Hurricane Harvey: Three FEET Of Rain?!?

Devastation from Hurricane Ike in Texas, 2008. We're likely
to see similar scenes along the coast of Texas with Harvey,
plus they'll have extreme inland flooding.

There's no other way to say this. A good chunk of Texas is totally screwed.

Hurricane Harvey continues to strengthen, and some forecasters think it will achieve major hurricane status by the time in makes landfall along the central Texas coast late tonight or early Saturday. 

A major hurricane has sustained winds of at least 111 mph. Harvey was close this morning with 110 mph sustained winds. There's no reason why Harvey can't strengthen before landfall, as it's over very warm Gulf of Mexico water to feed it. Upper level winds are light above Harvey, so it won't get ripped apart that way.

As horrible as the wind and expected storm surge with Harvey will be, the real story is the incredible flooding that now seems inevitable.

As noted yesterday, Harvey will be caught between two high pressure systems and meander along the Texas coast for days. The wind will gradually die down, but the rain won't.

The strongest winds will hit only a small area near and north of Corpus Christi. But the extreme flooding rains will cover an enormous area.

Horrific amounts of rain are forecast, with up to three feet of rain in some areas of eastern Texas over the next few days.  A huge area of the Texas coast, possibly into southwestern Louisiana, can expect one to two feet of rain.

For perspective,  here in Vermont it usually takes an entire year to accumulate three feet of precipitation.

Lots of people are wisely bailing out of Corpus Christi, Texas and surrounding communities, as that's about where Harvey will make landfall.

Store shelves around Houston are already cleared of
bottled water as people get ready for Hurricane Harvey.

Although Corpus Christi isn't under a mandatory evacuation order, people right along the Gulf Coast are, since a storm surge of ten feet or so is expected.

Anyone who stays put along the coast will probably die. Unfortunately, I'm sure there will be a few stubborn holdouts. 

This is going to be a problem in Texas for many days, as Harvey will not move much. One unlikely but possible scenario is even worse. Some computer models push the center of Harvey back out into the Gulf of Mexico a couple days after landfall.

There, it could strengthen into a strong hurricane again and make landfall a second time, up the coast closer to Houston. Again, the overall path of Harvey is highly uncertain after its initial landfall, so we don't know for sure exactly where Harvey will go. We're only certain that it will be a terrible disaster.

Since this won't be a typical "hit and run" hurricane, and instead will cause problems for at least a week, this will affect you, too, even if you're thousands of miles away from the disaster zone.

The area under the gun from Harvey represents about a third of the nation's gas and oil capacity. That's going to be disrupted for definitely more than a week. Expect to pay more at the pump, whether you live in Houston or hurricane-free Vermont.

I also wonder what the federal response to this disaster will be. I don't know if the Trump administration is prepared.

The Weather Channel. like virtually all forecasters, is
predicting incredible amounts of rain from Harvey.

However, on the bright side, Trump's FEMA director, Brock Long, is regarded as a non-ideological professional, so that will help. Long's response might actually be based in reality.

It was already raining along the Texas coast early this morning as Harvey's outer rainbands move onshore. Conditions will deteriorate all day today.

I hope people will have gotten out of the way by the time the crap really hits the fan in Texas.

Time To Permanently Move People From Flood Prone Lyndonville Neighborhood

Damagbing floods at the Northeast Kingdom Mobile
Home Park in Lyndonville on February 26.
Image from WCAX-TV. 

According to a flood warning issued overnight from the National Weather Service office in South Burlington, Vermont, they were evacuating a mobile home park in Lyndonville due to flooding.

As far as I know, this was the only spot in Vermont that had significant flooding from the rains that fell yesterday and last night.

Apparently, some sort of ice jam has created the flooding there.

This is the second time within a month this mobile home park was evacuated due to flooding. The same thing happened on February 25 and 26 during a heavy rain storm then.

The area around Route 5 and Route 114 in Lyndonville in one of the most notorious flood prone spots  in Vermont.

 Like Route 73 near Brandon,  Boston Post Road in Enosburgh  and North Williston Road between Essex and Williston, you can count on that spot in Lyndonville going under water every time we have heavy rain, snow melt or ice jams in the Green Mountain State.

Most of those places, we can deal with it. Motorists take a detour, and in the case of Brandon, Enosburg and Williston, homes tend not to be affected by the high water.

This isnt true in Lyndonville. The Northeast Kingdom Mobile Home Park is right near the intersection of  Routes 5 and 114 in Lyndonville.  Every time I turn around it's being evacuated due to flooding. This has to be incredibly difficult for the people who live there.

Plus, local services like the Red Cross are strained every time they have to open emergency shelters. Firefighters need to be called out every time to help get people out of harm's way. This is a drain on personnel and budgets.

Mobile home parks, by definition low income housing, are often placed in bad places, like flood plains It would make sense to move the mobile home park away from the very frequent floodwaters.

Lower income people are least prepared to recover from flood damaged homes and cars. Even the ones whose homes escape the flooding often have to evacuate, and that might necessitate a sick day from work. In many cases, if you don't work, you don't get paid. (Although Vermont is on the brink of enacting a law that mandates paid sick leave, thank you Leggie and Gov Shumlin!)

I, and a lot of people, would love to see Lyndonville's Northeast Kingdom Mobile Home Park moved, so the residents there won't have to evacuate practically every time it rains

Here's the problem: It makes infinite sense to move the mobile home park, but where? Where is there land to establish a new mobile home park?  I also imagine there's some mobile homes there in Lyndonville that can't be moved anyway. They're so old they're no longer mobile.

It's a safe bet that most of the people in this mobile home park can't just plunk down some cool cash this afternoon and buy a newer, safer mobile home, a house on high ground, or an apartment no where near a flood plain.

I don't have a good policy prescription for the Northeast Kingdom Mobile Home Park. But it's long past the time where smart people need to put their heads together to figure out how to let these residents live affordably in a high, dry spot.

There's an added factor: Rain storms have tended to get heavier and more destructive in Vermont and recent decades. Climatologists say these type of intense, flooding rains will continue to get more frequent as the Earth warms. That means this problem in the Northeast Kingdom isn't going away, and has a good chance of getting even worse

Let's relegate the intersection of Route 5 and 114 in Lyndonville to the status of one of those flood prone spots that doesn't really affect anybody, and doesn't disrupt lives time and time again.