Face it, storm plans are a disaster

So far, I have been one of the luckiest people in Houston during Hurricane Harvey. My home has not flooded. And except for some brief moments on Saturday, I have not lost power. This has left me with little to do except listen to the constant rain outside, which leaves me with a queasy sense of dread that my good fortune will not last and fear for my fellow Houstonians living through this nightmare.

I have had one setback. During a brief power outage on Saturday, an electric surge appears to have fried my cable box. This has had the happy side effect of sparing me from the real-time coverage of a low-level political war between Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Mayor Sylvester Turner over whether Houston should have been evacuated.

Like most petty political battles, this misses the point. A city the size of Houston cannot simply be evacuated. In 2005, with Hurricane Katrina on the national consciousness, it looked for a good while as if Hurricane Rita would score a direct hit on Houston. So many people tried to fleet hat traffic grid lock became dangerous. More than 100 people died simply trying to flee before the storm hit.

Harvey is obviously ar are kind of catastrophe, but it’ s not as if we haven’ t had fair warning about storm sand floods. Houston has always flooded. I grew up here and distinct ly remember the image of a large house floating away in one flood. The city itself owes its existence as a megalopolis to the Great Galveston Storm of 1900, which spur red thean inland port.

Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 stalled over the area, dumping 40 inches of rain. Hurricane Ike devastated the area in 2008, with a massive storm surge and wind that knocked out power for weeks. Obviously no one controls the weather. But much more could have been done in terms of mitigation. Houston has grown over the last several decades, and that growth has generally been out ward.

Texas prides itself on letting its citizens generally do what they want without much central intervention. Houston, for example, has no zoning. While I admit this approach has merits, paving over endless acres of swamp and grass land does severely reduce the area’s ability to absorb floods.

Some officials have considered other infrastructureimprovements, but nobody has been willing to pay for anything substantial. The City of Houston under former Mayor An ni se Parker established a drainage fee to pay for ongoing drainage and flood control infrastructure without needing to rely on bonds. This program has been mi red in lawsuits from anti-tax activists who have been backed by the state’ s elected,all-Republican Supreme Court.

The state’ s wind storm insurance program has needed the proposed“Ike Dike” to combat storm surges. The recentlyconcluded session of the Texas Legislature, like those before it, offered nothing in terms of flood preparation or prevention. It was very keen ly concerned, however, with trans gendered access to publicre strooms.

Iran forth estate House of Representatives in 2012. During that campaign, I tried to discuss storm preparation. I found that almost no voters wanted to. Instead, I engaged in many a conversation about God, guns, and gays. In recent weeks nationally, we have seen intense focus on Confederate statues, a wall that glosses over actual immigration policy, and a health care debate that seemingly involves no discussion of actual policy.

Until we demandproductive action on the essential national issues, until we demand real preparations for disasters, we are going to continue to suffer needless ly.

All Texans and Americans should use this disaster as a starting point toward pushing for a more productive government.