See: Economic costs of Harvey, Irma $200-$300 billion; insured cost to reach $70 billion
This is a good recap of the response so far. Will the lessons be learned or just noted?
Hurricanes Harvey and Irma offer sobering lessons in the power of nature
William “Brock” Long, the FEMA administrator, has had two epic storms in his first three months on the job, and what he’s seen affirms his philosophy that the United States needs a fundamental change in disaster preparedness.
“We don’t seem to learn the lessons over and over again from past hurricanes,” he said. He cited the many people who refused to evacuate from storm-surge zones, “which blows my mind.”
Recovery Diva 