How does Hurricane Harvey compare with Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Ike (and Tropical Storm Allison)

Can't speak for Katrina but had first hand experience for the rest. Harvey and Ike for me personally are by far the worst. During Allison I lived on west side of town which wasn't as bad as central and east sides but I know that was also rough.

 

Looking outside in, I believe Katrina was much worse. For this day in age to have a storm take that many lives in one of the smaller major cities is incredible.

While I dont mean to be insensitive to those who are going through this disaster, I think reality needs to set in. This is not a 500 year storm. Houston is very prone to mass flooding and one can expect to see similar flooding every decade or so.

 

This is what worries me.
I don't think we are as safe as we once thought we were anymore. Any storm that brings a decent amount of rainfall is now easily flooding the city.
Who wants to go through major flooding every year?

 

Three years in a row right? Tax day, Memorial Day flood, and now Harvey. In my neighborhood homes were finished remodeling and still sitting for sale from the last flood. Now they are flooded again. There doesn't seem to be a safe area for a potential home buyer.

 

- June 19, 2006: Up to 11 inches of rain in southern and eastern Harris County flooded 3000 homes.
- September 13, 2008: Hurricane Ike causes flooding, wind damage and widespread power failures.
- April 28, 2009: Over 2100 homes flooded, freeways impassable.
- May 25, 2015: Historic Houston Flood Devastating storms floods most of the city.
- April 18, 2016: The 2016 Houston floods took place in nine counties near the city
- August 2017: Hurricane Harvey

Texas has seen some of the most drastic change in the United States, with Houston registering a 167 percent increase in the biggest downpours since the 1950s. Combined with rapid population growth and a laissez faire urbanization policy that prioritizes parking lots over flood control, Houston is nearing a breaking point. At the moment, the region’s reservoirs are full and unable to release more water without adding to the deluge. With land prices cheap, acres of swamp and grasslands are being cleared for more subdivisions—cutting into the city’s natural defenses and creating a billion-dollar flooding problem. A drive into Houston these days is a glimpse of a future where weather has gone wild.
Houston is a case study in what happens when a changing climate crashes head-on with a city that hasn’t done anything to stop it.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/06/03/historic_floods_in_houston_texas.html

FLOODING IS OUR NATURAL DISASTER
Harris County doesn't have earthquakes... doesn't have blizzards... doesn't have avalanches. We have flooding. A major flood still occurs somewhere in Harris County about every two years. Most of the flooding is in areas developed prior to the current understanding of flood potential and prior to regulations restricting construction in flood-prone areas. Fortunately, since the 1970's, there has been flood insurance to ease the financial impact of flooding. Despite tremendous flood damage reduction projects that have indeed reduced the risk of flooding, more flood insurance funds have been paid here than in any other National Flood Insurance Program-participating community.
https://www.hcfcd.org/flooding-floodplains/harris-countys-flooding-history/

 

Katrina didn't do it's damage with rain as much as with its storm surge which wiped out eastern LA, MS, and AL...the big flood was a levee breach caused by the surge. Had that levee held, the damage and death toll of Katrina would have been far far far less.

Harvey is unique in that it was the rain that did the damage.

 

Didn't like 1500 people die from Katrina?

Losing property is obviously tough, but Katrina is going to get this dubious award in my opinion.

 

These are unrelated statements.

The first part is inaccurate. We received an EXTREME amount of rain, record setting, likes of which has never been recorded on the continental United States. The idea that this was just a normal storm and the flooding is the result of Houston's sprawl and poor planning is ridiculous. Your hurt the strength of the latter argument (which is true, totally agree) by tying it to the ridiculous idea that this wasn't a unique storm.

Facts for the "reality" to set in:
-This was an unprecedented rain event
-No flood control planning would have prevented it from flooding, though it certainly could have mitigated the impact
-Places that are not part of the Houston urban sprawl are flooding RIGHT NOW from this storm, days after it dumped biblical levels of water on Harris County
-Houston does have an infrastructure problem when it comes to flood control that needs to be addressed
-The lack of zoning, building homes along waterways, allowing developers to build homes with no regard to water retention, etc. are all big issues that magnified this problem

 

The problem now is we will get scared anytime storm or small hurricane approaches and we will not be prepared when a big one does.

To those of you who are saying who wants to go through this every year, Houston is huge and not every house had to worry about floods. Other zones require flood insurance because they always flood.

 

Katrina's wind force was massive. While Mississippi didnt get a lot of flooding, there was a significant amount of damage and many homes were leveled. Just under 300 people were killed in Mississippi.

 

I don't know what you can do about 50 inches of rain. This is closer to a 3 standard deviation event.

 

This is why we need 'Safety nets' for our country - as much as people think, every government is one economic disaster from failing.

DD

 

It's not 500 year. It's a 1000 year flooding event. Unless we think "1000 year event" is now the new norm, you shouldn't expect it to happen every decade in Houston. And if we do expect that, we definitely need to re-calibrate what is a 100, 500, 1000 year event and adapt to it.

Note also the last two massive flooding event (2016 SE Louisiana - 30" in 48 hrs flooding 150k structure, and 2016 Houston area tax day - 17" in 12 hrs flooding 10k structure) are not from a named storm, and both are 500+ year events.

 

Maybe we should steer clear of sensationalist titles like 500 or 1000 year storms ... at least until we have been here for 500 and a 1000 years.

And you have just said, we have had 3 "500+" flooding events in the last decade. Obviously we are using the term in a sensationalist manner. I seriously doubt Harvey is going to be the worst storm we see in the next century.

 

Rarely is the wind the deadliest part of a storm. I would bet that even in Mississippi most of those who sits was because of the storm surge.

Katrina's was hardly a cat 3 when it made landfall. It's wind field was large but that did damage mainly from the storm surge.

 

Just now it occurred to me why they would want to name those natural phenomena after human names.....they aint humane or kind.

T10 - H100 Would do like diseases.

 

I agree the "x year" storm designation needs to go, people too easily misinterpret it's meaning. But it is an easy designation verbally, people would have a much harder time with .003% chance storm or 3 standard deviations above normal storm.

 

Best thing would be for all the carpetbaggers to move back north.

 

and take their paved surfaces with them.