AS OF THE MOMENT, Sunday afternoon, 8.27.17, Harvey, while just as drastic in some ways, appears to be very different from Katrina twelve years ago. Here are some of the reasons:
Although the situation in and around Houston is very serious, it is unlikely to turn into the kind of disaster with loss of life represented in Katrina 12 yrs. ago.
1. People are being rescued by their neighbors in what are normally pleasure boats. After Katrina, residents of the area lined up with boats by the hundreds, but the "authorities" would not let them in to help.** Media boats were being allowed into the flooded area but not rescue boats. (This to me was an outrage that media boats were being allowed out into the flooding but citizens were prevented from ordinary rescues; one CNN reporter said years later the he regretted not being able to help people, how can you float by someone in distress and not help them? That is borderline criminal.)
2. Texans have a lot of boats. There are hundreds of lakes paid for by tax dollars and because of the heat, in part, it is very popular to get out on "the lake" on weekends, so hundreds of boats are available and are being used.
3. Texas has a lot of people who are used to doing hard work with their hands in the oil business, in pipeline construction, building trades and so on. If someone is trapped in an attic and can be found, there are people and tools available to get them out. Again, N.O. was different. Local area residents were kept away, prevented from helping.
4. The flooding appears to be widely dispersed, which means the people in trouble are not concentrated in a single area and thus citizens can do rescues without being stopped by local police or fire departments. In this case, "the authorities" are overwhelmed and not able to assert professional control so citizen rescues are likely to be the main way of getting people out from harm.
5. In some areas, the flooding is only knee deep or waist deep, which means people can't stay in their houses, but they are not in imminent danger of drowning.
6. The flood response is likely to go on for days rather than just today, another reason that most people will be rescued.
7. Katrina taught some important lessons and every sort of public capacity is being pressed into service. School buses are being used to transport people to shelters whereas buses sat empty 12 yrs. ago while the governor and others "debated" what should be done.
8. This could be the most important point: Houston is not dealing with a huge storm surge and it is not generally below sea level as is New Orleans. Katrina brought a compound of problems that cascaded one onto another. Houston is dealing with a single event, historic levels of rain that have nowhere to go in a largely flat geographical zone.
This flooding is so widespread and likely to take place over the next two to three days that no one can truly respond well and completely, not the national government, not the state or local jurisdictions. Anyone from the president on down who claims that an adequate response is being mounted would most likely be lying. The best hope that one can have is for a gradually sufficient response in the coming days with citizen rescues, along with the police and fire departments, preventing a massive loss of life.
**It is understood that city officials, police, etc. might have, or might have had, good reasons for preventing people from going in on private boats to rescue others. Police and other authorities are always seeking to control situations and to prevent further injuries. Consider this, however. If people were allowed into New Orleans, officials might be blamed for some getting hurt or killed in the flood waters. Who gets blamed for the thousands who died without help? No one. Just “circumstances”.
This is a commentary published early Sunday afternoon, 8.27.17. Since this was written, matters in and around Houston have gotten very much worse. The commentary takes note of the fact that people are doing for themselves, not always just waiting for help and, furthermore, the flooding is so dispersed that no one has been able to stop people from helping themselves and their neighbors. Obviously, conditions are changing rapidly and the optimism reflected in this commentary could be outdated by events. UPDATE: As things get worse in Houston, the potential to overwhelm all efforts to save people trapped in the houses grows.
This commentary has been outdated by events in Houston. The flooding now appears to be so widespread and the water in some areas so deep that people are trapped in their houses and can’t get out, although there have been hundreds of rescues, perhaps thousands. As of Monday afternoon, entire sections of America’s fourth largest city are underwater with the rain still falling. This event appears to be so drastic that no amount of effort is fully sufficient to cope. All of the facts present below, however, do help to mitigate the situation in Houston in comparison to Katrina.