Well, Houston just rode out Hurricane Beryl, and let me tell you, it blew

It's pretty weird to use something I've written about in the abstract for so long.

See full article...

 

[euknemarchon]

Thanks for sharing your adventure calamity odyssey!

 

[ebf7341]

You made me think of that classic movie "Houston we have a problem..."

Glad you got back on the air-

 

[msawzall]

I wish we would take some of that can-do energy to become a little more proactive about protecting our community from severe weather and a little more outspoken about the perils of a warming world and the need to bring the Earth's temperature down a degree.

Governor Abbott: "HA HA HA HA! No."

 

[caramelpolice]

The Houston area's energy grid is a fucking embarrassment. Absolutely nothing was learned from the 2020 winter storm, and all it took was a relatively weak hurricane - in a region that should be accustomed to hurricanes every few years at this point - to completely wreck the grid for millions. Meanwhile Centerpoint can't even be bothered to maintain an outage map and predicts it could take days to restore power in the midst of a 100 degree heat wave.

I cannot put into words the awful things I wish upon everyone involved in running Houston's infrastructure right now, from the governor down.

 

[ranthog]

Texas's motto is "don't mess with Texas", because self inflicted wounds are Texas's job. Sadly I expect things to continue to get worse in Texas until there is a regime change.

I'm sure this will somehow be woke feminist immigrant teenaged transgender welfare mothers on drugs fault somehow.

 

[lyme]

While Elon may be all those weird things, he really has turned internet delivery and satellites on their head. I installed Starlink for my mom on her condo in Mexico. Parts of the cement roof were in the way, the Starlink app complained, and internet was rock solid. As a unexpected bonus, my son wanted to play internet games with his friends in Canada, there was no perceptible lag that you'd expect with a land service.

 

[jandrese]

That has all really sucked. It is not lost on me that I'm writing about calamitous weather events, some or all of which were at a minimum made more extreme by climate change, in the fossil fuel capital of the world.

It does feel awfully ripe for some poetic justice.

I lived in Houston for a year when I was a kid. The thing I remember is you couldn't get anywhere without a car. I was still a couple of years from being able to drive so it was a real drag that even on the bike you couldn't really go anywhere fun. There was one 7-11 in biking distance and that was about it. Everything else was developments or high speed roads with no sidewalk.

Hopefully it is better now. People are starting to wake up and do more pedestrian and bike friendly development all over the country.

 

[Dhalgren]

Crazy stuff. I'm up on the coast in New England, so I keep an eye on hurricanes myself (primarily through Carrot weather on my phone.) I got notified when Beryl re-intensified and thought "of course." These are scary times and that dread is compounded by the fact that so many folks still have their heads in the sand and say crazy things like "we've always had climate change, it's called weather."

 

[metavirus]

Totally not belittling the awful experience of the hurricane for everyday folks who don’t have many other options - some of my in-laws live in Houston - but, tbh, there are much better places to live, with equivalent costs of living, better climate, zero hurricanes, less pollution, better aesthetics, less flooding, less-insane politicians and judges, significantly-less racism and homophobia, [reasons 6-7,175]. Sure, it’s better than many places in Texas, but that’s not saying a lot. For those who could choose to live elsewhere, I don’t see why Houston is in the top 10 much less top 100.

 

[pingsoni]

I'm in Lansing, Michigan and the heavy rain from Beryl just started here. Flood warnings tonight into tomorrow.

 

[1Zach1]

Glad you're safe Eric, looks like things could have been much worse if it had gone through RI like it did in the Caribbean, or if it had stalled out like Harvey. How well did the post-Harvey flood measures work? I've seen plenty of social media posts about flooding, but relative to what we've seen before it the city handled it better than it has.

 

[EricBerger]

The Houston area's energy grid is a fucking embarrassment. Absolutely nothing was learned from the 2020 winter storm, and all it took was a relatively weak hurricane - in a region that should be accustomed to hurricanes every few years at this point - to completely wreck the grid for millions. Meanwhile Centerpoint can't even be bothered to maintain an outage map and predicts it could take days to restore power in the midst of a 100 degree heat wave.

