If you want to help people who have been harmed by the flooding in the Houston area, here is a list of A+ rated agencies, rated based on the percentage of finds that go to services rather than overhead.

Categories Houston

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Theartistformerlyknownastitleonetexasteacher says:

August 29, 2017 at 7:49 pm

Did you see this!? The NYT is already mentioning a state takeover of Houston a la after Katrina in New Orleans. Unbelievable!

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/08/29/us/school-closings-from-harvey-threaten-disruption-across-texas.html?#=

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- Laura H. Chapman says:
  
  August 29, 2017 at 8:30 pm
  
  Thanks for the list. Cincinnati is sending truckloads of supplies, some from P&G.
  
  Looks like two kinds of rescue are needed. One for victims of Harvey and another to stop the state takeover of public schools in Houston. Both events unbelievable.
  
  The Houston school district serves approximately 215,000 students, more than three-quarters of whom are from low-income families. Harvey made landfall at a politically sensitive time for the city’s schools. In early August, the state informed the school board that the district was at risk of a state takeover, because of a 2015 law that targets districts with persistently underperforming schools.
  
  Those 15 struggling schools are clustered in the city’s poorest neighborhoods, and two to three of their buildings are among those with serious physical damage, according to Mr. Carranza, the superintendent.
  
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  - LeftCoastTeacher says:
    
    August 29, 2017 at 9:13 pm
    
    My first thoughts are for the victims, and for preventing any preventable suffering. I remember Katrina. My second thoughts are concern that the forces of privatization use disasters and recessions to “leverage” takeovers of public institutions and crush the disadvantaged. I remember Katrina.
    
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  - LeftCoastTeacher says:
    
    August 29, 2017 at 9:20 pm
    
    Which one of those reformies was it who wished a flood would hit Chicago so that all the public schools there would be destroyed and charters could have an open field for expansion? I forgot who it was. That was hideous.
    
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  - dienne77 says:
    
    August 29, 2017 at 9:46 pm
    
    LCT – that was a professional bloviator from the Chicago Tribune. Kristen McQueary.
    
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flos56 says:

August 29, 2017 at 7:53 pm

I always donate my funds through UMCOR, the United Methodist Relief Organization which is totally funded by the church so donations go right to the people who need assistance. (It was rated A+)

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- retired teacher says:
  
  August 29, 2017 at 9:06 pm
  
  Same here, I give to UMCOR. They have lots of volunteers, and they keep their operating expenses low.
  
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Ellen Lubic says:

August 30, 2017 at 12:58 pm

Thanks for this post, Diane. I had donated to Red Cross two days ago…but just now donated to Catholic Charties as an A+ org. Such a tragedy…and the Drumph does not believe in global warming and climate change.

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- dianeravitch says:
  
  August 30, 2017 at 1:10 pm
  
  Ann Coulter tweeted that it was more likely that God was punishing Houston for electing a lesbian mayor than it was climate change.
  
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jscheidell says:

August 31, 2017 at 11:56 pm

Diane,

There have been many flood disasters in the Houston area, even dating to the mid-1800s when the population was very low. In December of 1935 a massive flood occurred in the downtown area as the water level height measured at Buffalo Bayou in Houston topped out at 54.4 feet.

Downtown Houston flood of 1935.
By way of comparison, as of 6:30 a.m. this (Monday) morning, the water level in the same location is at 38 feet, which is still 16 feet lower than in 1935. I’m sure that will continue to rise.

Are the rainfall totals unprecedented?

Even that question is difficult to answer. The exact same tropical system moving at, say, 15 mph might have produced the same total amount of rain, but it would have been spread over a wide area, maybe many states, with no flooding disaster. This is usually what happens with landfalling hurricanes.

Instead, Harvey stalled after it came ashore and so all of the rain has been concentrated in a relatively small portion of Texas around the Houston area. In both cases, the atmosphere produced the same amount of rain, but where the rain lands is very different. People like those in the Houston area don’t want all of the rain to land on them.

There is no aspect of global warming theory that says rain systems are going to be moving slower, as we are seeing in Texas. This is just the luck of the draw. Sometimes weather systems stall, and that sucks if you are caught under one. The same is true of high pressure areas; when they stall, a drought results.

