Hurricane Harvey

[pErvinalia]

Yeah, the military part of it is yuge! But the part that provides real services to it's people seems fairly useless compared to our social democracies.

[cronus]

Nitro-Glycerin plant in the heart of Houston getting ready to blow-up....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41104451

Houston flood: 'No way to prevent' chemical plant blast



(continued, YT clip for simulation purposes only...)

[pErvinalia]

The water will put it out.

[Scot Dutchy]

Yeah, well, here's the Netherlands superimposed on the U.S.

netherlands.png

Look at it in comparison to the Houston area. Size is not the problem. You can upscale anything we have done and very simple systems and planning would have great effect. It is planning that is required and very detailed at that. There needs to be one authority in charge with plenty of money.

[Rum]

Here the 'size' of the government is translated as 'public spending' and there is no doubt that the right here - the Tories - have a goal of reducing the amount that is spent as a matter of principle and policy. They managed to do this in the guise of 'austerity' immediately after the banks crashed in 2007/8 too. It isn't a very coherent strategy though I would say and much of it seems to be about woolly thinking around social security.

[pErvinalia]

Do they really have that goal, though? When you look at past governments in all the neoliberal countries, it's often the conservative governments that are bigger spenders in total than left governments. Whenever I hear a conservative politician talking about "reducing public spending", i translate that as "reduce public spending in the areas I am morally opposed to, but increase it in areas that I morally approve of (or feel obligated to because of my rich donors)".

[Rum]

I'm not sure about that here in the UK. May well look it up later, but certainly New Labour here spent a great deal more than previous Conservative governments. Often of course they don't have much choice. If unemployment is high which it was when Thatcher got in, going way back, it was a case of pay the bill or face massive social unrest...and there was a lot of that. They then followed that with a big 'war on scroungers'. The Tories are also ok with spending on 'infrastructure' which they say they believe stimulates the economy. So it is hard to see the wood for the trees.

[mistermack]

If all you know about the U.S. is what you see in the news or FB memes then you don't know anything about the country.

American men are gun nuts, and American women fuck dogs.
I know because I saw it online and I have the proof.

[laklak]

Well, most American men are pig dogs, so...

[Forty Two]

I was arguing that the USA, being infested with libertarians up to its gunwales, is incapable of doing what is necessary to fundamentally attack the flooding problem because that would involve "big government". The Clintons and Obamas are only a little less libertarian than the Bushes and Reagans. All of them are limited in what they can do by the individualist mindset of the population they are presiding over.

If by "a little less libertarian than Bush and Reagan" you mean - not at all libertarian because the Bushes and Reagan were not anywhere close to anything libertarian.... then maybe.

The issue is not that people don't want the government to "fix the flooding problem." There is no "system" that the government can put in place to save 23,000 miles of coastline from the Texas/Mexico border to the Georgia/South Carolina line. The amount of water that a Hurricane Harvey, and the amount of force it brings, is not something The Netherlands, in all due respect, ever faces. It's one thing to deal with low-lying land, and it's quite another to deal with hurricanes or cyclones.

You fixed a micro-problem - for now and for yourself alone. Ten million property owners digging ten million French drains along the side of the houses will not do it. Loisianna, Florida and Texas need a polder system on a larger scale than that of the Dutch to fix the macro problem.

Define the "macro problem." Are you suggesting that there is a polder system that can be created to prevent Hurricane Harvey, a category 4 hurricane, from wreaking massive flood damage?

Yes, that requires the use of tax money, and a fuckton of it, though perhaps not as much as the 600 billion bucks of your taxes that go into building aircraft carriers and such every fucking year.

Sounds good, but I think you are not clearly considering the scale of construction that you're describing.

But by all means don't worry about the big picture if your own happiness and safety is all you care about. At least your mindset fits in with that of most of the rest of your society. Good luck.

Whose happiness and safety should I worry about? Yours?

[Forty Two]

Yeah, well, here's the Netherlands superimposed on the U.S.

netherlands.png

Number of hurricanes which made landfall on the Netherlands = 0.

Number that came close = 0.

The ability of a person whose never been through a hurricane to fathom what they are like and their sheer power = 0.

With all due respect for the experts here, who are railing against the awful Merkins and their awful "libertarianism" and how any sensible country would just build the infrastructure needed to fend off Category 4 Hurricanes.... lol, but use your heads.

[pErvinalia]

You might regret boasting. Remember, Scot has spent a bit of time in North Queensland. Which gets hit by cyclones (i.e. hurricanes) most years.

[Hermit]

...the Bushes and Reagan were not anywhere close to anything libertarian...

By libertarian I mean in the context of this discussion an exhortation of private initiatives undertaken by individuals to solve problems rather than communally organised projects. It's about personal responsibility of the individual and small government - the way you've always liked it.

The issue is not that people don't want the government to "fix the flooding problem." There is no "system" that the government can put in place to save 23,000 miles of coastline from the Texas/Mexico border to the Georgia/South Carolina line.

So much for the vaunted American "can do" spirit. Ok then. Put it in the too hard basket and fucking drown or just abandon huge chunks of six or seven of your states. Let nature reclaim them. The US will have the greatest marine park/swampland in the world to add to all those greatest things they already possess.

Define the "macro problem." Are you suggesting that there is a polder system that can be created to prevent Hurricane Harvey, a category 4 hurricane, from wreaking massive flood damage?

Yes. That would be the macro problem. Not fixable by 10 million property owners digging ten million French drains along the side of the houses, which is a solution that sometimes works, but even when it does work, only on a micro scale.

Sounds good, but I think you are not clearly considering the scale of construction that you're describing.

I have noted before Laklak confirmed it (as if there was any need) that it is huge. So huge that I cannot put even an approximate dollar amount on it. That's why I used the word "fuckton". I read a 2001 (I think) article in Scientific American which predicted the disaster to come that was named Katrina when it did arrive. It described what projects needed to be implemented to avert the disaster, how they would in fact prevent the hurricane from being a disaster and that their total cost would be 14 billion in 2001 dollars. And that is just a tiny sector of the problematic area.

Whose happiness and safety should I worry about? Yours?

You can't possibly be so dense that you fail to comprehend what I'm getting at, so I guess you are now trying to troll me.

[Forty Two]

Yeah, well, here's the Netherlands superimposed on the U.S.

netherlands.png

Look at it in comparison to the Houston area. Size is not the problem. You can upscale anything we have done and very simple systems and planning would have great effect. It is planning that is required and very detailed at that. There needs to be one authority in charge with plenty of money.

The Netherregions has very simple planning and systems that would save southeast Texas from the effects of a Category 4 hurricane making landfall?

[Forty Two]

You might regret boasting. Remember, Scot has spent a bit of time in North Queensland. Which gets hit by cyclones (i.e. hurricanes) most years.

The systems in the Netherlands are not built to ward off the effects of hurricanes. No country has such systems.