As a Houstonian watching how mismanagement on the California side has contributed to the fire disaster, I had the feeling that they view the Houston area in somewhat the same light that we view them. While there is a huge 'act of God' part in fires and hurricanes, there are also a large elements of mismanagement.

The mismanagement on the California side has already been discussed in detail on the other threads. But the greater Houston area has done no favors for itself in planning for these major storms. Yes, Harris and surrounding counties have a flood control district that manages projects to address some of the needs. However, the city of Houston doesn't always maintain drainage systems as well as they should, and there are almost no controls in place when it comes to new developments coming in. Two quick examples….

- I have friends in Kingwood that didn't flood during Harvey. However, they did flood in a much lesser rain event 2-3 years after Harvey. If you believe them, two things led directly to the flooding in the 2nd event….. The city of Houston didn't maintain the drainage in the area as well as they should have. This I believe because every service there has gone downhill since Houston annexed them. The other factor is that a Perry Homes development went in next door that drastically changed the water flow.
- My neighborhood (not in a flood zone) didn't flood in Harvey (except for about 10 homes). Since then a huge development went in next door. They raised the whole neighborhood 3-4 feet above ours. I have to think that will impact our drainage in the next Harvey. The bottom line in the greater Houston area is that 'whoever builds last, wins'.

TLDNR: So yes, I think California has greater issues of mismanagement, but at least our area of Texas has its own share of internal issues that contribute to the impacts of our natural disasters.

Florida under Ron DeSantis is the gold standard for how natural disasters should be handled in preparedness, preparation and during the event. Other states should emulate them.

I will push back on some of that.

I know for a fact that since Harvey, new construction detention/retention basins have been dramatically increased meaning the developer must off set water displacement by structural or civil concrete (based on Harris County). Now, does this actually work??????? That is up for debate, but the action has occurred and is very costly.

I will also say Houston has learned how to better evacuate this area. I believe it was Rita where roads were locked down and fuel trucks had to be deployed. All lanes in both directions are now used to evacuate.

Those are just two areas of action that come to mind.

Houston has it's fare share of incompetence at the local level but I think we do a pretty good job of management during natural disasters. We're located in a swamp full of bayous at sea level. Shlt is gonna flood when it rains a lot.

Yeah CenterPoint has major issues when it comes to their side of things but that's not a local govt problem.

Again...We're not free of all issues but overall I think Houston manages natural disasters as well as anywhere except Florida.

Theres only one Flood Control District in the state, and that's Harris County. They do manage drainage/catch basins in adjoining counties but only if those feed into channels in Harris County.

The FEMA flood maps were created in the mid 70s. A lot of the work being done is to remove or mitigate construction that occurred prior to the maps creation.

They are also under going a massive remap of the 100yr flood plain with better models/input/data post Harvey that will drastically expand the 100yr flood plain.

Lastly the Harris County Engineering department changed its building regulations and permit structure to consider the 500yr the same as the 100yr in anticipation of the fema re-mapped flood plains. I believe those changes went into effect in 2018.

But in the end, we will always be at risk for Hurricanes annually. Southern California has their annual Santa Anna winds issue. Hurricane season vs Fire season.

I think any location that deals with natural disasters, will have their strong points, and weak points in dealing with those issues. Especially some of the largest metro areas in the world.

Cali stands out, because they have been warned about this time and time again. But instead of listening to reason, and learning from their mistakes, they doubled down on the lunacy. They would rather listen to the environmentalists about saving a native plant, than save their citizens and city.

IndividualFreedom said:

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I will push back on some of that.

I know for a fact that since Harvey, new construction detention/retention basins have been dramatically increased meaning the developer must off set water displacement by structural or civil concrete (based on Harris County). Now, does this actually work??????? That is up for debate, but the action has occurred and is very costly.

I will also say Houston has learned how to better evacuate this area. I believe it was Rita where roads were locked down and fuel trucks had to be deployed. All lanes in both directions are now used to evacuate.

Those are just two areas of action that come to mind.

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I agree that some things have improved, but some haven't..... especially the 'who builds last wins'.

And there are lawsuits against Perry home that I think are still making their way through the courts. But as we saw with Colony Ridge north of Houston, developers can pay enough to make certain things go away.

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Cali stands out, because they have been warned about this time and time again. But instead of listening to reason, and learning from their mistakes, they doubled down on the lunacy. They would rather listen to the environmentalists about saving a native plant, than save their citizens and city.

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100% this. Not only did they fail to prepare, the actively made policies that increased the risk.

powerbelly said:

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Cali stands out, because they have been warned about this time and time again. But instead of listening to reason, and learning from their mistakes, they doubled down on the lunacy. They would rather listen to the environmentalists about saving a native plant, than save their citizens and city.