Even with the system stalling, the greatest multi-day rainfall total as of 3 9 a.m. this Monday morning is just over 30 39.7 inches, with many locations recording over 20 inches. We should recall that Tropical Storm Claudette in 1979 (a much smaller and weaker system than Harvey) produced a 43 inch rainfall total in only 24 hours in Houston.

Was Harvey unprecedented in intensity?

In this case, we didn’t have just a tropical storm like Claudette, but a major hurricane, which covered a much larger area with heavy rain. Roger Pielke Jr. has pointed out that the U.S. has had only four Category 4 (or stronger) hurricane strikes since 1970, but in about the same number of years preceding 1970 there were 14 strikes. So we can’t say that we are experiencing more intense hurricanes in recent decades.

Going back even earlier, a Category 4 hurricane struck Galveston in 1900, killing between 6,000 and 12,000 people. That was the greatest natural disaster in U.S. history.

And don’t forget, we just went through an unprecedented length of time – almost 12 years – without a major hurricane (Cat 3 or stronger) making landfall in the U.S.

The National Weather Service has termed the event unfolding in the Houston area as unprecedented. I’m not sure why. I suspect in terms of damage and number of people affected, that will be the case. But the primary reason won’t be because this was an unprecedented meteorological event.

If we are talking about the 100 years or so that we have rainfall records, then it might be that southeast Texas hasn’t seen this much total rain fall over a fairly wide area. At this point it doesn’t look like any rain gage locations will break the record for total 24 hour rainfall in Texas, or possibly even for storm total rainfall, but to have so large an area having over 20 inches is very unusual.

And don’t pay attention to claims of 500 year flood events, which most hydrologists dislike because we don’t have enough measurements over time to determine such things, especially when they also depend on our altering of the landscape over time.

Bill Read, a former director of the National Hurricane Center was asked by a CNN news anchor whether he thought that Harvey was made worse because of global warming. Read’s response was basically, No.

“Unprecedented” doesn’t necessarily mean it represents a new normal. It can just be a rare combination of events. In 2005 the U.S. was struck by many strong hurricanes, and the NHC even ran out of names to give all of the tropical storms. Then we went almost 12 years without a major (Cat 3 or stronger) hurricane strike.

Even with the system stalling, the greatest multi-day rainfall total as of 9 a.m. Monday morning is just over 39.7 inches, with many locations recording over 20 inches. We should recall that Tropical Storm Claudette in 1979 (a much smaller and weaker system than Harvey) produced a 43 inch rainfall total in only 24 hours in Houston.

There is coastal lake sediment evidence of catastrophic hurricanes which struck the Florida panhandle over 1,000 years ago, events which became less frequent in the most recent 1,000 years.

Major floods are difficult to compare throughout history because the ways in which we alter the landscape. For example, as cities like Houston expand over the years, soil is covered up by roads, parking lots, and buildings, with water rapidly draining off rather than soaking into the soil. The population of Houston is now ten times what it was in the 1920s. The Houston metroplex area has expanded greatly and the water drainage is basically in the direction of downtown Houston.

There have been many flood disasters in the Houston area, even dating to the mid-1800s when the population was very low. In December of 1935 a massive flood occurred in the downtown area as the water level height measured at Buffalo Bayou in Houston topped out at 54.4 feet.

Weather disasters happen, with or without the help of humans.

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- dianeravitch says:
  
  September 1, 2017 at 12:08 am
  
  I grew up in Houston. Nothing like this disaster happened in my lifetime. But then I wasn’t around in 1935. I knew about the Galveston hurricane of 1906. It was legendary. Never heard of the 1935 flood. My parents never mentioned it. Galveston built a mighty seawall to protect against it ever happening again. Houston did nothing. It is unusual in that it has no zoning.
  
  Why do you think the ice on the Poles is dissolving? Will it freeze up again in another century or two?
  
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  - dianeravitch says:
    
    September 1, 2017 at 12:23 am
    
    You are right about the 1935 flood. It was so bad that the city built dams.
    
