Disaster Hurricane Harvey Megathread - The Before, The During, and the Chaotic Aftermath.

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Super Collie said:
It's a sure bet that my partner and I are homeless now. I will be genuinely surprised if we can even save so much as the front fucking door. We've already had "that talk" since I made my first post in this thread.
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I hope you're okay.
Keep in mind that the sooner you start pulling up the carpet and getting the mud out the better & insurance companies promise help that won't come.
 
I'm alive, guys! Sorry for going silent on y'all. My house managed to survive the storm but it looks like a fence got knocked down. The power is out so I'm going to have to be careful with how long I'm on my phone until I can go to my car and use the car charger. I'll do another update at around noon.
 
So far here in H-town we've had steady rain and winds, but one of the bands comes thru it's a bit intense. Earlier there was a lightning strike that was about a mile away that really lit the sky up. For every Texas kiwi on here, glad to hear y'all are safe.
 
My partner and I are okay, we evacuated far enough north that we're just getting some rain up here. We've been looking at feeds, livestreams, and images of our town and the destruction is incredible. The entire historic district appears to have been leveled, the schools were severely damaged (all of them), and overnight more iconic pieces of art, landmarks, etc have been destroyed. Businesses and restaurants that we used to frequent have lost their roofs or have been totally demolished. I washed my car at the car wash that we watched collapse last night, I was there literally just a few days ago. Apparently the surrounding businesses (a pharmacy and Mexican restaurant) were also destroyed.

We've been holding out hope that one of these storm chasers just casually drives by or near where we live so we can at least maybe have some peace of mind, but as of yet no one's come close to showing our neighborhood.

I appreciate the thoughts and offer to want to help. I guess we will cross that bridge when we get there. If you wanted to send a care package I don't even know how we'd receive it -- our street address is most likely unreachable and the condition of the post office and UPS store are unknown at this time.
 
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Update time. I've been looking around town and so far there doesn't appear to be major damage, at least in residential districts. Some of the stoplights are twisted around, but there are some that are still working. There doesnt seem to be major flooding, and most of the damage is just fallen trees and branches littered about. It looks like it's finally over. Now to wait for the power to come on...
 
Now, I'm too young to really remember Katrina, so given the way Harvey's destroying Texas, which one's gonna be worse in the long run?
 
Sergeant Politeness said:
Now, I'm too young to really remember Katrina, so given the way Harvey's destroying Texas, which one's gonna be worse in the long run?
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In terms of death toll, probably Katrina. There isn't the levee situation in Houston. Honestly, Katrina didn't just change New Orleans. It changed the populations of other cities, because so many people left permanently and re-established elsewhere.

However, the damage in dollars may be worse for Harvey. And the debris will be around for ages.
 
Sergeant Politeness said:
Now, I'm too young to really remember Katrina, so given the way Harvey's destroying Texas, which one's gonna be worse in the long run?
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Hard to tell at this point. A lot of the damages came from the the surge protection in New Orleans being botched to hell, with corners cut to save money (bad infrastructure is hardly a new problem to the US). There was also a lot criticism against the response teams during Katrina, bad management being the most common. These are failures that I really fucking hope we've learned from, if not people are gonna be rightfully pissed.

For those keeping score at home, the fatality report from Katrina comes in between 1245-1836 deaths and damages that came in at $108 billion (about $135 billion when adjusted for inflation).
 
The most chilling thing I've heard from this is "If you're in Corpus Christi, write your name and social security number on your arm."
I don't know why but it's still stuck in my mind
Thankfully as of now it's been downgraded to a tropical storm, but the floods are gonna suck. Stay safe, guys.
 
I've spoken to a neighbor down where we live and believe it or not, my partner and I's house is still there. It's been "badly damaged" and we don't know the extent of it, but at least it did not get totally obliterated. Seeing all the early reports of destruction and the live feeds of that guy in the car wash and stuff I just immediately thought the worst, but I was wrong thankfully. The house is going to need serious renovations and inspections and all of that, and there's still the very high possibility of loss of personal effects that needs to be addressed. Not looking forward to sorting through the debris nor working with the fucking insurance vultures, but I guess it could be a lot LOT worse right now.

I hope all of our other Texas Kiwis are as fortunate as we are, or better.

edit: We're still evacuated until Monday or Tuesday where we will try and figure out our plans.
 
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