I cannot put into words the awful things I wish upon everyone involved in running Houston's infrastructure right now, from the governor down.

What I find hard to process is that Hurricane Ike knocked out power to 2.1 million customers in 2008. It was a much larger and more powerful storm. Large parts of Houston saw sustained hurricane force winds. A decade and a half later a comparably weaker Beryl (very few if any parts of Houston saw sustained force hurricane winds) knocked 2.3 million CenterPoint customers offline, or 85 percent. It's hard to understand how the resiliency of the transmission system (separate from the grid) seems to have gotten worse. A smart society learns, adapts, and improves.

 

[jezra]

"Losing a connection to the outside world magnifies one's sense of helplessness."

Over the weekend, there were 2 power outages at my place, and similar to the author, I constantly check the status of potential disasters (wild fires) in my area. When the power goes out, as it often does during red-flag events in fire season, Starlink and the cell signal booster go offline. The sense of dread and helplessness are incredibly tangible.

Fortunately, I made the wise decision to invest in solar charged batteries of various sizes, and a generator for such common occurrences.

As an aside, it is nice to know that there is a journalist out there that actually uses Starlink.

 

[deadman12-4]

The Houston area's energy grid is a fucking embarrassment. Absolutely nothing was learned from the 2020 winter storm, and all it took was a relatively weak hurricane - in a region that should be accustomed to hurricanes every few years at this point - to completely wreck the grid for millions. Meanwhile Centerpoint can't even be bothered to maintain an outage map and predicts it could take days to restore power in the midst of a 100 degree heat wave.

I cannot put into words the awful things I wish upon everyone involved in running Houston's infrastructure right now, from the governor down.

Naw they learned alot. Most of what they learned was how to make incredible amounts of money during natural emergancies though

 

[gefitz]

The chance of Houston addressing climate change is about the same as Mars exploding in the next week.

My Dad lives there. My sister and lots of nieces and nephews too. I lived there through high school and made the decision to never live there again. I thank my lucky stars every day. That repeating sense of foreboding on a storms approach isn't something I'd wish on my worst enemy.

I was there during Alicia, and the best story to come out of it was that since the power was out over a week, the heat in the house was unbearable. We stuck to the linoleum floors, as the wax melted. We took the opportunity to strip them all.

 

[daveishereagain]

I'm in Lansing, Michigan and the heavy rain from Beryl just started here. Flood warnings tonight into tomorrow.

Stay safe. And dry.

 

[gefitz]

Naw they learned alot. Most of what they learned was how to make incredible amounts of money during natural emergancies though

I continuously hear from my relatives stranded there that "It's cheap to live here and the taxes are low." Except for the $500/mo water bills, the $800/mo electrical bills, the high homeowner's insurance because of the crazy recurring weather disasters, the having to drive 100 miles round trip to work...etc etc etc...

 

[daveishereagain]

I continuously hear from my relatives stranded there that "It's cheap to live here and the taxes are low." Except for the $500/mo water bills, the $800/mo electrical bills, the high homeowner's insurance because of the crazy recurring weather disasters, the having to drive 100 miles round trip to work...etc etc etc...

Yeah, real cheap until your home gets flooded, a tree blows down on your house, the wind rips off the shingles, and the contents of your refrig spoils. And, sure , low taxes means low public facilities/social services, outdated equipment, understaffed first responders. All that SOCIALIST! stuff. You get what you pay for and you deserve who you vote for.

 

[C.M. Allen]

I continuously hear from my relatives stranded there that "It's cheap to live here and the taxes are low." Except for the $500/mo water bills, the $800/mo electrical bills, the high homeowner's insurance because of the crazy recurring weather disasters, the having to drive 100 miles round trip to work...etc etc etc...