    But Harvey seems to be the worst:
    
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/08/29/harvey-marks-the-most-extreme-rain-event-in-u-s-history/?utm_term=.51d76672d70a
    
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- dianeravitch says:
  
  September 1, 2017 at 11:06 am
  
  Jscheidell,
  
  Harvey apparently was the biggest flood ever.
  
  https://spacecityweather.com/harvey-almost-certainly-the-biggest-us-flood-storm-of-all-time/
  
  It is called the 1 in 1,000 year event.
  
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jscheidell says:

September 1, 2017 at 12:01 pm

Diane

don’t take my word for the comparison of Harvey and the 1900 Galveston storm

so I give you the following links:

When storms were a surprise: a history of hurricane warnings – The …
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/08/16/when-storms-were-a-surprise-a-history-of-hurricane-warnings/

Hurricane Harvey and the Deadly Galveston Hurricane of 1900 …
http://time.com/4918607/texas-hurricane-harvey-galveston/ –

Deadly hurricane destroys Galveston – Sep 08, 1900 – HISTORY.com
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/deadly-hurricane-destroys-galveston – 169k – Cached – Similar pages
On this day in 1900, a Category 4 hurricane rips through Galveston, Texas, killing an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 people. … The hurricane remains the worst weather- related disaster in U.S. history in terms of loss of life. … by major hurricanes in 1961 and 1983, but they caused less damage than the one that struck in 1900.

The Galveston hurricane of 1900: the deadliest natural disaster in …
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/news/features/sep13/galveston.html – 24k – Cached – Similar pages
Remembering the deadliest natural disaster in American history … feet and, within hours, estimates of 6,000 to 12,000 unwary people were killed and over 3,600 …

As Terrible As Harvey Is, The Galveston Hurricane Of 1900 Was …
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2017/08/27/as-terrible-as-harvey-is-the-galveston-hurricane-of-1900-was-much-much-worse/ – 273k

1900 Galveston hurricane – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900_Galveston_hurricane – 197k

The Gulf of Mexico is warm enough every summer to produce a major hurricane. But you also usually need a pre-existing cyclonic circulation or wave, which almost always can be traced back to the coast of Africa. Also, the reasons why some systems intensify and others don’t are not well understood. This is why the National Hurricane Center admits their predictions of intensity change are not that accurate.

Not a scientist but the global warming theory doesn’t explain why Harvey stalled over southeast Texas. Michael Mann’s claim in The Guardian that it’s due to the jet stream being pushed farther north from global warming but we didn’t have a warm August in the U.S. pushing the jet stream farther north.

For the armchair climate people – look at the August temperature anomalies to date in the U.S. (courtesy of Weatherbell.com) and tell me, exactly what pattern here is due to global warming?

I double checked my sources for 1935

1900 Galveston hurricane – Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1900_Galveston_hurricane – 197k – Cached – Similar pages
The Great Galveston Hurricane was a Category 4 storm, with winds of up to 145 mph (233 ….. 1935: Film director King Vidor was born in Galveston and survived the great Galveston Hurricane of 1900. Based on that experience, he published a …
1935 Labor Day hurricane – Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1935_Labor_Day_hurricane – 272k – Cached – Similar pages
The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane was the most intense hurricane to make landfall in the United … further came of this idea until June 1943 when Colonel Joe Duckworth and Lieutenant Ralph O’Hair flew into a hurricane near Galveston, Texas.

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- dianeravitch says:
  
  September 1, 2017 at 12:39 pm
  
  Jscheidell,
  
  If you don’t believe climate change is happening, that’s your right. People believe in many things that scientists can’t prove, like the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, and Santa Claus.
  
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jscheidell says:

September 2, 2017 at 11:15 am

Diane,

” People believe in many things that scientists can’t prove,…” You summed climate change/global warming up perfectly – its not proven – a “science” built on computer models that make prognostications 3 weeks to 50 years out – the same people that believe the globe is going to implode, access rain, population control necessary, pets and cows flatulence control etc idiocy, causing apoplectic existence are the same people who believe in the childhood characters you mention!

And its your right to believe climate change does happen –

I never give up on Santa though – I see a lot of what he represents to many happening in the Houston area – Go Texans! MAGA as Americans come together by prayers, monetary and supplies of all kinds….gifts of the heart

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