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100% this. Not only did they fail to prepare, the actively made policies that increased the risk.

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You could argue that greater Houston has done the same... or at least not done enough.

AgGrad99 said:

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I think any location that deals with natural disasters, will have their strong points, and weak points in dealing with those issues. Especially some of the largest metro areas in the world.

Cali stands out, because they have been warned about this time and time again. But instead of listening to reason, and learning from their mistakes, they doubled down on the lunacy. They would rather listen to the environmentalists about saving a native plant, than save their citizens and city.

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You are correct. Very experienced people in forestry have been begging the California government, for 30 plus years, to start having controlled burns and to put preventative measures in place. Unfortunately, the government won't listen to these people and will only go with what the idiot enviro's say.

powerbelly said:

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Cali stands out, because they have been warned about this time and time again. But instead of listening to reason, and learning from their mistakes, they doubled down on the lunacy. They would rather listen to the environmentalists about saving a native plant, than save their citizens and city.

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100% this. Not only did they fail to prepare, the actively made policies that increased the risk.

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Very much so.

I was reading an article, that pre-dated these fires. They were talking about the underbrush that needs to be cleaned up, as well as the fire-breaks that needed to be put in. The Fire-breaks consisted of cutting back tree lines a certain distance from properties, and having a plan for regular controlled burns.

Newsom scoffed at Trump for mentioning it. Officials mentioned it, but the continued to scoff at it, because it was now a political issue. Fire-suppression groups (USFS, Municipal fire depts, etc) advised that the right fire, combined with the right wind would be catastrophic for the entire city.

But because environmentalists wanted to protect 'every' tree, and wanted to protect native plants that might grow in the underbrush, etc...the fire prevention was pushed aside. They knew they'd never get funding and/or permits to do what was required.

As a result, you see what we have now. It's a shame, because while you cant stop every fire from damage a community, so much of it this widespread catastrophic damage was preventable.

My masters thesis and subsequent 9 publications were on fire prevention in dry climates. You are correct, they do not listen.

IndividualFreedom said:

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I know for a fact that since Harvey, new construction detention/retention basins have been dramatically increased meaning the developer must off set water displacement by structural or civil concrete (based on Harris County). Now, does this actually work??????? That is up for debate, but the action has occurred and is very costly.

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I live in a flood prone area and always have and likely always will.


You can calculate dispersion of water all you want...if it isnt flowing downhill fast enough then you are effed. You can dig all the holes you want, but if you move that dirt elsewhere in the same area (which they do) it will never work correctly.


that said - the government will send people that desperately want to help, but the damage is in the planning stages years before by 12 DEI engineers and 2 democrat elected democrats.

In comparing two events, the amount of runoff can be affected by ground saturation quite a bit. A heavy rain may not runoff much compared to a low intensity rain if the ground is extremely dry.

StandUpforAmerica said:

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and there are almost no controls in place when it comes to new developments coming in.

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This is incorrect.

Cypress got a lot of rain during Harvey, but didn't flood because it wasn't near a stream or bayou that got overwhelmed during the Harvey "double tap"

But, during the Tax Day rain event that April, Cypress got pounded with 14 inches of rain in a matter of like 6 hours.

Every sub division in Cypress built before 1985 or so got flooded. Our neighborhood, right next door to a neighborhood that got trounced, didn't flood at all.

The primary reason was because, in order to get permission to build the sub division, the division needed a flood control plan, which was basically a huge pond that was dug about 15 feet below the street, and a huge park that was dug down about 10 feet below the street. Both filled all the way up on the Tax Day event, but no houses in our neighborhood flooded.

I have friends that work in residential real estate, and you can't get a new neighborhood built in Harris county without a flood plan.

All the neighborhoods currently built around White Oak Bayou are a problem. The city of Houston got a flood prevention bond passed that jacked up our water bills by 100%, but that money has been wasted / grafted for the most part.

The problems with the City of Houston and flooding are about decisions made decades ago, and the current corruption of the city government to ask for money and not fix the problem.

Both LA and Houston have been run by democrats for decades.

But let's be fair...Houston dems are still dems but LA dems are on a different level.

StandUpforAmerica said:

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powerbelly said:

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Cali stands out, because they have been warned about this time and time again. But instead of listening to reason, and learning from their mistakes, they doubled down on the lunacy. They would rather listen to the environmentalists about saving a native plant, than save their citizens and city.

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100% this. Not only did they fail to prepare, the actively made policies that increased the risk.