The 'low' cost of living in Texas/Houston is mostly an illusion. What you don't pay in taxes to the government (which pays for better and more diverse social services and the like that benefit you), you end up paying to for-profit private companies which only benefits the owners and investors. Either way, the money still comes out of your bank account. So you should be asking yourself if you want that money to go an unaccountable group of people who have repeatedly demonstrated an absence of a better nature, or to the somewhat-accountable local government that kind of, sort of works to the benefit of the local community?

 

[Michillaneous]

You forgot to mention that the area is also subsidized.
Nobody could afford the insurance to live in that area if it wasn't subsidized by federal tax dollars.

 

[Zenrock]

A very genuine, well written article. Thank you.

 

[PurpleBadger]

What I find hard to process is that Hurricane Ike knocked out power to 2.1 million customers in 2008. It was a much larger and more powerful storm. Large parts of Houston saw sustained hurricane force winds. A decade and a half later a comparably weaker Beryl (very few if any parts of Houston saw sustained force hurricane winds) knocked 2.3 million CenterPoint customers offline, or 85 percent. It's hard to understand how the resiliency of the transmission system (separate from the grid) seems to have gotten worse. A smart society learns, adapts, and improves.

I was commenting on this to my wife last night. Her folks live in Houston and always have (and are currently without power like many others). I can well understand how local power gets clobbered by these storms, but the core grid infrastructure doesn't seem to hold up very well. Of all the places in the world, I would have expected this particular grid to be significantly hardened. But it seems not to be the case. Perhaps there are good reasons for that, but I wonder how it gets excused or explained.

My best wishes to everyone down that way.

 

[aliksy]

Houston is not a particularly nice place to visit, but you might just want to live here.

Hah. I'll avoid the Republican hell hole and it's car-first culture, thanks.

 

[daveishereagain]

Hah. I'll avoid the Republican hell hole and it's car-first culture, thanks.

Agree. You couldn't make me live there at gunpoint. (pun intended)

 

[const_iterator]

Houston is not a great place to live in recent years. Harvey in 2017. Winter storm in 2021. Downtown tornado in 2024...

 

[Romolo_Gorbe]

I was in New Orleans for a couple of months in summer 2005. I rode out a tropical storm and (fortuitously) left ~10 days before Katrina. The Times-Picayune newspaper had recently done a major report on how vulnerable New Orleans was to a major hurricane. None of this was new information, but it was all in one place. I'm trained in geology, and I recognized that this was a very bad situation. I told my friends when I got home, and they were astounded when, a week later, what I had talked about actually happened. Everyone in power knew it could happen, but there was no political will to fix the problems before disaster struck.

Houston is not as vulnerable as NOLA, but it's obviously not hardened. Harris County/Houston proper are not Republican led these days, so you can't just blame the GOP and be done. However, the surrounding counties and state are another story. I went to college in San Antonio and used to visit Houston for work (you may have guessed I used to work in oil/gas), so I'm somewhat familiar with Texas. Getting Texans with money to pay taxes for infrastructure that doesn't directly benefit themselves is really hard. San Antonio is still largely dependent on one source of water, the Edwards Aquifer. But that doesn't stop development from continuing to encroach on the Hill Country, source of all the runoff that refills the aquifer.

Yes, Houston has good restaurants and is populated by people from all over the world. But, as someone in the oil industry once said to me, you don't move to Houston because it's nice. You move for the money. I never wanted money that badly.

 

[thrillgore]

"Don't Mess With Texas" is a warning.

 

[jbk]

I was in New Orleans for a couple of months in summer 2005. I rode out a tropical storm and (fortuitously) left ~10 days before Katrina. The Times-Picayune newspaper had recently done a major report on how vulnerable New Orleans was to a major hurricane. None of this was new information, but it was all in one place. I'm trained in geology, and I recognized that this was a very bad situation. I told my friends when I got home, and they were astounded when, a week later, what I had talked about actually happened. Everyone in power knew it could happen, but there was no political will to fix the problems before disaster struck.

