Harvey

Democrats and their media continued their trend of politicizing every disaster or event. Democrats and their media continued their trend of politicizing every disaster or event. Harvey hit Houston, and the far left pounced: all the damage was the fault of Red Staters and a lack of zoning. Never mind that 60" of rain fell in 3 days (wettest storm on record), that Houston is Democrat controlled, and flood control was controlled by the Democrats. ℹ️ Info           ~ Aristotle Sabouni Created: 2022-07-15

Facts

• Hurricane Harvey hit Houston (2017.08.26) with up to 60" of rain, making it the wettest storm to ever hit the U.S.
  • As a side note, it hit and flooded the house I later bought, and my community. However, the failure was only partly the fault of a 300 year storm. It was poor management of two lakes that caused most of the Damage; an upper lake (Conroe) opened it's floodgates, which exceeded the gate capacity of the lower lake (Lake Houston), so the water backed up, and flooded homes. Both had failed to drain in advance of the storm to increase capacity, and had failed to dredge properly. Those lakes/flood control were controlled by Democrat administrators. Democrat controlled Houston had refused to allow another company to dredge Lake Houston for them (for free), unless they paid for the sand they removed.

• The Democrats Media all responded to Harvey with a coordinate attack ("never let an opportunity to politicize and divide us, go to waste"), asking the same question, "Did Houston flood because of lack of zoning?" -- and again, Betteridge's law applies. No. There is no city in America that could have handled that water. Most would have fared more poorly.
  • Betteridge's law of headlines says that any headline that ends in a question mark, can be answered with the word "no!"
  • The New York Times: “Though its breakneck development culture and lax regulatory environment have been lauded for giving working people affordable housing, many experts and residents say that the developers’ encroachment into the wetlands and prairies that used to serve Houston as natural sponges has inevitably exacerbated the misery that the city is suffering today.”
  • The Washington Post: “As the country’s fourth-largest city expanded, replacing prairie with impermeable surfaces such as pavement and concrete, the land was rendered less and less capable of absorbing floodwater. Without proper adaptive measures, this made an already flood-prone place more vulnerable.”
  • The New York Daily News: “A big factor could be the lack of rules that helped develop Houston into the country’s fourth-largest city — and the biggest without a formal zoning code. Experts believe the lack of regulation, building in the federally designated flood area, and paving over wetlands might’ve contributed to the storm’s severity.

• As Gov. Greg Abbott wrote in response, “Zoning wouldn’t have changed anything. We would have been a city with zoning that flooded.” There's no city in the nation that could have handled 60" of rain in a few days, and not flooded. None. But more than that, consider the absurdity of the claim in the context of the following facts:
  • Most of the growth in the region has occurred outside the city limits, in places like Katy, Texas—which, by the way, is zoned (much of it for single-family homes)
  • flooding has been a regular feature of Houston’s landscape since the beginning of recorded history in the region (most of which predate urban sprawl)
  • the major flooding was creeks and bayous backlogging and spilling over their banks as more water rushes in from upstream (not from urban runoff)
  • Brazos river reached record levels and spilled over its banks well upstream of the the city (especially in the rural prairie far west of the city)
  • In total acres, Houston has more parkland and green space than any other large city in America.

• After Harvey, Trump made a visit quicker than Obama managed for major catastrophes (and without playing golf first), and was well received by the public, and the first responders. Even two Texas Never-Trump'er Democrats, Al Green and Sheila Jackson Lee (one of whom has introduced articles of impeachment against him and another who has called for his removal under the 25th Amendment) met with him, and toned down the rhetoric (briefly). But that's not the headlines you read.

Conclusion

People see what they want to.

Places like the Times and their rubes (the readers who don't question them) will see every problem as a lack of government. So if 60" of rain had happened in Chicago, Detroit or New Orleans (or other Democrat controlled cities with high zoning), there would have been flooding -- the difference would have been more riots and lawlessness afterwards.

Basically, I use people that reposted the articles (or repeated the statements) as a litmus test for critical thinkers. If they reposted without questioning it, then their ph level of skepticism, is way, way too low. They should see a doctor or herbalist ASAP. And living in California (San Jose) at the time, I must have heard at least 50 people repeat that delusion... "a storm like that wouldn't have been a problem in a Blue City like San Jose"... ignoring that Houston is controlled by Democrats, and that San Jose flooded and shut down under 6" of rain. The local dams would have overtopped and collapsed killing hundreds of thousands if they had 60" inches of rain. But not a single Democrat was smart enough to figure that out.

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🔗 More

New York Times A never great News Agency has become a shadow of their former self: admittedly biased, occasionally good content.

Fake News While the term goes back 100 years, the history is summed up well by Sharyl Attkisson.

Washington Post A once great paper, now a liberal fake news rag that looks more like Bezos Blog (or the DNC's blog) than an objective Newspaper.

San Jose We lived in SJ for 15 years: it was the most bigoted and least self-aware city, in the most bigoted state I lived in.

Hurricanes The Climate scarists want people to believe every natural disaster is because of plastic straws or mankind.

🔗 Links

• Wikipedia:Hurricane_Harvey

Tags: NYT  FakeNews  WaPo  San Jose  Hurricanes  New York Daily News