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You could argue that greater Houston has done the same... or at least not done enough.

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California decreased the water supply to Northern Cali to protect smelt. The result was that there was not enough water to fight the fire. And this is only one example.

Houston has not done anything since around 1980 that is anywhere close to that level of mismanagement. Feel free to point to specific examples if I am wrong.

Now, they need to do something about the older neighborhoods around White Oak bayou, and haven't moved very fast and wasted most of the money earmarked for that, but that is all government these days.

Ag_07 said:

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But let's be fair...Houston dems are still dems but LA dems are on a different level.

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Houston dems would be LA dems if not surrounded by Houston suburb conservatives that keep them from ruining the city too hard.

American Hardwood said:

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In comparing two events, the amount of runoff can be affected by ground saturation quite a bit. A heavy rain may not runoff much compared to a low intensity rain if the ground is extremely dry.

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Usually, the streets are part of the flood prevention plan. The streets are all slightly graded towards the water displacement feature.

The water runs through the streets to the pond. If the pond fills up, you are screwed, but, the pond in my neighborhood was able to hold catastrophic levels of rain not long after Harvey and a wet season following Harvey.

If you do it right, it works.

A quick calculation on the water holding features in that neighborhood suggest a holding capacity around 1 to 1.5 million gallons of water, if I did the math right. (A park that is about 850 feet long and 375 feet wide that is 10 foot deep, and a lake that is 900 feet long and 400 feet wide that is about 15 foot deep). Pretty easy to hold all of 14 inches of rain over the neighborhood of about 2 square miles.

It filled completely up during the Tax Day event, but, I think a lot of that was runoff from older, surrounding nieghborhoods.

TLDR; Harris country does a lot, and the flood features work pretty well, even with saturated ground, because the streets are part of the drainage system for major flooding events.

Heineken-Ashi said:

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Ag_07 said:

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But let's be fair...Houston dems are still dems but LA dems are on a different level.

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Houston dems would be LA dems if not surrounded by Houston suburb conservatives that keep them from ruining the city too hard.

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The energy corridor (On I-10 just west of the city limits) has put a lot of pressure on the Houston city government. Companies are very happy to move out of downtown to Katy or The Woodlands if they don't get the accommodations they want. The city has to court the remaining companies left downtown. That, IMO, is the largest limiting factor to political craziness and rot in Houston.

Not sure if you were trying to counter my point or agree with it, but I agree with you in terms of civil engineering for stormwater handling.

I don't live in Houston, so I won't comment on it other than to say I would highly doubt that widescale negligence by the city is creating problems in a manner comparable to what California appears to be doing.

The California issues are much easier and cheaper to fix, though tree trimming could help with both, California is literally stopping water flow to LA and sending it to Pacific to try to save some fish or plant. Very easy and cheap fix relatively speaking.

For Houston adding detention where needed is a problem that should have been fixed in 70s instead of building neighborhoods in a reservoir.

You're fooling yourself.

Ag_07 said:

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But let's be fair...Houston dems are still dems but LA dems are on a different level.

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Houston and Austin Dems are worse in some ways.

In 2024, Houston Dems elected radical Soros funded Democrat DA Sean Teare because Democrat Kim Ogg was moderate. By moderate, she was actually following the law.

In 2024, Los Angeles County Dems got rid of George Gascon and replaced him with a lifelong Republican in Nathan Hochman. San Francisco Dems got rid of Soros DA Chesa Boudin for a moderate. Portland Dems got rid of Soros DA Mike Schmidt for a moderate. Oakland Dems got rid of Soros DA Pamela Price through recall. These west coast Dems get rid of Soros DAs in one term, while Houston/Harris (Teare), Austin/Travis (Garza), San Antonio (Gonzales), and Dallas (Creuzot) Dems keep re-electing these Soros DAs.

Travis County and Harris County Democrats have become insane Marxists ever since the modern Democrat party fully embraced race communism over the last 14 years.

Travis County re-elected Garza even when the local liberal Austin bar association and all other local legal associations endorsed a moderate candidate in the primary.

Harris County elected Sean Teare by 1 point in 2024, even after the state shifted heavily to the right. Texas was more Republican than Iowa in 2024 and almost as Republican as Kansas in 2024.

Meet the people in charge of LA’s fire response.

All of them lesbians named Kristin.

Kristina Crowley - First LGBTQ Fire Chief LAFD.
Salary: $439,722

Kristina Kepner - First Lesbian Assistant Chief LAFD.
Salary: $264,468

Kristine Larson - First black lesbian Equity Bureau… pic.twitter.com/qzXt5fa7uF

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) January 10, 2025