Houston is not as vulnerable as NOLA, but it's obviously not hardened. Harris County/Houston proper are not Republican led these days, so you can't just blame the GOP and be done. However, the surrounding counties and state are another story. I went to college in San Antonio and used to visit Houston for work (you may have guessed I used to work in oil/gas), so I'm somewhat familiar with Texas. Getting Texans with money to pay taxes for infrastructure that doesn't directly benefit themselves is really hard. San Antonio is still largely dependent on one source of water, the Edwards Aquifer. But that doesn't stop development from continuing to encroach on the Hill Country, source of all the runoff that refills the aquifer.

Yes, Houston has good restaurants and is populated by people from all over the world. But, as someone in the oil industry once said to me, you don't move to Houston because it's nice. You move for the money. I never wanted money that badly.

You can certainly blame the power grid that goes out whenever there's a fart in the wind on the GOP. Most of the Houston's area power grid is owned and run by CenterPoint Energy, and they are regulated by the PUC which is controlled by the state. The PUC are the ones that let them get away with neglecting their infrastructure, don't force them to take some of their nearly a billion dollars/year profit back into hardening the grid, etc.

The city and county governments don't have that much say, and if they tried, our illustrious Gov. Abbottoir (someone who'd gleefully throw his own grandkids legs first into in a wood chipper if he thought it'd get him votes) would stop them because the only thing he knows how to do is grandstand and hurt minorities.

 

[Pueo]

This was... not good. Later that day I drove through the weakening storm and, I am sorry to admit, some high water, to reach a friend's house about 45 minutes away. He still had power and Internet, and I needed to write updates about Beryl's impacts. You don't realize how much you miss the Internet until it's gone.

While I admire your sense of duty to providing updates to the city, flooding is no joke and no-one benefits if you're swept away crossing high waters during the storm. Besides, if the internet is down across the city it's unlikely many residents would be able to access your updates.
All this is to say stay safe out there, pretty please?

 

[JohnDeL]

Thanks for sharing your adventure calamity odyssey!

If I remember my Greek literature right, the Odyssey was both an adventure and a calamity!

 

[aliksy]

Getting Texans with money to pay taxes for infrastructure that doesn't directly benefit themselves is really hard.

So they're stupid. Stupid, short sighted, and selfish. Anti-social children who are making the world worse for everyone else.

If there weren't good people who were going to suffer too, I'd be happy for them to fucking die in their "oh i didn't want to pay for a fire department" house fire like they deserve.

 

[jasonmicron]

Hah. I'll avoid the Republican hell hole and it's car-first culture, thanks.

Houston votes democrat, FYI.

 

[ranthog]

Houston is not as vulnerable as NOLA, but it's obviously not hardened. Harris County/Houston proper are not Republican led these days, so you can't just blame the GOP and be done. However, the surrounding counties and state are another story. I went to college in San Antonio and used to visit Houston for work (you may have guessed I used to work in oil/gas), so I'm somewhat familiar with Texas. Getting Texans with money to pay taxes for infrastructure that doesn't directly benefit themselves is really hard. San Antonio is still largely dependent on one source of water, the Edwards Aquifer. But that doesn't stop development from continuing to encroach on the Hill Country, source of all the runoff that refills the aquifer.

The question, though, is how much can local government do? How much are state policies hamstringing local efforts?

Having lived in a place Republicans are, they will almost certainly stop any sort of reforms or improvements going on at the local level these days.

 

[gefitz]

Source, or at least what are your assumptions for price and consumption? Those utility figures sound ridiculous at first glance, like what I'd expect for a small golf course with a full sprinkler system, heated pool, uninsulated mansion with the air conditioning set to 64 degrees, etc. I would have thought 2MWh at 20 cents could be vaguely reasonable, with some Texans as low as 1 MWh and 13 cents or so - certainly 50 miles away from town, like your next sentence says... IDK about the recent water costs but it sounds just as crazy to me.

The insurance and such can absolutely be high, as a function of high property values and higher than average risk. Sometimes insurance companies have to pull out of the area because they can't afford to try and cover rebuilding houses for people who can't understand that things like piers and metal roofing and such might be needed when you're one millimeter above sea level and expect hurricanes.

Source: My entire family. They live in properties that vary between 2000 and 4000 sq.ft. Air conditioning (and heating there is a huge need nowadays) 24 x 7 and higher electrical prices = no bueno. They've not figured out water reservoirs there...they have them but they are drained every other year for drought. And the water distribution system between districts for need is laughable. Unfortunately, "The Texas Way" is to keep your lawn of thirsty St. Augustine grass green.

My electrical bill for a 2000 sq. ft. place? $45. Water for my entire condo complex or 30 units isn't as high monthly as for my Dad's too-large suburban property.

 

[jezra]

Hah. I'll avoid the Republican hell hole and it's car-first culture, thanks.

how is Houston a 'republican hell hole'?

 

[CrystalCowboy]

I was in New Orleans for a couple of months in summer 2005. I rode out a tropical storm and (fortuitously) left ~10 days before Katrina. The Times-Picayune newspaper had recently done a major report on how vulnerable New Orleans was to a major hurricane. None of this was new information, but it was all in one place. I'm trained in geology, and I recognized that this was a very bad situation. I told my friends when I got home, and they were astounded when, a week later, what I had talked about actually happened. Everyone in power knew it could happen, but there was no political will to fix the problems before disaster struck.

Houston is not as vulnerable as NOLA, but it's obviously not hardened. Harris County/Houston proper are not Republican led these days, so you can't just blame the GOP and be done. However, the surrounding counties and state are another story. I went to college in San Antonio and used to visit Houston for work (you may have guessed I used to work in oil/gas), so I'm somewhat familiar with Texas. Getting Texans with money to pay taxes for infrastructure that doesn't directly benefit themselves is really hard. San Antonio is still largely dependent on one source of water, the Edwards Aquifer. But that doesn't stop development from continuing to encroach on the Hill Country, source of all the runoff that refills the aquifer.

Yes, Houston has good restaurants and is populated by people from all over the world. But, as someone in the oil industry once said to me, you don't move to Houston because it's nice. You move for the money. I never wanted money that badly.

Yes, about that. Do you remember when the Republican Party claimed to support local control?

Texas Republicans ended a patchwork of local rules they say hurt business. They also eroded powers of city councils. (June 2023)

 

[One off]

The 'low' cost of living in Texas/Houston is mostly an illusion. What you don't pay in taxes to the government (which pays for better and more diverse social services and the like that benefit you), you end up paying to for-profit private companies which only benefits the owners and investors. Either way, the money still comes out of your bank account. So you should be asking yourself if you want that money to go an unaccountable group of people who have repeatedly demonstrated an absence of a better nature, or to the somewhat-accountable local government that kind of, sort of works to the benefit of the local community?

Oh come on! Next you'll be sugggesting the public sector immediately turns around and spends money locally, supporting businesses, salaries, and maintaining infrastructure instead of skimming off as much as possible for remote shareholders. We all know tax money is burned in a massive bonfire during Satanic mass.

UK water companies were privatised (for a fraction of their market value) in my lifetime. Analysis shows they routinely take out massive loans which are diverted to fund dividends, leading to massive interest payments without a corresponding benefit. Then they point out they have no money to maintain the infrastructure they are supposedly custodians of, demanding increased charges, government subsidies, and relaxation of the rules - leading to our sewage polluted rivers and lakes. They get away with it because, like other utilities, water and sewage are the definition of too important to fail.

Structurally monopolistic public essentials should be in public ownership. Make management arms length by law and board minutes public to reduce political interference in business decisions. Hell, live stream the board meetings.